The impact of group positioning on unfavorable perceptions of Greeks in Turkish politics between 1946 and 1960

ABSTRACT

To what extent can hostility toward Greeks in Turkish politics be explained sociologically? This paper provides a fresh perspective by examining the value of group position theory in understanding negative perceptions of Greeks in Turkish politics between 1946 and 1960. It proposes that Turkish politicians’ perceived threats to valued resources played a key role in their unfavorable portrayals of Greeks. To test the argument, the study scrutinizes all Turkish parliamentary speeches in this period that contain the word Greek (N = 652). Quantitative analysis demonstrates that speaking about border-related threats is a significant predictor of negative perceptions. Qualitative investigation details how politicians justified their negative comments. The paper concludes that the negative remarks about Greeks are a function of Turkish politicians’ perceived threats to valued resources.

KEYWORDS:

• Prejudice
• group position
• threat
• Greek minority in Turkey
• Turkish politics

Introduction

Turkish-Greek relations are a notorious source of tension and hostility in modern politics. Their significance reaches far beyond the region. Most recently, the war in Ukraine forced leaders of both countries to arrange an urgent personal meeting in Istanbul to improve the strained relationship.¹ An important source of the political conundrum between Greece and Turkey is the political elites’ perception of each other, which immediately informs policymaking. In other words, one of the root causes of the intergroup hostility between the countries is prominent politicians’ perceptions and attitudes, which even brought them to the brink of war in 1996 over a dispute concerning a pair of small uninhabited Aegean islands.² This research aims to shed a sociological light on the tension and focuses on Turkish political debates between 1946 and 1960. It uses group position theory to explain the negative perception of Greeks in this period. It proposes that Turkish politicians’ perceived threats to valued resources are an important contributor to the negative descriptions.

This article tests its premise by scrutinizing Turkish parliamentary speeches that refer to Greeks between 1946 and 1960. This period is notable in Turkish history as it marked a transition to European parliamentarianism and the ideas of social democracy.³ This early period of multiparty democracy in Turkey, which lasted until a coup in 1960 led to constitutional change, also led to political parties discussing important topics in parlaiment, including those related to Greece and Greeks. Notably, during this period many non-Muslims entered the Turkish Grand National Assembly. Specifically, during the period spanning from 1946 to 1960, there were a total of 12 non-Muslim members of parliament (MP), with 11 hailing from the newly-formed Democrat Party (DP). While one could interpret this as a commendable effort by the DP to amplify non-Muslim presence in the Turkish parliament, an alternative perspective might view it as a strategic maneuver aimed at securing non-Muslim votes. All of these MPs came from Istanbul, the primary residence of most non-Muslim minorities, while at the same time the DP also secured the inclusion of the first two MPs representing political Islamists. Indeed, since the DP’s entry into parliament, political Islam started to have more impact on Turkish politics, which influenced the perception of non-Muslim communities in Turkey.⁴

This was also a time of momentous events in Turkish-Greek relations, such as the dispute about Cyprus and the September 6–7 pogrom in 1955. Despite its apparent importance for the perception of Greeks in Turkey, the period remains underexplored in the academic literature. This research offers insights to fill this gap. To that end, it systematically analyzes Turkish parliamentary records between 1946 and 1960. This is significant because while some academic work has relied upon Turkish parliamentary records⁵, scholars have not explored the perception of Greeks in Turkey during this period. In addition, this research juxtaposes quantitative and qualitative content analysis. This allows us to measure the overall relationship between perceived threats and the negative perception of Greeks, as well as to delve deeper into the ways in which politicians linked perceived threats with their negative comments about Greeks.

This study makes three basic contributions to academic literature. First, it advances the scholarship on group position theory beyond intra-individual attitudes by examining Turkish parliamentary politics.⁶ Second, it applies group position theory to a novel context—the Turkish perception of Greeks—thus enhancing the literature on the theory, which predominantly centers on prejudice in developed Western countries.⁷ Third, as noted above, the research fills a scholarly gap by providing a systematic analysis of the perception of Greeks in Turkish parliamentary politics during an underexplored period (1946-1960). In terms of organization, the study first presents a brief historical background of Greeks in Turkey. Following that, it synthesizes the academic literature on group position theory and non-Muslim minorities in Turkey to clarify its main argument. Then, it outlines its methodology and presents its findings. Last, the study concludes with a brief discussion summarizing the key insights derived from the research.

A short historical background of Turkish-Greek relations

To understand modern Turkish-Greek relations, it is imperative to discuss the Ottoman period. The Greek Orthodox community, along with Jewish and Armenian Gregorian communities, lived in the Empire as a part of the millet system between the 15th and 20th centuries. Having a protected status, called dhimmi, these communities had religious, educational, juridical, and fiscal autonomy.⁸ They were governed by their religious leaders, who interacted with the Ottoman authorities.⁹ The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople was recognized as the spiritual leader and governor (Millet Bashi) of all Greeks in the Empire.¹⁰ During its decline in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Ottoman Empire lost several of its territories to independence movements, and the millet system gradually diminished. Greece, for example, gained Independence in 1829. The Ottomans attempted to avoid the further collapse of the Empire by implementing new security measures and as well as reforms that granted more rights. For example, they promoted the equality of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in 1839 under the Tanzimat reforms, which abolished the special status of the non-Muslims in the legal system and daily life. Nonetheless, the Ottomans continued to struggle to control non-Muslim independence movements, which at times led to violent repression.¹¹

At the end of the First World War, the Ottoman Empire was on the losing side of the Central Powers. It signed the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920. This imposed heavy conditions such as the allocation of territory to the Allies, which included Greek occupation of Western Anatolia. The Turkish resistance movement waged and won the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1923) in the National Struggle period (Milli Mücadele). Following the conclusion of the Treaty of Lausanne in July 1923, the leaders of the Milli Mücadele established the Republic of Turkey. This period, between the signing of the Treaty of Sèvres and the end of the Turkish War of Independence, gave rise to an important traumatic memory and remains central to fears of existential security threats for modern Turkey.¹² Referred to as the Sèvres syndrome, the experience represented the anxiety about potential dismemberment by a collaboration of internal and external enemies.¹³ Greeks are at the center of this anxiety for being both a resident community in modern Turkey and a historical occupation force.

The Treaty of Lausanne was accompanied by a population exchange between Turkey and Greece. Orthodox Christians from Western Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, numbering 1.2 million, were expelled to Greece, and four hundred thousand Muslim residents of Greece were forced to leave Greece for Anatolia.¹⁴ The treaty also brought an end to the millet system. Along with the Armenians and Jews, the Greek community in Turkey was promised equal citizenship. Although this transition implied the end of second-class citizenship, it failed to promote the promised equal treatment of the non-Muslims.¹⁵ For example, the Wealth Tax of 1942, which was supposed to restrain war profiteering, forced non-Muslim entrepreneurs and white-collar professionals to either pay an excessive tax or be deported to work camps in eastern Turkey.¹⁶ Greeks in Turkey were subjected to further pressures after the beginning of the Cyprus dispute between Greece and Turkey in the 1950s. Xenophobic violence against non-Muslims in Istanbul on September 6–7, 1955 began following a bomb blast near the house of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, in Thessaloniki, Greece.¹⁷ The rioters in Istanbul attacked non-Muslims in an organized manner and rapidly damaged shops, houses, churches, schools, cemeteries, and other buildings belonging to the Greeks and other non-Muslims.¹⁸ Some of the appalling crimes included burning a Greek priest and raping women.¹⁹ Kuyucu notes that the Turkish state, in response, did not give enough compensation to victims, which he views as a part of the official project of transferring economic capital from the non-Muslim communities to Turks.²⁰

In parallel, the crisis over Cyprus and the riots in Istanbul in 1955 had a negative impact on the treatment of the Turkish minority in Greece, particularly regarding the recognition of their Turkish identity by the Greek state. Over time, Muslims in Western Thrace have been identified as Ottomans, Turks, and Muslim Greek citizens. In 1919, Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos acknowledged their Turkish identity.²¹ The 1920 census divided the population into Greeks, Bulgarians and Turks. In 1954, the general administrator of Western Thrace, Giorgios Fessopoulos, ordered the immediate replacement of the generic term Muslim with the term Turkish in every state mechanism. In 1957, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs defined the community as the Muslim minority.²²

The Greek community in Turkey continued to suffer the repercussions of the Cyprus dispute in the 1960s. The Turkish government passed a law in 1964 that allowed the expulsion members of Istanbul’s Greek minority who held Greek citizenship. Around 20,000 members of the Greek community in Turkey emigrated to Greece that year.²³ In addition, the continuation of tensions related to Cyprus saw further measures against Greeks, such as the construction of a prison in Gökçeada and the 1971 closure of the Theological School of Halki in Heybeliada.²⁴ Turkish-Greek tensions were not limited to the Cyprus dispute. For example, constant debates about claims in the Aegean Sea between the countries brought them to the brink of a war over a dispute about the Imia (Kardak) islet in 1996.²⁵ These disputes have consistently negatively affected the Greeks in Turkey, and their population shrank from about 125,000 persons in the mid-1920s to approximately 2,500 in the late 1990s.²⁶ While the Greek population in the Ottoman Empire was around 10 percent, compared to an Armenian population of 6.6 percent and a Jewish population of 1 percent according to the 1914 census,²⁷ the Greek population size in 2022 is smaller than either of these other communities.

Hostility toward Greeks in Turkish politics as group positioning

The main argument of this paper, which proposes that Turkish politicians’ perceived threats to valued resources play a fundamental role in their unfavorable portrayals of Greeks, is based on a substantial sociological perspective, group position theory.²⁸ According to this approach, prejudiced attitudes against other groups emerge from dominant group members’ perceptions of them as a threat. That is to say, people’s prejudiced attitudes are based on social processes, not on individual psyches. The literature on group position theory dates back to Herbert Blumer’s 1958 essay, ‘Race prejudice as a sense of group position,’²⁹ in which he argues that people have a strong sense of attachment to the status of their group and have beliefs about what their group and others are entitled to in society. This shapes people’s attitudes toward others: whenever they feel that their group’s position is threatened, they react through prejudice. In short, group position theory views intergroup hostility as a defensive response to perceived threats to maintain the dominance of one’s group.

Blumer discusses four feelings of dominant groups toward members of other groups that form the basis of racial prejudice.³⁰ First, dominant groups have a sense of superiority and tend to attribute negative characteristics, such as deceit, to members of other groups. Second, they believe that the differences between the dominant group and other groups are natural. Third, dominant groups make proprietary claims over valued resources, such as being prioritized for employment in higher-paying positions. Fourth, dominant groups are apprehensive about other groups’ designs to acquire their prerogatives. Blumer highlights that the last two feelings are essential in prejudiced attitudes, as the feelings of superiority and difference do not form prejudice in themselves.³¹ Bobo and Hutchings extend the theoretical perspective by illustrating that subordinate group members in such a situation would also be inclined to protect their perceived prerogatives.³²

Blumer explains intergroup prejudice as a result of collectively and historically developed views about a group’s identity.³³ The process of creating a collective notion of a group, its prerogatives, and its perceived threats is mostly shaped by elite actors, who define the group boundaries and justify feelings of the rightful hierarchical order.³⁴ In line with this perspective, Quillian argues that scholarship does not sufficiently examine historical mechanisms that shape dominant groups’ negative attitudes.³⁵ As historical traumas and perceived threats discussed by political elites present a noteworthy source for group positioning and prejudice, this study focuses on the relationship between Turkish parliamentarians’ perceived threats and descriptions of Greeks. Indeed, the history of Turkish-Greek relations is not short of perceived threats. On the Turkish side, Greeks represented a historical and modern threat that could be linked to the Sèvres syndrome. Historically, Greece was one of the invading foreign forces in Anatolia during the National Struggle period. Subsequently, various tensions concerning valued resources, such as the disputes about Cyprus and Aegean Sea borders, kept the apprehensive Turkish perception of the Greek threat alive. Accordingly, the Greek community in Turkey was generally perceived as a potential fifth column.³⁶

The perception of Greeks as a suspicious outgroup is in line with the findings from research on Turkish perception of the non-Muslims.³⁷ Various studies emphasize that Turkish nationalism excluded non-Muslims and created boundaries between dominant Muslim and subordinate non-Muslim groups because of its suspicions about these outgroups. For example, Beylunioğlu and Kaymak note that the non-Muslim communities in modern Turkey have been treated as second-class citizens regardless of the period or political party in power.³⁸ In parallel, Ziya Gökalp, one of the founding fathers of Turkish nationalism, explained the collapse of the Ottoman Empire sociologically and built an exclusionary view of the non-Muslims.³⁹ He suggested that the dismemberment was a product of cultural dissonance among different religious communities. To avoid the repetition of disintegration in modern Turkey, Gökalp formulated a program of Turkish nationalism that described the Hanafi Muslim community as the dominant group.⁴⁰ In parallel, Ünlü discusses a Turkishness contract that excludes non-Muslims but grant special rights or status to the dominant Muslim majority.⁴¹ All in all, this paper brings together and contributes to the academic literature on the non-Muslims in Turkey and group position theory by examining the perception of Greeks in Turkish parliamentary debates between 1946 and 1960.

Data and method

This research relies on content analysis, ‘an observational research method that is used to systematically evaluate the symbolic content of all forms of recorded communications.’⁴² It brings together quantitative and qualitative content analysis to analyse Turkish parliamentary records. While quantitative content analysis is a deductive method that codes data into variables and then examines the relationships among those variables, qualitative content analysis is an inductive method that relies on open and in-depth analyses of data.⁴³ Combining the methods, this research not only provides a comprehensive analysis of Turkish parliamentary speeches between 1946 and 1960 but also improves the validity of the findings and interpretation. The study scrutinizes all speeches that mentioned the word Greek. It draws on total population sampling, which enables a systematic perspective on the descriptions of Greeks. The unit of analysis is a member of parliament (MP)’s speech. The study followed four steps: (1) collecting the speeches; (2) generating a coding scheme; (3) coding the data and calculating the intercoder reliability; and (4) analysing the data quantitatively and qualitatively.

Table 1 shows that the study creates a binary dependent variable: negative and nonnegative descriptions of Greeks. The author and a research assistant (RA) evaluated whether the general tone of a speech was negative or not by taking into account how central the negative and nonnegative descriptions of Greeks were to the speech. An example of a negatively coded speech is one by Ali Ferruh Yucel from the Democrat Party (DP): ‘Members of the Turkish minorities living in … Greece … and Cyprus migrate en masse to Turkey because of the continuous repression and harassment of the local authorities in these countries.’⁴⁴ An example of a non-negatively coded description comes from Riza Tekeli of the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP): ‘We should cooperate with Greece not only in the realm of politics but also in economics, especially with regards to the tobacco trade.’⁴⁵

Table 1. Codebook.

Perception	Negative: Description of Greek identity, existence, or actions in unfavorable terms, which include defending an unfavorable treatment or perception of Greeks
	Nonnegative: Description of Greek identity, existence, or actions using value-free or favorable terms, which include criticizing an unfavorable treatment or perception of Greeks
Debate topic	Threat-related: The Turkish War of Independence, the Cyprus dispute, and the fishermen dispute
	Others: Any discussion that does not mention any direct threats to valued resources of Turkey
Controlling variables	Political party membership of the speaker: CHP, DP, Independent
	The political position of the speaker: Government, opposition
	Type of Greek description: Ancient Greek, Greek (Rum), Greek (Yunan)
	The parliamentary term of the talk: 8, 9, 10, or 11

As the research tests the hypothesis that perceived threats are an important contributor to the negative perception of Greeks, the independent variable is the debate topic. It is a binary variable that distinguishes between threat-related topics and other topics. In particular, three debate topics manifestly link Greeks to perceived threats to valued sources, namely sea and land borders (see Table 1). The speeches on the National Struggle period (1919–1923) refer to the past national security threat about the dismemberment of Turkey. The Cyprus dispute refers to Turkish parliamentary debates on the independence of the island and the status of Turkish and Greek Cypriots. The fishermen dispute is a debate concerning illegal Greek fishing in Turkish waters. The other discussions are on a variety of issues that do not relate to any direct threats to Turkish resources, such as Turkish-Greek relations, the Greek Civil War (1943–1949), and ancient Greek philosophy.

To clarify the effects of perceived threats on negative perceptions of Greeks, this research employs several controls. Table 1 outlines four key factors that are taken into account. Firstly, the study controls for the political party affiliation of the speaker, considering the potential influence of ideological orientation. Additionally, it considers whether the politician is in government or opposition, as well as the parliamentary period, to control the potential impact of these variables on negative perceptions of Greeks. Further, the study examines all mentions of Greeks, including the Greek minority in Turkey, ancient Greeks, and Greeks abroad. This approach is essential because politicians sometimes refer to Greeks as an ethnic group without specifying whether they refer to Greeks in the country or abroad. For example, Sinan Tekelioglu (CHP) stated that the ‘Turkish People won the Turkish War of Independence and expelled Greeks from the homeland … ’⁴⁶ In this expression, it is not exactly clear whether the MP is referring to the Greeks in Turkey or in the Greek army in that period or both. He seems to refer to Greeks as a unified category. Given the historical ties between Greeks and Turks, it is not surprising that the category of Greeks in Turkey can be conflated as a minority or foreign community. While this study mainly investigates the overall perception of Greeks, it also pays attention to specific mentions of different types of Greeks to check whether clearly mentioning a specific type of Greek makes any difference in the results.

The author and the RA examined and coded the data. They compared their codes for the perception of Greeks to check the reliability of the analysis. The RA coded a sample of the speeches, which contained every seventh speech starting from the first, totaling 93 of 652 speeches. The simple agreement between the coders was 93 percent (.93), and Cohen’s Kappa was .76. This result presents an acceptable level of intercoder agreement.⁴⁷ The high agreement rate might be related to having a binary variable.⁴⁸ Moreover, given that the speeches had been prepared and edited by the politicians or their staff before being given in the parliament, it was relatively straightforward to grasp the overall tone as it related to Greeks. The independent and controlling variables are based on information available from Turkish parliamentary records and, therefore, they did not require any intercoding measures.

The relationship between perceived threats and negative perceptions of Greeks

The dataset contains 652 speeches that mentioned the word Greek in Turkish parliamentary debates between 1946 and 1960. Table 2 below demonstrates that approximately 20 percent of these talks overall portray Greeks unfavorably. The majority of the negative descriptions were uttered in the discussions about threat-related topics: the Turkish War of Independence, the Cyprus dispute, and the fishermen dispute. In other words, the negative perceptions took place more often when Turkish politicians reflected on their perceived past and present threats by Greeks on valued resources, namely sea and land borders.

Table 2. Descriptions of Greeks in Turkish parliamentary speeches (1946–1960).

		Nonnegative description	Negative description	Total
Debate	Turkish War of Independence	2	25	27
	Cyprus dispute	38	34	72
	Fishermen dispute	1	12	13
	Other discussions	491	49	540
Total		532	120	652

In related terms, Table 3 reports findings in support of the main argument: that reflecting on perceived threats is a significant predictor of the negative descriptions of Greeks (p < .001). Controlling for political party membership of the MPs, whether the speaker is in government or in opposition, the parliamentary period of the talk, and the type of Greek that is referred to (ancient Greek, Yunan, and Rum), Model 1 shows that the odds of Greeks being described negatively is seven times higher in a discussion about the Cyprus dispute compared to the other debates. Moreover, the odds of Greeks being described negatively is 102 times higher in a discussion about the fishermen dispute and 119 times higher in a debate about the Turkish War of Independence compared to the mentions of Greeks in the other debates. Nagelkerke’s R-squared indicates a relationship between prediction and grouping.

Table 3. Logistic regression models of the descriptions of Greeks in parliamentary discussions.

Variable	Model 1
Debate topics	B (SE)	Odds ratio
Turkish War of Independence	4.787*** (.771)	119.884
Cyprus dispute	2.022*** (.328)	7.554
Fishermen dispute	4.627*** (1.06)	102.193
Constant	−5.522*** (1.74)	.004
Model χ2 (df)	181.513*** (11)
Pseudo R^2 (Nagelkerke)	.395
N	652

Note: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. Reference categories for debate topics: talking about other topics. Model 1 controls for political party membership, political party position, parliamentary period, and type of Greek description.

The statistical analysis confirms that discussing the threat-related topics is a reliable predictor of negative remarks about Greeks in Turkish parliamentary debates of the period no matter whether they refer to Greeks in or outside Turkey, which also confirms the methodological choice to explore all mentions of Greeks as a unified category. To present a more comprehensive account of the negative perception of Greeks in Turkish politics, the next section extends this by an in-depth qualitative analysis that accounts for how politicians justified their negative descriptions in the threat-related debates and discusses the unexplained cases in which politicians did not portray Greeks negatively.

The interplay between perceived threats and the negative descriptions of Greeks

This section details how politicians justified the negative descriptions of Greeks in the threat-related topics: the Turkish War of Independence, the Cyprus dispute, and the fishermen dispute. It scrutinizes to what extent feelings of dominant groups that are associated with prejudice according to group position theory are present in the debates: (1) superiority, (2) difference, (3) proprietary claim to resources, and (4) feeling of threat. Second, it explores the cases that do not fit the theoretical perspective: when politicians did not portray Greeks negatively in threat-related debates. Overall, the in-depth qualitative analysis helps to unveil the significance of the perceived threats in the negative descriptions and the nature of hostility toward Greeks in Turkish politics.

The MPs’ negative portrayals described Greeks in two main manners: (1) a past enemy in the Turkish War of Independence; (2) a contemporary enemy who claims Turkish land in Cyprus and exploits the borders in the Aegean Sea. To begin with, while talking about the National Struggle period, the MPs often drew a negative picture of Greeks as inferior enemies who had threatened national sovereignty. In so doing, they also highlighted a sense of belonging and proprietary claim to the land. Emin Soysal (Independent) stated this idea (not directly about Greeks) as follows: ‘When Hatay was under French occupation, local people gathered to see the Turkish flag! French police sneered at a blind person: ‘Why are you here? You cannot see anything.’ The blind person responded: ‘Sir, I can recognize our flag from its smell!’ (Shouts of joy from the benches).’⁴⁹ In contrast to positive views of Turkish patriotism and nationalism, MPs tended to portray Greeks as a subordinate group who had threatened Turkish land. Ismet Inonu (CHP) recounted that ‘the invading forces wanted to wipe the Turkish state from the earth … The Turkish people in Anatolia used any means to save their lives and independence, including axes, clubs, fists, and nails.’⁵⁰ In similar terms, Burhanettin Onat (DP) disparaged the military strength of the Greeks and praised Turkish bravery: ‘Yörük Ali Efe and his forty men came down the mountains like a hurricane and swept an entire well-equipped Greek regiment from Aydin.’⁵¹

The descriptions of Greeks in the debates about the Cyprus dispute also illustrate key aspects of group position theory. MPs made apprehensive comments about a Greek encroachment on the island. They demonstrated the feelings of group positioning by differentiating Greeks as a manipulative aggressor who threatened the property rights of Turkish Cypriots and the geopolitical security of Turkey. Sinan Tekelioglu (DP) expressed his anxiety about Greek expansionism: ‘Greeks have an expansionist mindset, Megali Idea.⁵² They are never content with their current borders.’⁵³ Baha Akşit (DP) accused them of stoking intercommunal tension: ‘Greeks carry out terrorist activities on the island … .Greece wants to mislead the world by falsely presenting Turkey as the aggressor to justify its future invasion of the island.’⁵⁴ Ismet Inonu (CHP) argued that ‘because of the Cyprus dispute, Greece began a very aggressive, inciting, and threatening political campaign … Then, it tried to hide this and accused Turkey for this negative campaign in a European Commission meeting.’⁵⁵ One of the first parliamentary speeches that suggested dividing the island could be interpreted as a conclusion of the key characteristics of group positioning. Hikmet Bayur (DP) argued this point as follows:

Greek Cypriots did not accept many privileges given to them by the United Kingdom. One day, they will take them and demand more. Then, they will gain independence and become part of Greece, if they choose … We need to prevent this … We should divide the island like the India-Pakistan partition. We should get the side of the island that faces Turkey and the rest should be left to the Greeks. Only in that way can we maintain our connection to the island and avoid geopolitical dangers … ⁵⁶

Parliamentarians also showed the characteristics of group positioning in the fisherman dispute. They portrayed Greeks unfavorably by describing them as fraudulent and greedy who not only illegally exploited Turkish sea resources but also damaged the environment with their inferior fishing techniques. Mufit Erkuyumcu (DP) stated that ‘fish are the most important natural resource. Our Greek neighbors exterminated their resources by unscientific fishing techniques. Now, they have made a habit of illegal fishing in our waters.’⁵⁷ Burhanettin Onat (DP) noted that Greeks greedily traveled long distances for illegal fishing and damaged the environment.⁵⁸ Zeyyat Mandalinci (DP) talked about the illegal fishermen as petty criminals: ‘They commit other crimes, too, such as extortion and violence against Turkish citizens.’⁵⁹ Nevertheless, Refet Aksoy (DP) said that ‘Turkish fishermen are more intelligent, brave, and hard-working, but they lack the means to compete with the Greek fishermen.’⁶⁰ While the general tendency was to condemn a petty criminal operation, Selim Soley (CHP) talked about a more elaborate strategy: ‘Greeks use the fish that they stole from us very efficiently and sell them to the United States.’⁶¹ Furthermore, Safaaddin Karanakci (DP) perceived a more dire threat: ‘Sea waters are an essential part of national borders … Therefore, Greeks attacked our national unity, independence, and rule by illegal fishing.’⁶²

Some of the speeches about the threat-related topics did not describe Greeks negatively and do not support the theoretical argument. These cases most often took place in the speeches about the Cyprus dispute, as illustrated in Table 2 above. The Turkish foreign policy principle of the period, which prioritized keeping peaceful relations with Greece, seemed to help avert unfavorable descriptions of Greeks in these debates. Nazli Tlabar (DP) asserted that ‘the governments in Turkey and Greece should make all efforts to end this repugnant and unsettling disagreement about Cyprus to maintain their ties of friendship.’⁶³ In similar terms, Fatin Rusdu Zorlu (DP), the foreign minister of the period, expressed contentment for making a peaceful arrangement at the London and Zurich Agreements in 1959: ‘With this agreement, we have ensured protection of the rights of both communities and the security of Turkey and, most importantly, we have achieved our priority of sustaining Turkish-Greek friendship.’⁶⁴ Kasim Gulek (CHP) added that the agreement was very valuable because it helped avert a potential conflict between two NATO members.⁶⁵ In the debates about the Turkish War of Independence and the fishermen dispute, the Turkish politicians did not perceive Greeks negatively only in exceptional cases, three in total. In these speeches, the Turkish War of Independence and the fishermen dispute were mentioned rather anecdotally. Thus, it could be argued that the politicians did not have a reason to reflect more deeply on the cases, which could have led them to express negative feelings by group positioning. For example, Emin Soysal mentioned in passing that a building was left from the Turkish War of Independence: ‘ … a building where a Greek military commander was living. We got this building and availed it for the use of villagers and deaf people.’⁶⁶

Discussion and conclusion

This article develops the academic literature by scrutinizing the factors that contributed to the negative perception of Greeks in Turkish parliamentary politics between 1946 and 1960. In particular, it inquires to what extent group position theory could explain the negative perception. The quantitative and qualitative evidence both support the main hypothesis, which argues that Turkish politicians’ perceived threats to valued resources play a substantial role in their unfavorable descriptions of Greeks. The quantitative analysis illustrates that debating about past and present threats,⁶⁷ namely the Turkish War of Independence, the Cyprus dispute, and the fishermen dispute, is a very reliable predictor of the negative perception regardless of the political party membership of the MP, whether the speaker is in government or in opposition, the parliamentary period of the talk, and the type of Greek description. Indeed, approximately 60 percent of the speeches that described Greeks negatively were on these topics. The in-depth qualitative analysis presents complementary findings. It unveils how Turkish politicians display Blumer’s (1958) four feelings of group positioning: (1) superiority, (2) difference, (3) proprietary claim, and (4) perceived threats. It also explores the few cases of nonnegative descriptions, which do not fit the theoretical perspective. In so doing, it demonstrates that these cases were either influenced by the general Turkish foreign policy principle of keeping peace with the Greeks or referred to perceived threats anecdotally without any elaboration, which might have reduced the opportunities to describe Greeks negatively as an enemy threatening valued resources. In short, the article demonstrates that Turkish political parties portrayed Greeks negatively when they associated them with perceived threats.

This study concludes that the unfavorable perceptions of Greeks are predominantly a function of politicians’ perceived threats to valued resources, namely sea and land borders. It seems that the historical anxiety about dismemberment by a collective effort of foreign powers and minorities, namely the Sèvres syndrome, provided a fertile ground for the negative perception. This should not come as a surprise, because not only the decisive part of the Turkish War of Independence was fought against the Greeks but also the disputes about sea and land borders between Greece and Turkey continued during the period of the analysis. As members of the dominant group, the Turkish political elites were wary of Greek expansionism. When they reflect on any topics related to this threat, they often show a prejudiced attitude. In other words, the paper shows that group position theory can help to explain the negative perception of Greeks in Turkish politics. In parallel, to halt prejudiced attitudes toward the non-Muslim communities, Turkish politics could benefit from effective management of threat perception.

By analyzing the factors influencing Turkish parliamentarians’ negative perceptions of Greeks between 1946 and 1960, this research brings together two academic literatures: group position theory and literature related to the perception of non-Muslims in Turkey. The conclusion is in line with the academic research that presents evidence of the influence of sociopolitical anxieties about dismemberment on the negative perception of non-Muslims in Turkey.⁶⁸ Millas observes that Greek community members in Turkey were depicted as a fifth column in early Republican Turkish literature.⁶⁹ According to Grigoriadis, the anxiety that foreign powers and minorities aimed to dismember Turkey was principally projected on the Greeks.⁷⁰ Indeed, this article contributes to group position theory by providing a novel context and exploring parliamentary records.

As Carter and Lippard insightfully highlight, academic studies on intergroup hostility could go beyond intra-individual attitudes by examining broader structural factors that contribute to prejudice.⁷¹ Thus, more research is needed to analyse parliamentary debates on outgroups in Turkey and beyond, because they are decisive in policymaking as well as in shaping social attitudes.⁷² In addition, Turkish-Greek relations continue to generate various tensions, which were manifest in the recent debates on the conversion of the Hagia Sophia museum to a mosque,⁷³ tensions on the border concerning the influx of refugees from Turkey to Greece,⁷⁴ and disputes over oil and gas claims in the Eastern Mediterranean.⁷⁵ It is imperative to understand the factors that contribute to politicians’ hostile attitudes. Future studies could benefit from scrutinizing parliamentary records in Greece and Turkey to explore the dynamics of this important hostility and develop strategies to avoid conflicts.

Acknowledgements

This research was facilitated through a research grant from the A.G. Leventis Foundation. Furthermore, a short-term scientific mission grant (STSM) from the COST Action (CA20107) significantly enhanced the quality of the article. I would also like to express my appreciation to Dr. Metin Yüksel and Mr. Arda Sirkeci for their invaluable assistance in creating the dataset. Lastly, I extend my sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by A.G. Leventis Foundation; Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación: [grant no RYC2018-023919-I]; COST Action (CA20107).

Notes on contributors

Türkay Salim Nefes

Turkay Salim Nefes is a Ramón y Cajal Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Goods and Policies of the Spanish National Research Council. He was a William Golding Junior Research Fellow at the Brasenose College of the University of Oxford. His main research interest is the diffusion and impacts of ethno-religious hostility, particularly conspiracy theories. He has published his work on conspiracy theories in academic journals including The British Journal of Sociology, Rationality and Society, and The Sociological Review. His work can be accessed at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tuerkay_Nefes

Notes

1 DW, “Turkey and Greece Talk.”

2 Athanassopoulou, “Blessing in disguise?”

3 Karpat, Studies on Turkish Politics.

4 Aytürk, “Nationalism and Islam.”

5 Loizides, “Elite Framing”; Loizides, “State Ideology”; and Nefes, “Political Roots.”

6 Carter and Lippard, “Group Position.”

7 For example, Biggs and Knauss, “Explaining Membership,” and Schneider, “Anti-immigrant Attitudes.”

8 Barkey, Empire of Difference.

9 Melson, “A Theoretical Inquiry.”

10 Veremis, “The Hellenic Kingdom.”

11 Deringil, “The Armenian Question.”

12 Adisonmez, “When Conflict Traumas Fragment.”

13 Guida, “The Sèvres Syndrome.”

14 Arı, Büyük Mübadele.

15 Alexandris, The Greek Minority, and Solomonovich, “Marrying the Enemy?”

16 Beylunioğlu and Kaymak, “The Perception”; Grigoriadis, “Between Citizenship and the Millet”; and Neyzi, “Remembering to Forget.”

17 Kuyucu, “Ethno-religious ‘Unmixing’.”

18 Örs, “Beyond.”

19 Alexandris, The Greek Minority.

20 Kuyucu, “Ethno-religious ‘Unmixing’.”

21 Borou, “The Muslim Minority.”

22 Ibid.

23 Grigoriadis, “Between Citizenship and the Millet.”

24 Ibid.

25 Athanassopoulou, “Blessing in Disguise?,” and Schmitt, “The Greek-Turkish Dispute.”

26 Grigoriadis, “Between Citizenship and the Millet.”

27 Karpat, Ottoman Population.

28 Bobo, “Prejudice as Group Position.”

29 Blumer, “Race Prejudice.”

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid.

32 Bobo and Hutchings, “Perceptions.”

33 Blumer, “Race Prejudice.”

34 Ibid.

35 Quillian, “Prejudice,” and Quillian, “Group Threat.”

36 Grigoriadis, “Between Citizenship and the Millet,” and Millas, “The Image.”

37 Aviv, Antisemitism; Bali, “Cumhuriyet Döneminde Azınlıklar Politikası”; Bali, Devlet’in Yahudileri; Göl, “Imagining the Turkish Nation”; Toktas, “Citizenship and Minorities”; Nefes, “The Sociological Foundations”; Nefes, “Perceived Group Threats”; and Nefes, “Three Shades.”

38 Beylunioğlu and Kaymak, “The perception of minorities.”

39 Gökalp, The Principles of Turkism.

40 Ibid.

41 Ünlü, “Türklük Sözleşmesi’nin Imzalanışı (1915-1925).”

42 Kolbe and Burnett, “Content-analysis Research.”

43 White and Marsh, “Content Analysis.”

44 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 10, Legislative Year 4, Sitting 4 (16.11.1956), p. 16.

45 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 11, Legislative Year 3, Sitting 49 (27.02.1960), p. 29.

46 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 8, Legislative Year 4, Sitting 59 (23.03.1949), p. 9.

47 McHugh, “Interrater Reliability,” and Neuendorf, The Content Analysis Guidebook.

48 Lacy, Watson, Riffe, and Lovejoy, “Issues and Best Practices.”

49 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 8, Legislative Year 2, Sitting 22 (24.12.1946), p. 34

50 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 10, Legislative Year 4, Sitting 78 (07.06.1957), p. 13.

51 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 9, Legislative Year 4, Sitting 47 (19.02.1953), p. 54.

52 The Megali Idea is an irredentist term, which refers to reviving the Byzantine Empire by expanding the Greek state to parts of the Southern Balkans, Asia Minor, and Cyprus.

53 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 10, Legislative Year 3, Sitting 44 (25.02.1956), p. 63.

54 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 10, Legislative Year 3, Sitting 76 (13.06.1956), p. 5.

55 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 10, Legislative Year 3, Sitting 15 (16.12.1955), p. 7.

56 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 10, Legislative Year 3, Sitting 44 (25.02.1956), p. 26.

57 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 10, Legislative Year 2, Sitting 49 (25.02.1955), p. 52.

58 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 9, Legislative Year 4, Sitting 54 (26.02.1953), p. 93.

59 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 10, Legislative Year 3, Sitting 17 (21.12.1955), p. 8.

60 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 9, Legislative Year 5, Sitting 64 (11.03.1954), p. 52.

61 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 11, Legislative Year 2, Sitting 82 (17.07.1959), p. 9.

62 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 10, Legislative Year 4, Sitting 46 (25.02.1957), p. 61.

63 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 9, Legislative Year 2, Sitting 50 (24.02.1951), p. 24.

64 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 11, Legislative Year 3, Sitting 47 (25.02.1960), p. 37.

65 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 11, Legislative Year 2, Sitting 32 (28.02.1959), p. 49.

66 TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi, Term 8, Legislative Year 3, Sitting 64 (28.05.1948), p. 18.

67 In its examination of discussions pertaining to threat-related subjects, this analysis refrains from delving into the minutiae of the 6–7 September events. Despite the undeniable historical significance of this event in the context of non-Muslims in modern Turkish history, it did not signal a direct threat to the overarching Turkish populace and therefore is not in the scope of group position theory. Moreover, the parliamentary debate’s general tone on the events reflects an interest and, at times, empathy towards all those affected, including the Greeks.

68 Beylunioğlu and Kaymak, “The perception”; Gürpınar, Conspiracy Theories; and Nefes, “The Relationship.”

69 Millas, “The Image.”

70 Grigoriadis, “Between Citizenship and the Millet.”

71 Carter and Lippard, “Group Position.”

72 Draege, “Parliamentary Discussions.”

73 BBC, “Hagia Sophia.”

74 BBC, “Greece Finishes Fence”

75 BBC, “Turkey-Greece Tensions.”