Western Thrace Turks Being Minority Under the Shadow of the Pandemic
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Western Thrace Turks Being minority under the shadow of the Pandemic Do No t P r in t M M e e Millet NewsVoice of Turkish Minority in Greece Bulletin Millet News Bulletin Millet News Bulletin includes yearly activities of Millet News. Broadcast Period Millet News Bulletin is published annually. Cengiz Bilal Ömer Budur Editorial Salih Ramadan Board Canbaz Molla Yunus Onbaşı Editorial Being minority under the shadow of the Pandemic After publishing the first issue of the Bulletin, and received appreciations form variety parts of MilletMedia the world, we look forward to meet with our read- Millet Media Company ers again. However, we wish we wouldn’t have to Miaouli Street No: 7-9 publish the new issue. in other words, we would Post Code: 67100 like the oppressions to decrease. But this did not Xanthi Greece happen, far from it, new violations applicated on the education field, despite the great march Phone: +30 2541 077968 which took place on the cover photo of the first [email protected] issue. To talk about the content, just as we entered the pandemic in the first months of the new year, we faced some rights violations. Taking advan- tage of the pandemic, attempts were made to Millet silence the adhan and close the mosques ille- gally. Rights violations are not limited to this. Millet Gazetesi Freedom of press and expression is under threat www.milletgazetesi.gr like the previous years. Millet Media owner was sentenced to prison one more time and minority facebook.com/milletmedia citizens targeted in local media for their expres- twitter.com/milletmedia sions. Also, military exercise took place in the instagram.com/milletworld minority village Gökçepınar (Glafki). As for the denial of identity, nothing got better. The decree [email protected] of ECHR for İskeçe (Xanthi) Turk Union’s name issue is still to be implemented. If you ask if there is nothing positive, the clo- sure of the Golden Dawn party and the imprison- Millet ment of its members were recorded as an event that pleased us. Although this is a positive situ- Millet News ation for Greece in general, it is not possible to www.milletnews.com say that there is a positive development for the minority. facebook.com/milletworld As a result, with the courage of the positive twitter.com/milletworld feedback we received after publishing the Bulle- instagram.com/milletworld tin last year, we present the Bulletin, this time in digital format to our readers again. [email protected] 07 January 2020 Book Launch – ‘Western Thrace Minority Schools since the Treaty of Lausanne to the Present’ The launch of ‘Western Thrace Minority Schools since the Treaty of Lausanne to the Present’ took place at the conference hall of Western Thrace Turkish Teachers Union. fter the release of the book ‘Western Thra- about the book. ce Minority Schools since the Treaty of Lausanne to the Present’ written by Se- After the author’s introduction, Dr. Sebahattin Abahattin Abdurrahman, Western Thrace Turkish Abdurrahman answered the questions raised by Teachers Union has announced the book launch the listeners about the book “Western Thrace event which took place on Tuesday, January 7, Minority Schools since the Treaty of Lausanne to 2020, at 17:00. the Present.” The event started with the speech of Aydın At the end of the book launch Murat Omeroglu, Ahmet, President of the Western Thrace Turkish the Turkish Consul General of Komotini present- Teachers Union. Later, the Turkish Consul Gen- ed a gift to the author of the book. Dr. Sebah- eral of Komotini, Murat Ömeroğlu, greeted the hattin Abdurrahman thanked the audience and audience and shared his feelings and thoughts signed the books purchased by the readers. 6 Bulletin 2020 www.milletnews.com 10 January 2020 Celal Bayar High School helps out Sudan The students of Komotini (Gümülcine) Celal Bayar Minority High School, one of the two minority high schools operate in Western Thrace, executed an exemplary behavior by donating two water wells in Sudan, where drought exists. hemist Adil Akbaş, one of the teachers ap- ents of the students, and a large number of phil- pointed by the authorities of Turkey (Ac- anthropic people who had no connection with cording to the Treaty of Laussane Turkey is the school contribute to this meaningful cam- Centitled to employe a certain number of teachers paign. in minority schools) recommended to the stu- dents to bear a hand with the people who cannot The collected cash aid was handed over to the fulfill for basic vital need. The teacher’s sugges- Ribat Education Foundation in Turkey to commit tion was to donate a project of drilling a well in the philanthropic project of the school. RİBAT a region of Africa where people suffer from lack Education Foundation drilled a water well in Su- of water. The students adopted this idea and im- dan on behalf of Komotini (Gümülcine) Celal Ba- mediately started a charity campaign at school. yar High School Students. The teachers and the parents are proud of the students who carried Mainly, the students studying at the school, par- out such a meaningful project. www.milletnews.com Bulletin 2020 7 21 January 2020 The possibility of being ‘ethnic’ in Greece he concept of ethnicity has come up particularly after the 2nd World War. There is no doubt that the NAZI ex- perience had made it necessary to make a change in the LOGICAL Tunderstanding of identity. While ‘race’ had been a trademark SOCIO for defining identities before WW2, now it has turned to ‘eth- VIEW nicity’. This was simply an effort of became an ‘ethnic group’ as be- making modern states more ing completely distinct not only temperate against the minori- from the mainstream WASP ties. Taking into consideration (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protes- that ‘race’ had been giving a tant) society but also from the privileged status to the main- other ethnic groups too as they stream society and the opposite completely differ culturally, lin- Salih CANBAZer to the minorities, the change of guistically and historically. Sociologist-Writ understanding of identity be- came a sine qua non fact. The concept of ethnicity has reached to a worldwide use, but Salih Canbaz is a MA student When we look at the emerge how meaningful it is. Does each at Sakarya University, Turkey. of ‘ethnicity’ we can see that it sub-cultural group of every He is mainly studying in the dates back to Ancient Greece country have cultural, linguis- fields of identity, nationalism, where city-states had ethnically tic and historic differences be- multiculturalism, and collective homogenous form. These main- tween each other? For example, memory. Canbaz works for Millet Newspaper as columnist stream peoples were named as when it is looked at the struc- and for Millet News as editor. ethnos (nation), while on the ture of Turkey the sub-cultural other side, the foreigners were groups cannot be separated as named as ethnicos (ethnic). they have a common historical Thus, this form of use, inspired experience dating back to 1000 the USA, the country which years ago. So the widespread was continuously receiving mi- use of ethnicity can be danger- grants. The NAZI experience ous for some societies when it made the states all over the is used in an incompatible way world unwilling to use the ‘race’ with their own social realities. as a definition of identity, so the USA started using ‘ethnicity’ in a How about Greece? Is it mean- same way as the Greeks did. ingful to talk about ethnicity in Greece or can it be dangerous So it can be unquestioningly too? Looking at the character said that, each migrant group of the country as a nation-state, such as Italians, Asians, Irish etc. we see that it is a country con- 8 Bulletin 2020 www.milletnews.com 23 January 2020 “Celebrating Christian hols in minority (Muslim-Turkish) schools is unacceptable” structed with a mono-ethnic ideal, which approves only KINAL MP of Rhodope Ilhan Ahmet taking the Greek-Orthodox identi- the floor in the Greek Parliament, said, “It is ty as a mainstream society. unacceptable to celebrate the 3 Saints hols So, talking about ethnicity in Greece can be dangerous in minority schools too which is celebrated neither for Greek people nor every year on January 30”. for the Greek culture but for the racist mentality. lhan Ahmet, expressing his this period was economically reactions against the Chris- disastrous for these young That is because of the cul- tian celebrations imposed people and their families who tural, ethnic and historical Ito the minority students, stat- were unemployed during the differences of the minori- ed in his Facebook account process. ties in Greece both with the that he drew attention to the Greek-Orthodox people and important issues concerning In this case, I underlined that each other as minorities. For the Western Thrace Turkish article 11 of the DOATAP law example, a Western Thracian Minority in the draft talks ti- number 3328/2005 was clear- Turk has nothing to do with tled “Education Regulations” ly violated. Because, accord- an Albanian or a native Greek. submitted by the Minister of ing to this, the graduate who But it is possible to keep their National Education Niki Ker- applied, must have a diploma existence alive which can also ameos on the evening of Jan- within 90 days. And non-ob- make Greece’s name heard uary 21. servance of this time forces all over the world in the con- young people to migrate. text of cultural tolerance. “I made a speech at the parlia- mentary session this evening, 2) Another issue that I brought To conclude, the ethnic fac- where Prime Minister Mr.