The Nov. 10 anniversary of the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Turkish republic’s founder, is marked with nationwide ceremonies in Turkey. This year’s commemorations included a religious memorial service for Ataturk at Istanbul’s Eminonu mosque. A politician in attendance made headlines for a comment made while exiting the mosque: “If it weren’t for Ataturk, you would have been called Dimitri or Yorgo today,” Muharrem Ince, a parliamentary whip of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), told reporters.

Ince’s remarks would hardly make sense to those unfamiliar with Turkey’s history and its social and ethnic fabric. When decoded, the comment reveals strong racist and discriminatory connotations. Ince was referring to Ataturk’s role as chief commander of the 1919-1922 Liberation War, suggesting that without him the Turks would have lost the war, and the Greeks would have retained Anatolia, in which case today’s Turks would have had Greek fathers and Greek names.

Given that Turkey’s Greeks number only 3,000 to 4,000 today, and “Yorgo” is one of their most popular names, one can imagine how the comment must have appalled them. Members of the Greek minority, who rarely speak out publicly, reacted with emotional, harshly-worded statements.

Yorgo Demir of the Istanbul-based Galata Greek School Foundation slammed Ince for “not only lacking respect for his fellow citizens, but also disregarding and belittling them with a knee-jerk impulse devoid of any political ethics and courtesy.” He went on to point out how Ince twisted historical facts. “Ironically, the Dimitris and Yorgos, who had always existed in the lands Ince mentions, were either assimilated after being forced to adopt names like Hasan and Huseyin — especially in the Pontus region — when their lives fell in danger during the foundation phase of the Turkish republic, or were slain and wiped off these lands. That was no different from the atrocities against the Armenians in Anatolia and the Jews in Thrace,” he said.