Non-Muslim Minorities in Turkey

The start of the Great War and the tumult it generated continued until the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Among the tragedies that happened in Turkish regions, that of Pontus, was characterised by massive killings, deportations, ethnic cleansings and other atrocities, which resulted in the disappearance of Christians without distinction to race, sect or nationality.

On top of that tragedy and for a different point of view in the study of those years, the testimony of Cirillo Giovanni Zohrabiàn is a valuable contribution. Born in Erzurum in 1881, Zohrabiàn was an Armenian Catholic of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. The records of his life between Erzurum and Trabzon in the years 1919-1923 were collected by him and published in Italian by Capuchins of Palermo in 1965 as his memories in Minor Asia.

In march 1923, the friar because of his assistance to Greeks of Pontus in terms of financial and humanitarian aid, was accused by Turkish authorities of being one of the leaders of Pontic Greek Committee, "the revolutionary Mesrob Sarkys". For that reason, he was expelled from Trabzon and sent by ship to Constantinople, where he was arrested, tortured and sentenced to death by hanging. Accused by the Turks, he sought for the help of the Dominican Order of the Church of SS Peter and Paul in Galata in order to prove his identity as friar. However, he was condemned to exile for helping the Greeks.

The aim of this paper is to expose the memories of Zorhabiàn. This would be the beginning of a research project on the Pontus tragedy based on Catholic archival and bibliography resources.

Turkey is fast becoming one of the largest markets for the trafficking of women from nearby former Soviet states who are brought into the country and forced into prostitution, an international agency said in a report released this week. Profits from the illicit sex trade in Turkey were estimated to be about $3.6 billion (€3 billion) last year and growing, the report said. About 5,000 women, more than half from Moldova and Ukraine, are believed to be working as sex slaves across Turkey, said an agency official. The prostitution networks made about $150 (€124) from each customer, with each woman serving as many as 15 clients a day.

Dans cette recherche, nous avons tenté de dévoiler le lien entre les politiques de la turquification et de l'accumulation primitive des musulmans-turcs par
dépossession des minorités non musulmanes en focalisant sur le local d'Edirne à partir du début du XXè siècle aux années 1970 à Edirne. Ces processus qui se sont déroulés à Edirne au cours des soixante années étaient un petit exemple spécifique des politiques de l'identité et l'économie à l'échelle nationale et qu'il peut suivre ce processus sur la base d'exemple d2Edirne.
Le paradigme nationaliste et l'identité nationale turque qui ont commencé à se cristalliser à la suite des guerres balkaniques ont conduit à appliquer des politiques
anti-minoritaires. Notre étude souligne la continuité des politiques économiques, sociales et identitaires dans la transition de l'Empire ottoman à la République de
Turquie. Alors, les politiques de l'Etat turc sont fondés sur deux piliers au sujet de la création de l'État-nation capitaliste: L'un des piliers était de nettoyer les minoritaires non-musulmanes considérées comme des éléments « étrangers de l'intérieur » et « dangereux » du pays, en un mot, de la liquidation. L'autre pilier était de former une classe sur laquelle l'État turc pourrait compter, au besoin, et qui pourrait s'appuyer dans le domaine économique. Toutefois, puisqu'il n'y avait pas assez du capital afin de créer une classe de la bourgeoisie composant des musulmans-turcs, le trio local « bureaucratie-peuple-notable » musulman-turc ont tenté d'obtenir leur accumulation primitive par dépossession des minoritaires non-musulmanes tels que les Arméniens et les Rums et les Juifs. D'abord, « la déportation des Arméniens » et l'expulsion et la migration forcée des Rums ont eu lieu. Puis, l'Expulsion des Juifs de Thrace s'est déroulée. Ensuite, le processus de l‟accumulation primitive à nouveau des musulmans-turcs par dépossession des non musulmans et la turquification du capital ont été réalisé par l'application de l'Impôt sur la Fortune. Enfin, les activités de la branche d'Edirne de l'Association pour la Lutte contre le Sionisme de Turquie ont forcé les Juifs restants de quitter Edirne.

The murder of more than one million Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish government in 1915 has been acknowledged as genocide. Yet almost 100 years later, these crimes remain unrecognized by the Turkish state. This book is the first attempt by a Turk to understand the genocide from a perpetrator's, rather than victim's, perspective, and to contextualize the events of 1915 within Turkey's political history and western regional policies. Turkey today is in the midst of a tumultuous transition. It is emerging from its Ottoman legacy and on its way to recognition by the west as a normal nation state. But until it confronts its past and present violations of human rights, it will never be a truly democratic nation. This book explores the sources of the Armenian genocide, how Turks today view it, the meanings of Turkish and Armenian identity, and how the long legacy of western intervention in the region has suppressed reform, rather than promoted democracy.

Introduction (for some reason, omitted from the publication!):

As late as the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Bitlis was home to a large and vibrant Christian community. Most documentation from that time records these as having been of Armenian ethnicity, yet a number of travellers’ accounts indicate the existence of an additional Christian ethnic group – the Assyrians, also known as “Jacobites” (Yakubiler), Old Syrians (Süryani Kadim) or Syriac Orthodox (Süryani Ortodoks). Not much is known of this elusive component of the city’s ethno-religious makeup due to a lack of detailed accounts or first-hand source material. This paper will endeavour to outline the main details of the Assyrian community in Bitlis, especially its numerical size, as deduced from Ottoman census data and limited travellers’ accounts. For the first time, however, a rare Assyrian source will be used to add more flesh and colour to our existing knowledge. This source is a list of tithes given to the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate in 1870, collected by the priest and monk ‘Abd-Allāh Saṭṭūf of Ṣadad. The list mentions a number of Assyrians who lived in Bitlis at the time, and who donated money to their Patriarchate in the Za’farān Monastery (near Mardin); their names reveal some interesting facts regarding the community’s social and cultural situation in the city. It also provides the details of six Assyrian villages in the Īrūn valley, more than 25 kilometres to the southeast, which were closely linked with the urban community. It is hoped that this contribution, resulting from the analysis of a little-known Syriac manuscript source, will illuminate a part of the Bitlis province’s diverse ethnic and religious makeup of which little was previously known about, adding to our knowledge of the city’s cultural milieu.

(Footnote: Between 15 August 1906 and 17 July 1915, Ignatius ‘Abdeh d-Aloho II Saṭṭūf was the Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, and head of the Syriac Orthodox Church. An edition of his tithes register was published by Fr. Iskandar Bcheiry in The Syriac Orthodox Patriarchal Register of Dues of 1870: An Unpublished Historical Document from the Late Ottoman Period, Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press, 2009.)

“Well-documented and long-needed book on the multidimensional identity of the Arameans. It makes complex and confusing matters simple and clear.”
Prof. Dr. Werner Arnold, University of Heidelberg

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This most recent book on the fascinating history, identity and language of the Arameans (otherwise known as Syriacs) also discusses how some of them became ‘Assyrians’ after European and American travelers, mapmakers, missionaries, archaeologists and colonial powers came to the Middle East in the 19th century.

Aramaic is a remarkable gift from the Arameans to humankind and is best known as the language of Jesus. For 1500 years, it was spoken and written throughout the Near East until Arabic replaced it. Aramaic and the Arameans survived mighty empires and played a significant role for Jews, Christians and Muslims in the birth of their religion and literature, including the Bible and the Qur’an.

What else did they contribute to world culture? When and why did the Syriac, ‘Nestorian’, Melkite, Maronite and Chaldean churches come into being, some of whom preserved Aramaic to this day? What do their church fathers and scholars say about their traditional self-identifications? How can we understand often-used names like Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Suryaye, Suryoye and as-suroye?

These and other intriguing questions answered in this work have been enriched with four unique and hitherto unpublished documents about this Semitic people. Readers interested in the history, language, religion and identity of the Arameans, who are indigenous to Southeast Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, will find great value in this book on the last Aramaic-speaking Christians of the Middle East.

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The book is available from www.johnymesso.com (incl. book trailer).

Minorities in the Turkish Census (1927-1965): Albanian, Arab, Armenian, Bosnian, Bulgar, Circassian (Çerkes), Georgian, Greek (Rum), Kurd, Laz, Roman, Tatar, "Yiddish".
Abhazca, Arnavutça, Arapça, Armenian, Boşnakça, Bulgarca, Çerkezce, Gürcüce, Rumca, Kıptice, Lazca, Tatarca, Yahudice/Musevilik...

This dissertation began the day I saw the headline of the Turkish daily Hürriyet on its front page on 21 February 2004: ―SABIHA GÖKÇEN‘S 80-YEAR-OLD SECRET.‖ I was in the Giesel library of the UC San Diego casually surfing the Turkish news while trying to finish a seminar paper. Was Sabiha Gökçen, Atatürk ‘s adopted daughter, the world‘s first combat war pilot, the only heroine of the Turkish Republic, an Armenian? Agos, Turkish-Armenian community‘s weekly newspaper, had reported so, according to Hürriyet. I was captivated. It was as if I had been looking for something in this world, and I had finally found it one rainy afternoon on Hürriyet ‘s internet page.

I had never heard about Hrant Dink until I saw Hürriyet that day. I came home and immediately sent emails to a few colleagues inquiring about how I could get in touch with Dink. I got his email on the very same day. I wrote to him and asked if he could send me a few copies of Agos that had the coverage on Gökçen. He never wrote me back. One week later, I found Agos issues folded in a nylon bag in my UCSD mailbox in the Department of Communication. When I touched that package, this dissertation became a ―matter of fate‖, as C.J. Jung mentioned it on writing.

Bu ülke ve bu ülkenin
insanları büyük bir macera yaşadı. 1850-1950 yılları arasındaki yüz
yıl içinde yaşanan macera, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti sınırlarını aşan, Balkanlar ve
Ortadoğu’yu da kapsayarak dönüştüren bir maceraydı. Yaşanan maceranın
temel özelliği, temel aksı, temel değişim doğrultusu; çok dinli, çok uluslu ve
tarıma dayalı bir imparatorluk yapısından ulus devletlere geçiş sürecidir. Bu
süreç, sancılı, zahmetli, acılarla dolu, bireylerin hayatlarında travmatik izler
bırakan olaylarla dolu bir süreçti.

This book introduces the reader to the past and present of Jewish life in Turkey and to Turkish Jewish diaspora communities in Israel, Europe, Latin America and the United States. It surveys the history of Jews in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, examining the survival of Jewish communities during the dissolution of the empire and their emigration to America, Europe, and Israel. In the cases discussed, members of these communities often sought and seek close connections with Turkey, even if those ‘ties that bind’ are rarely reciprocated by Turkish governments. Contributors also explore Turkish Jewishness today, as it is lived in Israel and Turkey, and as found in ‘places of memory’ in many cities in Turkey, where Jews no longer exist today.

This study analyzes the political reasons that allowed the Islamic State to expand successfully in Syria and Iraq, by enabling to ‘franchise’ worldwide, and the role of the regional governments in this issue. The essay provides a different explanation from the classic approach of the “clash of civilizations” theorized by Samuel P. Huntington, ascribing responsibility for the growth and expansion of the Islamic State to the complex framework of geopolitical alliances within the Muslim civilization and the Arab world. The paper highlights the attempt by Turkey to establish itself as a regional power and guidance of the Islamic world, by resurrecting the Caliphate, and, based on this, explains the contrast with the Islamic State, which goal is the foundation of a globalized Caliphate. The plans of the Turkish President Erdoğan for a Great Turkey, allied with Egypt, have foundered with the coup that ousted the Muslim Brotherhood from power. The study relates the connection of Ankara with the Kurds, regarding the management of the crisis in Syria and Iraq, and the Turkish liaison with regional powers (Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel) and other powers (Russia, Cina and USA).

Researched by Frank Dougan 02/04/2022
Jesus Christ denouncing Turkish devil ERDOGAN for desecrating and turning one of the greatest Christian Churches in the world the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople into the House of Satanic  for the worshippers of the Satanic Verses “By Salman Rushdie”.

Jesus of Nazareth - Hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23) https://youtu.be/mD--lHALcm0 via @YouTube
https://youtu.be/mD--lHALcm0

Του Θρασύβουλου Ορ. Παπαστρατή Ι. ΑΓΙΟΣ ΣΤΕΦΑΝΟΣ Άγιος Στέφανος, προάστιο της Προποντίδας, αριστοκρατικό ήδη από το 19 ο αιώνα. Την εικόνα αυτή, αλλά και τον ειδυλλιακό του χαρακτήρα διατηρεί σε γενικές γραμμές μέχρι τις μέρες μας, σε αντίθεση με την πλειοψηφία των ιστορικών οικισμών της Πόλης, όπου η αλλοίωση είναι τρομακτική. Στη μνήμη των παλαιότερων θα φέρνει ασφαλώς τα ακούσματα από την υπογραφή της ομώνυμης Συνθήκης, που συνδέθηκε άρρηκτα με την ιστορία της περιοχής και της ευρύτερης βαλκανικής. Κάπως έτσι άκουσα κι εγώ στα παιδικά μου χρόνια, στο μάθημα της Ιστορίας -όταν ακόμη τα παιδιά μάθαιναν κάποια πράγματα στα ελληνικά σχολεία -γι' αυτό τον ιστορικό Θρακικό οικισμό. Οι νεώτεροι θα συνδέουν το προάστιο αναπόφευκτα με το παρακείμενο διεθνές αεροδρόμιο Ατατούρκ, η δημιουργία και επέκταση του οποίου άλλαξε τη γεωγραφία, την περιβαλλοντική πορεία, αλλά και την οικονομία ολόκληρου του ευρύτερου χώρου. Τόπος αυτοκρατορικών κυνηγίων, προφανώς επειδή ήταν κοντά στην Βασιλεύουσα και ταυτόχρονα απόμερη, η περιοχή ήταν γνωστή ως Ζεύγμα. Στα αρχαία χρόνια ο τόπος ονομαζόταν Φοινίκη. Η ονομασία Άγιος Στέφανος της προσδόθηκε επειδή συνδέεται με τη μετακομιδή των λειψάνων του αρχιδιάκονου και πρωτομάρτυρα Στέφανου, στη μνήμη του οποίου είχε ανεγερθεί παλαιόθεν ομώνυμος ναός. Οι τουρκικές αρχές στα 1 Δημοσιεύτηκε σε 4 συνέχειες στην εφημερίδα των Κωνσταντινουπολιτών Ο Πολίτης (Α'-Δ' φ. 540-543, Απρίλιος-Ιούλιος 2012). Το κεφάλαιο «Από τα Γαλατάρια στο Σενλίκιοϊ», δημοσιεύτηκε στην Απογευματινή της Κωνσταντινούπολης (φ. 10780/28.11.2014).

Introductory pptx prepared for the online conference organized by Dr. Fabio Grassi and Dr. Fulvio Bertucelli on Nov. 30, 2021.

Full recording of the Conference: https://uniroma1.zoom.us/rec/share/HQmO62ehWxqWRZtk-g04jwfRF62boNSVAVA5BPWrxsvcAnRSsZoA07uW4QZs4oLl.84sJknDc9Lps4E4w

Bu çalışmada Yunan işgaliyle birlikte Aydın Sancağı’nda gayrimüslimlerin
nüfus hareketi (Rumlar, Museviler), işgalle birlikte meydana gelen tutum ve davranışlarındaki değişim incelenecektir. Buna göre, İzmir’in işgaliyle Aydın Sancağı’nda yaşayan gayrimüslim unsurların, özellikle Rumların, yaşadıkları bölgelerin Yunan hâkimiyeti altına girmesi hayaliyle işgale yardımcı olmaları noktasındaki faaliyetleri irdelenecektir. Buradan hareketle başta casusluk faaliyeti olmak üzere, Yunan ordusuna nefer olarak katılmaları, asırlarca barış içerisinde yan yana yaşadıkları Müslüman ahaliye yaptıkları işkenceler, velhasıl Batı Anadolu’nun Yunanlaşması için sarf ettikleri çabalar ele alınacaktır. Bu
amaçlarına ulaşmanın dayanak noktasını olan nüfus varlığı çabaları da incelenecektir.
XX. Yüzyılın başlarında Batı Anadolu’nun genelinde olduğu gibi, Aydın
Sancağı’nda da gayrimüslimlerin nüfusundaki devamlı değişkenlik ele alınacaktır. Balkan Savaşları, Birinci Dünya Savaşı’nın siyasi ve askeri gelişmelerinin etkisiyle bölgeden Yunanistan’a ve Adalar’a firar eden Rumlar, Yunan işgaliyle birlikte tekrar Batı Anadolu sahillerine, hususiyle de Aydın Sancağı sahillerine, gelmeye başlamaları konunun temellerinden olacaktır. Böylece hem uluslararası temsilcilerin raporlarını etkilemek için nüfusu çok göstermeyi, hem de Yunan ordusuna katılmak suretiyle amaçları tespit edilecektir. Yunan işgaline kadar Türklerle barış içerisinde yaşayan yerli Rumların, firari Rumların da gelişiyle, bir tutum değişikliği içerisine girmeleri ve bölgedeki tutumları Rumların politikaları bağlamında ele alınacaktır.

This chapter examines the continuities and ruptures in Turkey's ruling ideologies. Rather than engaging in a detailed study of each of the major ideological traditions-Ittihadism, Kemalism, Turkism, centre-right politics, and political Is-lam, which merit dedicated studies of their own evolution, this essay seeks to understand the logics of power and statecraft, which are common to these ideologies that came to power in different periods of modern Turkish history. The ascent to power of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and its political conduct only reinforces this chapter's core argument that groups in power have acted in comparable, if not similar, ways to organize and maintain power in society despite their ideological differences. The control and instrumentalization of the state apparatus is central to the pursuit of the maintenance of power. This pursuit has reflected the Janus-faced nature of the Turkish state as authoritarian (and with reference to its illicit operations as 'deep state '-derin devlet-) but also as paternalistic, providing and all-embracing 'father state '(devlet baba). On the one hand, it entails an amal-gam of coercive and often destructive policies to oppress dissent. On the other, it involves more integrative policies of a service state. Some of these conceptual building blocks of modern Turkey and its ruling ideologies began to lose their prevalence during the exceptional reform period in the late 1990s and early 2000s induced by the prospect of European Union membership, but have since been restored as power has been consolidated in the hands of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Turkey’s journey towards one-man rule and a new political system without checks and balances turned a new corner with the disputed national referendum on 16 April 2017. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won new powers from voters, which confirmed his consistent efforts over years to transform Turkey from a secular Western democratic country into a political Islamist and authoritarian police state. Erdogan once said that democracy, for him, is not the objective but rather a tool, comparing it to a bus within a journey. “Once I get to my stop, I will get off.” Apparently, after highly controversial elections, Erdogan has arrived at his stop, and he has gotten off the democracy bus. Many scholars agree that the secular Republic of Turkey as it has been known does not exist anymore, and it is not coming back under the Erdogan dicta.

As a consequence, the West now has to deal with a political Islamist police state with a large portion of radicalised citizens. The priorities should be set to assist and help the people suffering in Turkey at the hands of Erdogan’s regime, many guilty of nothing more than not supporting the status quo. The West, when dealing with Erdogan, should seriously consider extending their support to the people suffering inside Turkey. Europe has ample leverage against Erdogan, including travel sanctions against individual members of the Turkish government, economic sanctions, refusal to sell arms, and politically pressuring the Erdogan regime. All these tools should be considered to assist the suffering Turks in the name of humanity and for the future bilateral and peaceful relationship between Turkey and Europe after Erdogan’s departure. European countries should also consider taking the allegations against the Turkish president listed in this article to the International Criminal Court at The Hague for the crimes against humanity. Europe must prioritise a sincere approach in order to neutralise threats coming from the Erdogan regime and his supporters and extend their hands to the brave citizens who did not accept becoming part of Erdogan’s dicta. While many Turkish citizens have found refuge in Europe, thousands are still being tortured, raped and even killed in Turkey. The world must find a way to stop this misery before it becomes a tragic loss of life reminiscent of the worst crimes in world history.

http://www.orient-online.com/

http://www.orient-online.com/issues/ORIENT-III/2017

The so-called Islamic State and the (slow but steady) Radicalisation of Turkey. Available from:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318066367_The_so-called_Islamic_State_and_the_slow_but_steady_Radicalisation_of_Turkey [accessed Jul 5, 2017].

This book provides a solid and critical historical examination of the endorsement, development and course of Greek nationalism among the lay/clerical leadership of the Greek Orthodox minority of Istanbul during the last phase of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the first years of the newly established Republic of Turkey.

The focus is on the political role played by the ethnocentric communal elite, who actively championed the Greek nationalist plan of the Megali Idea (Great Idea). Based on a comparative investigation and synthesis of a wide array of Greek and British archival sources the book engages with the various stages of Constantinopolitan Greek elite nationalism in Turkey and partly in Greece, and examines its manifestations, its level of success and its consequences on the minority during the crucial period of 1918-1930. The main argument is that the internal dynamics, the policies and the responses of this powerful communal elite vis-à-vis other communal factions as well as Greek irredentism and Turkish nation-building conditioned to a significant degree the construction of specific representations and perceptions of the group’s collective identity and determined the status of the Greeks of Istanbul as a national minority in Turkey until nowadays.

Providing a thorough analysis of elite politics during and in the aftermath of the Greek-Turkish War and assessing the application of the minority clauses of the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923), the volume is a key resource for students and academics interested in nationalism and minorities, modern Greek history, Ottoman and Turkish history as well as for policy makers and specialists working in the diplomatic field, the Greek and Turkish public service, international institutions and non-governmental organizations.

In this article, I aim to discuss this period during which ‘Dersim’ came out of the shadows, by focusing on a political controversy surrounding an interview given by Hüseyin Aygün, then CHP’s Tunceli MP, to the newspaper Zaman in 2011. I argue that, regarding the Alevi question in Turkey, the growing visibility of Dersim Alevism in Turkish politics was one of the most important developments in the 2000s.
.
In the wake of the interview with CHP’s Tunceli MP Hüseyin Aygün, printed in Zaman on 10 November 2011, we witnessed an interesting media debate that is rare in Turkish media history. From 10 November to 29 December, 535 columns in twenty national newspapers addressed the issue of Dersim. Dersim – which, in the words of Dr Şükrü Aslan (2010), remained the ‘secret that everyone knows’ – was not suddenly and extensively talked about, in
line with the political struggles around the opening processes at the time. Through the statements of politicians from almost all political parties and campaigns organised by civic associations, it became apparent that the military operations conducted in Dersim in 1937–382 regained their relevance during the ‘Democratic Openings’ (see Ayata and Hakyemez 2013, Cansun 2013, Dilşa 2020).
.
ZIRH, B. C. (2022). DERSIM: THE PARADOX OF DISCLOSING ‘AN OPEN SECRET.’ In D. Özkul & H. Markussen (Eds.), The Alevis in Modern Turkey and the Diaspora: Recognition, Mobilisation and Transformation (pp. 78–100). Edinburgh University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv2dd47dt.10

In the Ottoman Empire, the population censuses were first introduced in 1831 in the modern sense. The censuses before this date are generally censuses for tax and land determination. Although these censuses provided illuminating information about the population characteristics of the region, they were insufficient to determine the population. With the modern population censuses, the state has tried to have detailed information about the human potential, military power and tax obligations. In this study, which was prepared on the basis of the "Non-Muslim Population Registry of Gevas, Karcık, Havasor and Vastan Districts in Van Province" which was recorded with H.1252 / M.1836 date, NFS.d code and 2795 number in the Prime Ministry Ottoman Archive, the population and the short history of Van from the past to the present were examined. Then, using the data in book 2795, the social situation and population characteristics of the region were discussed.

Over the last fifteen years, hundreds of Muslim citizens claiming Armenian descent have submitted petitions to Turkey's secular legal authorities asking for changes to both their name and religion in the public record. In this article, I discuss the name-change cases of Armenian return converts to further the debates on Turkish secularism and to critique the body of scholarship that welcomes the governing Justice and Development Party's legal reforms as a measure of growing religious tolerance. In the article's first part I analyze the historical foundations of the regulation of religion and name changes in Turkey by fully and explicitly engaging with law as a site where minority difference is constructed, authorized, and challenged. The article's second half offers an alternative reading of how tolerance functions as an aspect of the Justice and Development Party's reforms. Based on my investigation of specific legal forms of argument that converted Armenians and their lawyers put forward in today's secular courts, and how legal officers of the state respond to them, I demonstrate that legal reform has shifted the definition of religion as a marker of minority difference in legal space. I argue that the historical context of name change and religious conversion forces the limits of existing understandings of freedom of religion in Turkey, and that this renders visible historical injustices that cannot be resolved simply through the notion of “religious tolerance” in the co

If, as is widely argued, we live in a cosmopolitan moment, the processes of cosmopolitanization are sometimes fraught with danger. Describing contexts in which cosmopolitanism is censored, this article considers recursive erasures of difference in Turkish-Jewish architecture, bodily marking, and language that highlight this sense of dangerous cosmopolitanism. This scenario complicates the popular notion that cosmopolitanism requires public nomination of difference; instead, cosmopolitanism is sometimes observable only by accounting for knowledge of what should be kept private. Without a fundamental examination of the production and interpretation of knowledge of difference, reckonings of lived cosmopolitanism are incomplete.