Are All ‘Turks’ Really Turks?
Mustafa Akyol considers how Turkish identity and citizenship will be defined in the next Turkish constitution.
At a time when Egypt drafted and ratified its new constitution in just a few months, the would-be new constitution of another country in the region, Turkey, has been staying in limbo for quite a while now. And one of the key obstacles to progress is a heated dispute on a fundamental question: Are all citizens of Turkey really “Turks”?
For outside observers, the question might seem simple for it clearly begs a “no.” Of course every citizen of Turkey cannot be Turkish, since the country is also home to people with other identities such as Kurdish, Arab or Armenian. The current constitution of Turkey, however, strongly rejects that plurality. Prepared in 1982 under the auspices of a nationalist military junta that took Turkey over two years before with a bloody coup, the constitution adamantly states in Article 66:
“Everyone bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship is a Turk.”
