Research Information System
International Political Science Association, Lisbon, Portugal, 10 - 15 July 2021, pp.1-24
The Kemalist
reforms following the establishment of the Turkish Republic, struggled to
convert a non-Western traditional society to a secular nation-state. This
modernization process in Turkey, without direct intent, in the early 20th
century also created schism between traditional Islamist wings and modernist
wings among the Ottoman heritage Muslim ethnic Turkish communities that found
themselves suddenly as Muslim minorities in the newly established
nation-states, such as Greece, Bulgaria and Cyprus. The EU enlargements
including Greece and Bulgaria were significant also for the minorities, as it
meant unification of nation-states of the Southeast Europe and also with the
adoption of EU values in addition to the global tolerance perspective,
suggested the end of nationalism and national minority issues. While borders
between EU and non-EU states (home-state and kin-state) become stronger,
through adoption of the EU norms and institutions, the Muslim-Turkish minority
in the Mediterranean region and the Turkish immigrants in Western Europe,
gained opportunities for political representation at local, national and
EU-levels. In the recent EU Parliament elections, ethnic Turkish party in
Bulgaria (MRF) send four representatives to the European Parliament through
participating to a national group (ALDE); A Cypriot Turk Niyazi Kızılyürek was
elected from Cyprus’ Nordic Green Left list and three Turkish origin
representatives are elected from Germany; however Muslim minority in Greece
left without representatives when they collectively voted for the Turkish
ethnic FEP, aiming to create an awareness to the minority issue, despite the
fact that party has no vote potential to pass the electoral threshold.
How should we
interpret the political behaviours of Turkish-Muslim minorities in their
home-lands? Does their act portray normalization of majority-minority relations
or rise of ethnic nationalist votes? Based on Brubaker’s ‘triadic nexus theory’
that describes a power relation between national minorities, nationalizing
states, and external national homelands, this paper by making a comparative
discourse analysis of the minority elites in Greece and Bulgaria, argues that
the acceleration of negative rhetoric towards Muslims in Europe in addition to
the growing radical-right populism, cause resurgence of ethnic nationalism
within the Muslim minorities and increase their dependency to the kin-state
Turkey for the protection of their cultural rights and identities. However,
because of the diverse experiences of traditional vs. modernist schism in two
communities and dissimilar internal factors they develop different survival
strategies.