The trend reached its peak this week when nearly 1,000 residents of Manisa’s Selendi district attacked the area’s Roma community, stoning their homes and demolishing their stores in the aftermath of a brief brawl allegedly over cigarette smoking at a coffeehouse in the area on New Year’s Eve. Nearly two dozen Roma families had to leave the neighborhood, moving to relatives homes due to fears for their safety. However, none of the attackers were punished, allowing the instigators of ethnic violence to get away with their actions. Observers believe that only new legislation and determined social policy can reverse the situation, as discriminatory attitudes are now ingrained in Turkey’s culture.Despite a government initiative last year that focused on ending separatist terrorism by expanding the democratic rights of Turkey’s Kurds, clashes between different groups have been occurring at an alarmingly high rate. A quick look at last year’s incidents might highlight the seriousness of the situation. On May 19, a Kurdish worker was killed when a group attacked seasonal workers picking hazelnuts in Sakarya, an area where such attacks against Kurds have not been uncommon in recent years. In the same month, members of a Democratic Society Party (DTP) convoy in İzmir were attacked by residents of the city, and 20 people were injured. Also in November, a mob of about 2,500 people attacked Kurds in Çanakkale’s Bayramiç district, demanding that they leave the area. In December two died and seven were wounded in the Bulanık district in Muş when a store owner opened fire on demonstrators protesting the closure of the pro-Kurdish DTP. In late December, hundreds of nationalists attacked a group of leftist students at Trakya University during a protest. This year started with similar incidents. On Jan. 3, ultra-nationalists attacked university students protesting the earlier events in Edirne. On Jan. 5, a brawl between two high school students in Mersin turned into an Arab-Kurd fight. Six were injured in the ensuing violence.
But why now? According to Öztürk Türkdoğan, the head of the Human Rights Association (İHD), there are two main reasons behind the recent escalation in ethnic tension. First, discrimination has become embedded in the society’s culture, due to long years of state policies that suppressed ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic differences. “The root of this lies in the Constitution, which does not acknowledge diversity. If the Constitution does not recognize and acknowledge religious, ethnic or other kinds of diversity, this always works to legitimize discrimination. We need an institution to fight discrimination and a special law against discrimination and hate crimes,” Türkdoğan says.
Sabah’s Emre Aköz agrees that the society has developed an embedded negative attitude toward others; however, according him, this is not a “culture of discrimination,” but outright racism. “Don’t let anybody fool you. What we have here is not a ‘comprehensive’ Atatürk nationalism [albeit artificial], but outright ‘exclusive’ racism,” he commented in his Friday column. Aköz says the Manisa incident, the DTP convoy attack in İzmir and the Bayramiç events all show that we are now faced with “Turkish racism,” ready to emerge at any time as it has now turned rabid with the effects of the economic crisis.
In other words, it is imperative for Turkey to take some steps to deal with the problem. Last year the government announced a plan to establish a body to fight discrimination. In the wake of the Constitutional Court ruling that banned the DTP in December, Interior Minister Beşir Atalay said the government would speed up efforts for its short and medium-term democratization targets. Atalay said four new bodies would be introduced as part of the reform package. “We will establish a board against discrimination, a council for human rights, an independent body for complaints for law enforcement and an undersecretary for public order and security,” he said, promising action to fight discrimination.
In addition to the restrictive Constitution, a remnant of the Sept. 12, 1980 coup d’état, Turkey has no definition of “hate crime” in its legislation. There is Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which criminalizes “inciting hostility among the public,” but this has never been used against instigators of ethnic violence. To the contrary, it has been used against human rights activists, writers and journalists who highlight pluralism in their works. As Türkdoğan also notes, Turkey’s new laws against discrimination must define hate crimes and perpetrators of such actions must absolutely be found and held responsible.
Another primary cause of recent tension, according to the head of the İHD, are the provocateurs of violence. “The government has completely failed to bring the incidents that broke out under control. People’s homes and vehicles were attacked. Those behind the incidents must be found,” Türkdoğan said, noting that “gangs within the state machinery” use the already embedded discriminatory attitudes to achieve their own ends. “These should be exposed so people can understand what is going and not become instruments of such agitation in the future,” he said. If the provocateurs are not found, the repetition of such incidents could be inevitable.
