Emergence of Minority Education in Western Thrace
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A University of Sussex DPhil thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details “Ne çektiysek hep bu cahilliğimizden çektik” “Whatever we suffered was because of our illiteracy” The Development of Minority Education at the South-easternmost Corner of the EU: The Case of Muslim Turks in Western Thrace, Greece Ali Huseyinoglu Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in International Relations Department of International Relations University of Sussex May 2012 2 Declaration _____________________________________________________________________________________ I, Ali Huseyinoglu, hereby declare that: This thesis has not been and will not be submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Parts of this work have been published as: Huseyinoglu, A. (2012), ‘Reflections of transition from an Official Greek viewpoint: The case of the Turkish Muslim minority in Western Thrace-Greece (1923- 1933)’, METU Studies in Development, 39 (April), 87-110. Signature: _______________________ 3 Abstract _____________________________________________________________________________________ This study focuses on the Muslim Turkish minority in Greece and the development of its educational rights. It starts with the 1923 Lausanne Treaty that established the minorityhood of the Muslim ummah for the former Ottoman territory and explores various aspects of Minority education between then and the end of the 2000s. While doing so, it treats these rights as individual rights with a collective aspect; some of the individual rights of minorities can only be enjoyed together with others. Also, it draws a direct correlation between the Minority’s education and its rights. That is, in the case that the education level of the Minority was high, there was less discrimination against members of the Minority, since they had the linguistic skills, educational background and self-confidence to fight against violations of their rights by the host country, Greece. Also, it emphasizes the involvement of external actors in the development of Minority education in Western Thrace. Concerning the development of Minority education, this study argues that minorities’ rights are not only ‘given’ by host states but also ‘claimed’ by members of minorities through various struggles at the local, national and international level. Also, as well as the Minority and the Greek state, various external agents, such as Turkey and the European Union, are also involved in the struggle between the Minority and the Greek state over the former’s education. The impact of these agents on the survival of the Minority’s educational rights was immense, particularly from the 1980s onwards. It was primarily the inclusion of these external actors that pushed Greece to change its discriminatory policy against the Minority in 1991. This study demonstrates that a number of the individual rights emanating from the Minority’s Greek citizenship have only been recognized since 1991. Nonetheless, I conclude that in spite of some improvements, the Minority’s difficulties in the realm of rights with collective aspects, such as education of Minority students in a bilingual environment, persist. 4 Table of Contents _____________________________________________________________________________________ Declaration ................................................................................................................ 2 Abstract .................................................................................................................... 3 Table of Contents ...................................................................................................... 4 List of Tables ............................................................................................................. 9 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. 10 Abbreviations .......................................................................................................... 12 Translation and Transliteration Notes ...................................................................... 15 Usage of ‘the Minority’ term ................................................................................... 16 Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................ 20 1.1 The transformation from an advantaged Muslim ummah/community in the Ottoman Empire into a disadvantaged minority in the Greek periphery ....................................................... 20 1.2 Mapping the field ...................................................................................................................................... 22 1.3 Reviewing the literature on the Minority and Minority education ..................................... 26 1.3.1 Greek Sources .......................................................................................................................................... 26 1.3.2 Sources in Turkish ................................................................................................................................. 29 1.3.3 Similarities and differences between Turkish and Greek Sources .................................... 30 1.3.4 My contribution to the literature on Minority education in Western Thrace ............. 31 1.4 The starting point: Identifying the main research theme and the necessity of an interdisciplinary understanding .................................................................................................................... 32 1.5 A synopsis of Minority education in Western Thrace ............................................................... 35 1.5.1 Education: A means to struggle against rights violations in Western Thrace? ......... 38 1.6 Structure of the Thesis ........................................................................................................................... 41 CHAPTER 2: Theoretical and Historical Consideration of Minorities in Europe .......... 45 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 45 2.2 Defining the concept of minority ....................................................................................................... 47 2.3 Liberalism and integration of minorities ....................................................................................... 51 2.4 The Social Constructionist understanding of minorities ......................................................... 52 2.5 Problematizing minorities and their rights in the context of modern Greece ............... 53 2.5.1 ‘Old’ minorities vs. ‘Newcomer’ Immigrants .............................................................................. 56 2.5.2 ‘Unrecognized’ minorities: The case of the Macedonian minority in Northern Greece 58 2.6 International protection of minority rights in Europe: Historical Approach ................. 60 2.6.1 Development of minority rights under the League of Nations .......................................... 61 2.6.1.1 Promoting minority education under the LoN ............................................................................ 63 2.6.2 Failure of the League’s System of Minority Protection ......................................................... 64 5 2.7 A shift from collective to individual: Rights of Minorities during the Cold War years 67 2.7.1.1 Minority education under the UN regime of Cold War years ................................................ 69 2.7.2 The Post-Cold War Years and the revitalization of minority rights at the international level ................................................................................................................................................ 71 2.7.2.1 The rebirth of minority education in the post-1990s ............................................................... 75 2.8 Minority-state-homeland relations through the lens of Brubaker ..................................... 82 2.8.1 Explaining the Triadic Nexus Theory: Nationalizing states, national minorities and external national homelands ........................................................................................................................... 82 2.8.2 Securitization of minority-related issues .................................................................................... 85 2.8.3 A missing fourth actor? The Triadic nexus and Minority education in Western Thrace 87 2.8.3.1 “Blood is more important than passport”: The growing impact of Turkey in promoting the trilateral model in Western Thrace ....................................................................................... 88 2.8.3.2 “Turkey is our ‘motherland’ and Greece is our ‘homeland’” .................................................. 91 2.9 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................