Not Turk, But Citizen of Turkey: Turkish-Armenian Proposes Constitutional Amendment

“There should not be a superior identity — such us Turk or Turkishness — and people should be able to express their ethnic identities as they wish without being subject to discrimination,” said Garo Paylan, board member of HAYDER, an İstanbul-based foundation of Malatyan Armenian philanthropists, in an interview with Today’s Zaman, speaking about his ideas on how to write Turkey’s new constitution.

Recall, a parliamentary sub-commission working to replace the country’s military-prepared Constitution has been inviting representatives of minorities to hear their suggestions on this matter. Last week, Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I and representatives of Turkey’s Arameans submitted their proposals to a sub-commission of the inter-party Constitutional Reconciliation Commission. Turkey’s Armenians are also invited to Parliament to voice their demands.

Paylan, in his interview with the Turkish publication, stressed that the Armenian community, first of all, demands equal citizenship.

“We also ask for positive discrimination, and in that regard we would like the state to be blind to ethnicity and religion, which is a cliché now because this is how it is supposed to be. However, I am surprised [Greek Orthodox Patriarch] Bartholomew said in Parliament that he has no problem being called a Turk, as everyone who is a citizen of Turkey is called a Turk by the Constitution.

“This is not our demand, and our demand is to have an all-encompassing definition of citizenship, which is the citizenship of Turkey. The Jewish community leaders also sometimes say they are Turks. First of all, this is unfair to the Turks. Are Turks going to accept it if an Armenian says he or she is a Turk? Being a Turk is an ethnic designation. We also see at times some Armenians saying that they are Turks; this is out-Heroding Herod. I am surprised Bartholomew said he has no problem with being called a Turk. And there were news reports that Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) members were emotional when Bartholomew said that. It should not be our mission to please MHP members,” he said.

However, according to Paylan, there are some members of Turkey’s Armenian community who don’t want him or anyone else to voice these concerns “because they think they will be targeted by nationalist groups or those who want to see a homogenous society.”

“They think that things will be worse for minorities if they voice their true concerns. They say, look what happened to Hrant [Dink, the late editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian Agos weekly and an outspoken member of the Armenian community who was shot dead in 2007 by an ultranationalist teenager].