Tormented by history, nationalism in Greece and Turkey
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Ariana Ferentinou

ISTANBUL – Turkish Daily News


 At a time of improving relations between Turkey and Greece, Bilgi University's Umut Özkırımlı highlights the historical and nationalist foundations of the rivalry between the two countries in his new book.

  Over a month has passed since the historic visit of Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis to Turkey. The first after 49 years by a Greek prime minister, this visit had already been postponed twice “because the circumstances were not mature.”  Yet, even after it eventually took place, it hardly produced any noteworthy results, with the more cynical observers claiming that it gave the opportunity to both sides to declare in front of their public, how far apart from each other they are.

 The visit was quickly forgotten by the media in both countries who are delving in a much more exciting domestic agenda, leaving us with an unfulfilled expectation in our hearts. And if the politicians are not providing any real answers, it may be time for the academics to explain what prevents these two countries from breaking the barriers and achieving a higher level of cooperation.

  Özkırımlı, associate professor of politics at Bilgi University, has been an academic observer of the intricacies in Greek-Turkish relations for many years. In fact, his latest book "Tormented by History" – co-authored with Spyros Sofos of the European Research Center of Kingston University, London – deals with the issue of nationalism in both countries and traces its emergence and development over the past 200 years.  

 Özkırımlı agreed that the visit of Karamanlis to Turkey did not give “grounds for unqualified optimism.” Certainly, he did not expect either the Greek or Turkish side to put their political concerns aside in order to formulate “creative solutions.”

 Still Özkırımlı believes that the visit was significant in one particular respect: It showed that Greeks and Turks are making progress, no matter how incremental or slow this may be. “What has been hailed as 'rapprochement' in the late 1990s is not just 'atmospheric' as some have claimed it to be,” he said.

 There is no doubt that there have been notable changes during the last decade between Greece and Turkey. The volume of Greeks and Turks visiting each other's country has increased dramatically, business relations have improved and, as Özkırımlı pointed out, we are now experiencing a “sea change” in the increase of student exchange programs between the two countries.

 “I am the director of an MA Program in Turkish-Greek relations which caters to students from both countries as well as Cyprus and third countries, and the number of applications we receive from Greece increases exponentially each year,” said Özkırımlı.  

 So, he sees Karamanlis' visit last month as the “culmination” of these processes or the “coronation” of rapprochement.  A “change of heart” is now needed and Özkırımlı believes that Karamanlis' visit was the first and important step in this direction.

 However, few object to the truism that problems exist and that, at least some of them, are difficult to solve. The fact that any political initiative has been put off until after the presidential elections in Greek Cyprus, confirms that.

 But there are also domestic political agendas to deal with on both sides. The recent political wave of scandals in Greece has paralyzed the newly re-elected Karamanlis' government while the (Recep Tayyip) Erdoğan government has been entangled in a difficult all-out-fight with secularist forces which has detracted the attention of the public away from any other political concern.

 “Both prime ministers are obliged to enter into compromises with various political forces in their own countries. This, obviously, restricts their ability to take bold steps on bilateral issues, including Cyprus,” said Özkırımlı who, on the other hand, believes that issues relating to the patriarchate are not difficult to solve “but become complicated by domestic agendas and most importantly, nationalism.”

 Nationalism is Özkırımlı's academic specialization. In fact his forthcoming book attempts to throw more light on the roots of the historic conflict between Greece and Turkey.

 “I think nationalism is a very important factor in Greek-Turkish relations as it casts its shadow on most problems between the two countries, even on those that are relatively easy to deal with. We know that what makes bilateral relations more difficult has a lot to do with 'fears' that pertain to the other side, and most of these fears are more 'perceived' than 'real,'” he said.

 Özkırımlı thinks that nationalism is self-reproducing: “Nationalism feeds on fears and at the same time reproduces them. In the case of Greece and Turkey, I think most of the blame should go to political actors, and here I use political actors deliberately, because these actors do not consist of 'politicians' only, but include the army in the case of Turkey and the church in the case of Greece, and the media, which acts as a political actor in both cases (as we know from the Imia/Kardak crisis),” said Özkırımlı.

 With elections in Cyprus approaching, politicians from both sides will again put issues of “strategic importance” forward. But Özkırımlı thinks that in the case of Cyprus it is more nationalist feelings than military concerns that prevent the politicians from finding a solution.

 “I do not believe that military issues are that important, given that Greece and Cyprus are European Union members and Turkey is a candidate country. However, both sides continue to use the 'strategy card' in their discussions. The rejection of the Annan Plan in the South illustrated that nationalism is not an elite-level problem only, but has permeated the masses,” he said.

 Like many Turkish and European experts, Ozkirimli believes that the EU has made a strategic error “by offering carrots and sticks to one side, and only carrots to the other side.”

 “We did have a historic chance for resolving the Cyprus issue once and for all, however imperfect that solution may have been and we lost it. I am afraid that if the issue will be now resolved, that solution will have bigger flaws than the one envisaged by the Annan Plan for everyone involved,” he claimed.

 The early demise of the late Archbishop Christodoulos, head of the Autocephalous Church of Greece, and the election of his much milder successor Hieronymus the Second, has silenced – for the moment at least – the more extreme anti-Turkish voices in the Greek Church; yet these voices have played a negative role in cultivating strong anti-Turkish feelings among certain parts of Greek – and Greek Cypriot – society.  

 Interestingly enough, Özkırımlı said there is a Turkish equivalent to that. “However ironic this may seem at first sight, in Turkey too, nationalism is tightly tied with religion, despite the Kemalist establishment's staunch secularism. Various field surveys prove this. I asked this question in a survey I carried out in 2006 in a nationally representative sample of more than 800 people. 45 and 38 percent of the respondents said they could not associate Turkishness with atheism and with being Jewish or Christian respectively (they had to give two answers). Similarly, nearly 69 percent said they would not allow their children to marry a non-Muslim!”

 There is also another side of Turkish nationalism: the “Sevres Syndrome.” This belief, or “collective paranoia,” as Özkırımlı called it, is based on the fear that “foreign powers are bent on dividing Turkey into pieces, just like they did to the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20th century.”

 So is it really nationalism behind the historic problems of Greece and Turkey?

 “We may call the grand coalition between the nationalists of the two countries as the source of all problems. Unless we manage to bring down that coalition, I am pretty certain that we will not see any concrete policy changes in bilateral issues,” said Özkırımlı who will be launching his new book on Greek-Turkish nationalism, in Salonika, Athens and Istanbul at the end of this month.

 But at the end he retains some optimism: “I believe that there is now breach in the wall of nationalism and the visit of a Greek prime minister after half a century is the harbinger of this.”

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 TORMENTED BY HISTORY

 NATIONALISM IN GREECE AND TURKEY

 Umut Özkırımlı and Spyros A. Sofos

 BOOK LAUNCH PROGRAM

 Feb. 25 Monday 7:00 p.m.  

 Thessaloniki

 University of Macedonia (Conference Room, 1st floor)

 Speakers:

 Konstantinos Tsitselikis (Assistant Professor, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia)

 Harry Z. Tzimitras (Assistant Professor, Department of International Relations, Istanbul Bilgi University)

 Bookstore: Protoporia (Yannis Sarafidis, protothess@the.forthnet.gr)

 Feb. 28 Thursday 6:30-9:00 p.m.

 Athens

 Eleftheroudakis (Café, 6th floor; see also https://www.books.gr/ViewShopStaticPage.aspx?ValueId=895)

 Speakers:

 Paschalis Kitromilidis (Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Athens)

 Thalia Dragonas (Professor, Faculty of Early Childhood Education, University of Athens and State MP for PASOK)

 Bookstore: Eleftheroudakis (giannakopoulos@books.gr)

 March 3 Monday 5:00-7:00 p.m.

 Istanbul

 Istanbul Bilgi University (AKO)

 Speakers:

 Murat Belge (Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, Istanbul Bilgi University)

 Herkül Millas (Dr., Department of Turkish and Modern Asian Studies, University of Athens)

 Bookstore: Homer (Ahmet Salcan, Tel. +90 212-2495902)