In Turkey, xenophobia and discrimination are present in its society and throughout its history, including ethnic discrimination, religious discrimination and institutional racism against non-Turkish, non-Kemalist, non-Muslim and non-Sunni minorities. This appears mainly in the form of negative attitudes and actions by some people towards people who are not considered ethnically Turkish, notably Kurds, Armenians, Arabs, Assyrians, Greeks, Jews, and peripatetic groups like Romani people, Domari, Abdals and Lom. In recent years, racism in Turkey has increased towards Middle Eastern nationals such as Syrian refugees, Afghan, Pakistani, and African migrants.
There is also reported rising resentment towards the influx of Russians, Ukrainians and maybe Belarusians and Bulgarians in the country as a result of the Ukrainian war from Turks who claim it is creating a housing crisis for locals.
Overview + Muslim and non-Muslim population in Turkey, 1914–2005 (in thousands)Icduygu, A., Toktas, S., & Soner, B. A. (2008). "The politics of population in a nation-building process: Emigration of non-Muslims from turkey." Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31(2), 358–389. Year 1914 1927 1945 1965 1990 2005 Muslims 12,941 13,290 18,511 31,139 56,860 71,997 Greeks 1,549 110 104 76 8 3 Armenians 1,204 77 60 64 67 50 Jews 128 82 77 38 29 27 Others 176 71 38 74 50 45 Total 15,997 13,630 18,790 31,391 57,005 72,120 % non-Muslim 19.1 2.5 1.5 0.8 0.3 0.2 Racism and discrimination in Turkey can be traced back to the Ottoman Empire. In the 1860s, some Ottoman Turkish intellectuals such as Ali Suavi stated that: Turks are superior to other races in political, military and cultural aspects The Turkish language surpasses the European languages in its richness and excellence Turks constructed the Islamic civilization.
In the 1920s and 1930s racism became an influential aspect in Turkish politics which counted with the support of the Turkish Government. Through the Turkish History Thesis and the Sun Language Theory, a Turkish racial superiority was to be scientifically proven. The Turkish History Thesis claimed a Turkish racial origin of the modern European people, while the Sun Language Theory called the Turks as having been the first people to have spoken, therefore being Turkish the origin of all other languages. Congresses to promote those ideas to the western scholar world were organized in Turkey.Ergin, Murat (2008), p. 833 The State Employee Law enacted in 1926 aimed at the Turkification of work life in Turkey. This law defined Turkishness as a condition which was necessary for a person who wished to become a state employee. As in 1932 Keriman Halis Ece was elected Miss Universe, the Turkish President Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) was pleased with the fact that an international jury found a woman representing the essence of the Turkish race the one.
Early racists in Turkey were Nihal Atsız and Reha Oğuz Türkkan, who both competed by applying the correct way in defining Turkishness.The Racist Critics of Atatürk and Kemalism, from the 1930s to the 1960s, Ilker Aytürk (Bilkent University, Ankara), Journal of Contemporary History, Sage Pub., 2011 p.326 The two were charged in the Racism–Turanism Trial in 1944 together with other 21 defendants which included Zeki Velidi Togan and Alparslan Türkeş. Several defendants were sentenced to jail terms, but after a retrial in October 1945 they were all acquitted. The Turkish idealist movement is influenced by Adolf Hitler's views of racism. His book Mein Kampf (), is very popular amongst right-wing politicians, and as Bülent Ecevit wanted to ban its sale in Turkey, they prevented it.
In Turkey in 2002 the Ministry of Education adopted an educational curriculum with respect to the Armenians which was widely condemned as racist and chauvinistic. The curriculum contained textbooks which included phrases such as "we crushed the Greeks" and "traitor to the nation." Thereafter, civic organizations, including the Turkish Academy of Sciences, published a study which deplored all racism and sexism in textbooks. However, a report which was published by the Minority Rights Group International (MRG) in 2015 states that the curriculum in schools continues to depict "Armenians and Greeks as the enemies of the country." Nurcan Kaya, one of the authors of the report, concluded: "The entire education system is based on Turkishness. Non-Turkish groups are either not referred to or referred in a negative way."
As of 2008 Turkey has also seen an increase in "hate crimes" which are motivated by racism, nationalism, and intolerance.Handbook of the Human Rights Agenda Association on Hate Crimes in Turkey ; accessed on 14 October 2009 According to , the head of the parliamentary Human Rights Investigation Commission, "Hate speech is on the rise in Turkey, so new deterrents should be introduced to stem the increase in such crimes". Despite provisions in the Constitution and the laws there have been no convictions for a hate crime so far, for either racism or discrimination. In Turkey since the beginning of 2006, a number of killings have been committed against people who are members of ethnic and religious minority groups, people who have a different sexual orientation and people who profess a different social/sexual identity. Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code imposes a general ban against publicly inciting people's hatred and disgust.
According to an article which was written in 2009 by Yavuz Baydar, a senior columnist for the daily newspaper the Zaman, racism and hate speech are on the rise in Turkey, particularly against Armenians and Jews. On 12 January 2009, he wrote that "If one goes through the press in Turkey, one would easily find cases of racism and hate speech, particularly in response to the deplorable carnage and suffering in Gaza. These are the cases in which there is no longer a distinction between criticizing and condemning Israel's acts and placing Jews on the firing line."Hate speech and racism: Turkey’s ‘untouchables’ on the rise, 30 August 2010, Todayszaman In 2011 Asli Çirakman asserted that there has been an apparent rise in the expression of xenophobic feeling against the Kurdish, Armenian, and Jewish presences in Turkey. Çirakman also noted that the ethno-nationalist discourse of the 2000s identifies the enemies—within as the ethnic and religious groups which reside in Turkey, such as the Kurds, the Armenians, and the Jews.
In 2011, a Pew Global Attitudes and Trends survey of 1,000 Turks found that 6% of them had a favorable opinion of Christians, and 4% of them had a favorable opinion of Jews. Earlier, in 2006, the numbers were 16% and 15%, respectively. The Pew survey also found that 72% of Turks viewed Americans as hostile, and 70% of them viewed Europeans as hostile. When asked to name the world's most violent religion, 45% of Turks cited Christianity and 41% cited Judaism, with 2% saying that it was Islam. Additionally, 65% of Turks said the Westerners were "immoral".
One of the main challenges which is facing Turkey according to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) is the need to reconcile the strong sense of national identity and the wish to preserve the unity and integrity of the State with the right of different minority groups to express their own senses of ethnic identity within Turkey, for example, the right of a minority group to develop its own sense of ethnic identity through the maintenance of that ethnic identity's linguistic and cultural aspects.First report of ECRI on Turkey (1999)
In a recent discovery by the Armenian newspaper Agos, secret racial codes were used to classify minority communities in the country. According to the racial code, which is believed to be established during the foundations of the republic in 1923, Greeks are classified under the number 1, Armenians 2, and Jews 3. Altan Tan, a deputy of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), believed that such codes were always denied by Turkish authorities but stated that "if there is such a thing going on, it is a big disaster. The state illegally profiling its own citizens based on ethnicity and religion, and doing this secretly, is a big catastrophe".
According to research which was conducted by Istanbul Bilgi University, with the support of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK) between 2015 and 2017, 90 percent of youths said they would not want their daughters to marry someone who was "from the 'other' group." While 80 percent of youths said they would not want to have a neighbor who was from the "other," 84 percent said they would not want their children to be friends with children who were from the "other" group. 84 percent said they would not do business with members of the "other" group. 80 percent said they would not hire anyone who was from the "other." Researchers conducted face-to-face interviews with young people between the ages of 18 and 29. When they were asked to state which groups they most perceived to be the "other," they ranked homosexuals first with 89 percent, atheists and nonbelievers ranked second with 86 percent, people from other faiths ranked third with 82 percent, minorities stood at 75 percent and extremely religious people ranked fifth with 74 percent.
Racist and xenophobic rhetoric has also appeared in political and public discourse. Uğur Derin argues that the late-Erdoğan administration attributed "every possible problem to internal and external enemies." He writes that, in Turkey, "personae non gratae" have commonly been associated with Armenians, Greeks and Jews, alongside anti-communist and racial slurs.
Ethnic-based
Against Arabs
Turkey has a history of strong anti-Arab sentiment. Systemic racism against Arabs in Turkey has deep historical roots, dating back to the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the modern Republic of Turkey. In Turkish history textbooks, the Arab Revolt is portrayed as the main cause of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, while Arab contributions to the support of Ottoman sovereignty, like the alliance with Emirate of Jabal Shammar are ignored. Therefore hatred and negative sentiments towards Arabs based on simplification and misunderstanding of history are very common in Turkish society and government.
Following the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk introduced a policy of secularization and westernization that emphasized "Turkish" identity and extremely marginalize Arab elements in everyday life. Ataturk's reforms brutally eliminated Arab influence from Turkish socio-culture. The elimination of Arab influence even touched the realm of religious rituals, with the forced use of the Turkish adhan to replace the Islamic adhan, which is universally recited in Arabic.
Hatred and racism against Arabs has been on a significant rise because of the Syrian refugee crisis. Haaretz reported that anti-Arab racism in Turkey mainly affects two groups; tourists from the Gulf who are characterized as "rich and condescending" and the Syrian refugees in Turkey. Haaretz also reported that anti-Syrian sentiment in Turkey is metastasizing into a general hostility toward all Arabs including the Palestinians. Ümit Özdağ, a politician from the Victory Party, warned that Turkey risks becoming a "Middle Eastern country" due to the influx of Arab refugees, and he is also known for his racial rhetoric against Arab refugees and Arabs as a whole.
There are also racist stereotypes in Turkish popular culture, where the term "Arab" was once used as a derogatory term for a black dog, reflecting deep-rooted racist views against Arab in Turkish society.
Against Armenians