Discrimination and silence: minority foundations in Turkey during the Cyprus conflict of 1974 |
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Authors: | Pinar Dinç kenano?lu |
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Institution: | London School of Economics and Political Science, , UK |
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Abstract: | In 1974, the dispute between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus resulted in Turkish military intervention in the island. The same year, the Turkish Court of Cassation issued a legal decision that rendered possible the confiscation of properties belonging to minority foundations in the years to come. I argue that the case of minority foundations in 1974 was not a coincidence but a conscious reciprocal discrimination applied in both official and unofficial spheres. I support my argument with the following indicators: (1) the wider historical Greek–Turkish conflict and its ‘reciprocal’ nature of discrimination against non‐Muslim minorities; (2) the laden interpretation of the non‐Muslim minorities as the internal enemies in the Turkish mind‐set and its direct reflections on the 1974 case of foundations; and (3) the nature of the press coverage, which I assess using detailed reading and content analysis of three Turkish newspapers (H ürriyet, T ercüman, C umhuriyet) and one Rum minority newspaper (A poyevmatini). |
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Keywords: | discrimination minorities nationalism silence |
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