Republic of Paradox: The League of Nations Minority Protection Regime and the New Turkey's Step-Citizens

Abstract

This article focuses on the years after World War I, especially the first decade following the 1923 establishment of the Republic of Turkey, in order to analyze the position of minorities in the developing “we” of the new nation as projected by its political elite. Situating the discussion in the context of the League of Nations interwar minority protection regime, I demonstrate that the Treaty of Lausanne, which the Ankara government and the Allies signed in July 1923, played an important role in the conflicting treatment that minorities have since received in Turkey. The treaty's minority protection clauses entrenched divisions that had already been formed in the Ottoman Empire during the violence of the preceding decade, including the Armenian genocide. Moreover, reminding Turkish leaders of how 19th-century European imperial powers had used the cause of Ottoman Christians’ suffering as an excuse to infringe on Ottoman sovereignty, these clauses alarmed the Turkish political elite, especially as the “Great Powers” themselves were not bound by such minority protection guarantees. The goal of preventing a repetition of this unbalanced international power dynamic, which, according to the new Turkey's leaders, had led to the demise of the Ottoman Empire, engendered paradoxical policies toward non-Muslim Turkish citizens; they have been largely excluded from a Turkness (Türklük) to which they were sometimes included, even forcibly included.

Brotherhood in Dispossession: State Violence and the Ethics of Expectation in Turkey

“…They were legally recognized as citizens and yet treated as suspect others. As Aron Rodrigue (, 44) argues, those classed as minorities “could remain Turkish citizens, but they would never be true Turks.” The ethos of suspicion was amplified by the fact that leaders of the new Turkish republic came to view the very designation of minority as a symbol of Western imperial ambitions: in demanding that the minority clauses be accepted by the new republic, Western powers encroached on the nation‐state's sovereign autonomy in the very act of recognizing it (Ekmekçioğlu ).…”

Intersecting Asymmetries: The Internationalization of Turkey in the 1920s and the Limits of the Postcolonial Approach

“…For future research, studies dedicated to the early history of Turkey's foreign policy vis-à-vis international organizations might find it fruitful to elaborate upon the already existing works about its minority politics and their international dimension. 120 As Volker Prott argues in his book on the Politics of Self-Determination, local actors, confronted with the loss of territory after World War I, invoked their ethnicity in order to align their cause with the international discourse of national self-determination. 121 Unlike Erez Manela, who considered Wilsonianism to be above all an anti-colonial moment, Prott stressed the ethnification of Wilsonianism and how it contributed to violence.…”

“…61 Nevile Henderson to James Ramsay MacDonald, July 26, 1924 (FO E 6425/5281/98), BDFA II, Vol.30, 202.62 The end of international control did not render Turkey uninterested in foreign affairs. On the contrary, having regained formal sovereignty in 1923, the Turkish government started using their a prerequisite for equal international cooperation, the national interest tended to alienate Turkey from some kinds of international engagements, for example, from international efforts toward disarmament and the League of Nations' Minority System 63.…”

Bringing the imperial back in: Reconsidering governance in the late Ottoman Empire, 1839–1923 (Part II)

“…On the other hand, the Republic's ruling elites were convinced that non‐Muslims could never be fully Turkified and embraced an interpretation of late Ottoman history that considered them fundamentally disloyal and in large measure responsible for the empire's demise (Ekmekçioğlu, 2016, p. 106). As a result of this profound distrust, non‐Muslim citizens of Turkey were barred from careers in the military and state bureaucracy and faced severe travel and residence restrictions inside the country (Ekmekçioğlu, 2014, pp. 670–671, 673; Ekmekçioğlu, 2016, pp.…”