“To be a Turk in Kemalist Turkey was to take on a civic identity anchored in language and culture. It was highly assimilationist in expecting minorities to melt into a single Turkish civic identity…”
The word “civic“ is unnecessary here. Occam’s Razor. Minorities were being asked to assimilate into the Turkish nation. Nations are ethnic groups. If minorities assimilate into the dominant ethnic group, they become part of that ethnic group. If numerous different ethnic groups merge to become a group with a common identity, that is ethnogenesis.
Ethnicity is not about genetic purity. The fact that the Turkish ethnic group has great genetic variation within it because of its diverse origins does not mean that it is any less of an ethnic group.
Civic nationalism is a fiction. That fiction can only be maintained in nations where one ethnic group is dominant (as in 1980s Britain). When that ethnic group loses its dominance, members of that dominant group become conscious of their ethnic identity and begin to abandon “civic nationalism” (as in contemporary Britain).
The fact that Kemalism denied the ethnic distinctiveness of the Kurds and labelled them “Mountain Turks”, as this article points out, proves that it was an “ethno-nationalist” ideology. A Turkish “civic identity” would presumably have allowed Kurds to celebrate their language and culture as long as they subscribed to Turkish Values.
The most glaring proof that Kemalism was an “ethno-nationalist” movement is, of course, the population exchanges of the Treaty of Lausanne.
Population transfers don’t prove ethno-nationalism. They prove states will do ugly, coercive things when ideology meets geography. The Soviet Union deported entire peoples while insisting nations were temporary, racial categories meaningless, and socialism universal. Unless you want to argue Stalin was secretly an ethnic romantic.
"A world of 2050 where most European countries have Israel-style racialist citizenship policies and a formal ‘remigration’ policy, perhaps with some kind of Gulf-style rotational labour system, seems far more conceivable."
Whatever about the Turkey analogy for a future US I would propose that it's not truly fair to compare Europe and America.The latter is a zionist military and economic superpower which occupies Europe and continues to interpret the laws of their country through the 1960s civil rights legislation. Europe and the UK are its vassal states who push DEI relentlessly.
It also promotes the concept of the eradication of whiteness.
Trump spouted about his European ancestry at Davos but his own half Czech daughter converted to Judaism to marry Jared Kushner. While his VP JD Vance now has 4 children with his Indian wife. Eradication indeed
It is highly misleading to say that 'the bulk of the Turkish population is Muslim'. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Turks. if not all, are Muslims. Tiny minorities like the Armenians are numerically insignificant. It may satisfy certain liberal-minded folks to say that but the reality is that to be a Turk means to be a Muslim.
This is false: many Western Turks are either outright atheists or are (as is now often preferred) ‘deists’, who claim that all Abrahamic faiths are ‘true’, despite not believing in practice in any of them.
Quite far from being some sort of "assimilation machine", as a member of the ethnic group that immigrants to America would, in theory, be assimilating to, I don't feel that we've managed to assimilate very many people at all.
“To be a Turk in Kemalist Turkey was to take on a civic identity anchored in language and culture. It was highly assimilationist in expecting minorities to melt into a single Turkish civic identity…”
The word “civic“ is unnecessary here. Occam’s Razor. Minorities were being asked to assimilate into the Turkish nation. Nations are ethnic groups. If minorities assimilate into the dominant ethnic group, they become part of that ethnic group. If numerous different ethnic groups merge to become a group with a common identity, that is ethnogenesis.
Ethnicity is not about genetic purity. The fact that the Turkish ethnic group has great genetic variation within it because of its diverse origins does not mean that it is any less of an ethnic group.
Civic nationalism is a fiction. That fiction can only be maintained in nations where one ethnic group is dominant (as in 1980s Britain). When that ethnic group loses its dominance, members of that dominant group become conscious of their ethnic identity and begin to abandon “civic nationalism” (as in contemporary Britain).
The fact that Kemalism denied the ethnic distinctiveness of the Kurds and labelled them “Mountain Turks”, as this article points out, proves that it was an “ethno-nationalist” ideology. A Turkish “civic identity” would presumably have allowed Kurds to celebrate their language and culture as long as they subscribed to Turkish Values.
The most glaring proof that Kemalism was an “ethno-nationalist” movement is, of course, the population exchanges of the Treaty of Lausanne.
What a pretentious comment.
Population transfers don’t prove ethno-nationalism. They prove states will do ugly, coercive things when ideology meets geography. The Soviet Union deported entire peoples while insisting nations were temporary, racial categories meaningless, and socialism universal. Unless you want to argue Stalin was secretly an ethnic romantic.
"A world of 2050 where most European countries have Israel-style racialist citizenship policies and a formal ‘remigration’ policy, perhaps with some kind of Gulf-style rotational labour system, seems far more conceivable."
Damn. I had thought the same thing yesterday!
Whatever about the Turkey analogy for a future US I would propose that it's not truly fair to compare Europe and America.The latter is a zionist military and economic superpower which occupies Europe and continues to interpret the laws of their country through the 1960s civil rights legislation. Europe and the UK are its vassal states who push DEI relentlessly.
It also promotes the concept of the eradication of whiteness.
Trump spouted about his European ancestry at Davos but his own half Czech daughter converted to Judaism to marry Jared Kushner. While his VP JD Vance now has 4 children with his Indian wife. Eradication indeed
It is highly misleading to say that 'the bulk of the Turkish population is Muslim'. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Turks. if not all, are Muslims. Tiny minorities like the Armenians are numerically insignificant. It may satisfy certain liberal-minded folks to say that but the reality is that to be a Turk means to be a Muslim.
This is false: many Western Turks are either outright atheists or are (as is now often preferred) ‘deists’, who claim that all Abrahamic faiths are ‘true’, despite not believing in practice in any of them.
Quite far from being some sort of "assimilation machine", as a member of the ethnic group that immigrants to America would, in theory, be assimilating to, I don't feel that we've managed to assimilate very many people at all.
Well yeah, of course. I don't see myself as integrated and in fact see myself as less and less integrated as the time passes by.