Re-engaging the self/other problematic in post-positivist international relations: the 1964 expulsion of Greeks from Istanbul revisited

ABSTRACT

By critically engaging with the critical constructivist and post-structuralist accounts of foreign policy, this study examines the mass expulsion from Turkey of Istanbul Greeks in 1964 and 1965. As forms of radical post-positivism, these approaches provide ample insights to understand how this expulsion and the Cyprus conflict have become instrumental for reinscribing both Turkish national identity and the expelled Greeks as its inimical/threatening other. Noting that radical post-positivism focused on specific foreign policy cases in specific periods of time tends to overlook the role and significance of state-building processes in the configuration and negotiation of self/other interactions, this study argues that the gross violence in Cyprus in the 1960s was utilized to justify the economic, social and cultural marginalization of Istanbul Greeks as well as their premeditated expulsion. However, the Greek expulsion may be fully comprehended only when it is contextualized within the minority regime shaped throughout the formation of the Turkish nation state in 1923.

KEYWORDS:

• Expulsion
• Istanbul Greeks
• Cyprus conflict
• Turkish foreign policy
• foreign policy
• national identity
• self/other
• securitization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The 1930 Convention signed by Turkish and Greek leaders Atatürk and Venizelos introduced seminal privileges for the nationals of the respective countries. Article 1 of the Convention on Residence, Commerce and Navigation stipulated that ‘the peoples of the signatory states shall have the right to enter the other country freely on the condition that they abide by the country’s relevant laws and on an equal footing with the country’s own citizens or, in case of any special clauses regarding foreigners, by benefiting from the conditions stipulated for the people who are the citizens of the most favourable country. Additionally, they shall travel, reside or settle in the other country freely, and leave whenever they wish to do so’.

2. According to Rıdvan Akar, this figure is around 12,000; see Demir and Akar (1999, 14) and also Karaosmanoğlu (2010).

3. However, this figure may even be much higher. Unfortunately, adequate and reliable statistical data are not yet available.

4. The Higher Council of Minorities (Azınlıklar Tali Komisyonu), set up on 7 November 1962 by a classified prime ministerial decree 28/4869, aimed to monitor all transactions of the minorities offending against national security in Turkey. It included members from the General Directorate of Foundations, Ministry of Interior, Turkey’s General Staff, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Turkish Intelligence Agency. Even the composition of this commission itself gives an impression about how minority issues were excessively securitized by the Turkish state elite. Until it was abolished by the Turkish government in 2004, the commission acted as an invisible supreme authority interfering with and determining all government decisions and policies concerning minority issues in Turkey. See Ecumenical Federation of Constantinopolitans (2014).

5. The expulsion of the Greeks of Istanbul began in 1964 and continued into 1965. However, I will use the phrase ‘the expulsion of the Greeks of Istanbul in 1964ʹ as is commonly used in the relevant literature.

6. Securitization is defined as a ‘speech act’ dramatizing issues political in nature as issues of supreme priority and existential threat ‘requiring emergency measures’. See Buzan, Waever, and de Wilde (1998, 23–4).

7. Obviously, there exist a number of studies examining the relationships of the European self with different identities, i.e., the Southern and Eastern European, Russian, Turkish and the Middle Eastern, which differ substantially in a spectrum ranging from the less European, to non- and even anti-European (Featherstone and Kazamias 2001; Neumann 1999; Pace 2006).

8. For a comprehensive analysis of the role of foreign policy in building American national identity, see Trautsch (2018).

9. The exhibition on the expulsion, which opened in Istanbul on its 50^th anniversary, was named ‘20 Dollars 20 Kilos’.

10. Alexandris bases this information on the explanatory memorandum of Alexander Dimitropoulos to the Secretary General, 10 September 1964, UNSC/S/5951.

11. The Megali Idea (the Great Idea) ‘refers to a specific political entitlement ideology that demanded the reunification of all Greeks of the former Byzantine Empire’ (see Volkan 2014, 36).

12. Ethnike Organosis Kyprion Agoniston, or the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters, was a Greek Cypriot nationalist guerrilla organization, active between 1955 and 1959, which fought to end the British rule in Cyprus and carried out terror attacks against Turkish Cypriots.

13. These dailies are Tercüman (central right), Hürriyet (centre), Cumhuriyet and Milliyet (central left).

14. To illustrate, articles reporting the attacks against Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus were positioned side by side with those covering the deportation of Istanbul Greeks in the daily Cumhuriyet on 11, 12 and 13 April 1964. In a similar vein, the daily Hürriyet featured the news ‘70 more Greeks deported’ next to the story titled ‘Greeks launched heavy artillery firing in Kyrenia’ on its front page on 18 July 1964. Examples abound.

15. See, Cumhuriyet 24 March 2014 May, 19 June and 2, 9, 17 July 1964.

16. Translation of these headlines and news stories is by the author unless otherwise stated.

17. Here the term ‘religious institutions’ refers to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul.

18. For details of the pressure exercised by the Turkish governments on the Greek Patriarchate in the 1960–1974 period, see Alexandris (1992, 298–307).

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Alper Kaliber

Alper Kaliber is Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at Altınbaş University, Turkey. His areas of research include critical security studies, critical IR theory, Europeanisation and Turkey-EU relations as well as Turkish foreign policy. He is the co-editor of Is Turkey De-Europeanising? Encounters with Europe in a Candidate Country (2017). His publications have appeared in South European Society and Politics, International Relations, Security Dialogue and the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies.