Minorities and Minority Rights in Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Present State by Baskin Oran (review)

In an important contribution to the English-language literature, Baskin Oran provides an informative account on minorities in Turkey, their de jure rights under international and domestic law, and their inability to exercise these rights due to systematic discrimination and exclusion. Oran demonstrates that Turkey not only pursues an outdated minority regime, based on a 1923 treaty, but also violates its obligations under international and domestic law by violating that treaty.

Translated into English by John William Day, Minorities and Minority Rights in Turkey is a condensed and updated version of Oran's two earlier books, published in Turkish in 2004 and 2018. Consisting of eight chapters, the book provides a discussion of the concept of ethnic and religious minorities under international law, minorities and minority regimes under the Ottoman Empire and its successor, the Republic of Turkey, Turkey's obligations toward minorities arising from international law and its domestic legal framework, various reform attempts towards the advancement of human and minority rights during the course of the republic, the ideological roots of Turkey's minority policies, and the implications of all of these issues for the future of democracy in Turkey.

The book is an essential introductory read for those who are interested but not knowledgeable about minorities in Turkey. From the "big three" (p. 26)—the only minority groups officially recognized as such, i.e., Armenians, Jews, and ethnic Greeks (Rumlar in Turkish)—to remaining non-Muslim groups whose minority status under the Treaty of Lausanne have never been granted (e.g., Syriac and Protestant Christians), from the numerically substantial and politically mobilized minorities within the Muslim majority (Kurds and Alevis) to much smaller and often assimilated ones (e.g., Laz, Circassians, and Roma), Oran provides painstakingly detailed information about the demographic, religious, linguistic, and institutional composition of these groups—with the notable absence of the Aras Publishing House of the Armenian community. He also documents how each of these minorities has been denied its fundamental (individual and group) rights and been subject to state-sanctioned or tolerated physical violence throughout history. On this latter issue, Oran's persistent use of the term massacre in reference to the Armenian Genocide of 1915 is notable. While, for those who are familiar with Oran's academic scholarship and political activism, it is evident that this by no means suggests his endorsement of Turkey's denial policies, an international reader might have benefited from a brief explanation as to why he refrains from using the "G word."

The book powerfully demonstrates the historical continuities concerning the perception and treatment of minorities in Turkey. The Ottoman millet system, where non-Muslim minorities were treated as separate and unequal, has been embraced by the republic, where (some) non-Muslim groups have been able to enjoy limited autonomy at the cost of second-class citizenship. Oran shows how a minority regime meant to ensure non-Muslims' equal treatment before the law has contributed to their perception as "Others," legitimizing their exclusion, discrimination, and violent treatment. What lies beneath this demonization is the association of anything "minority" with Western imperialism and infringement on sovereignty due, principally, to the imposition of the Treaty of Lausanne by the Allied Powers of World War I. Inheriting this legacy, the republican founders sowed a culture of intolerance of difference and (violent) suppression of pluralism. Also influenced by the millet system, the young republic embraced the "seemingly diametrically opposed, ideological currents" of nationalism and Islamism and declared the identity of the nation as Turkish and (Sunni) Muslim—obviously excluding non-Muslim minorities. It is this ideological legacy, argues Oran, which has led to the forced assimilation of ethnic, denominational, and linguistic minority groups within the Muslim majority, Kurds and Alevis first and foremost. For those who are puzzled with Turkey's violent treatment of its minorities, this historical analysis will surely be illuminating...