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Isnt it weird how you never hear about the gypsies? They sure look like they count as a capital-M Minority: Very poor, very uneducated, very bad relations to the police, they even were in the Nazi camps. But in political discourse they might as well not exist. Im vaguely aware that our eastern neighbors have more of them and its more of a topic there, but this doesnt make it to me either. I just searched for it and best I found is this, from 2020. Theres sightly more in german, but compared to the media volume dedicated to telling me that Orban is mean to the gays, it might as well not exist. While I was at it I also looked for the "list of gypsies that made important contributions to science", and that actually doesnt exist. The only thing that remotely looks like a hit is this, which has three people on it: one with a possible nth-generation ancestor, and two that google isnt even sure exist.
I find this interesting as a point of comparison. Theres lots of people out there of even opposing ideologies giving mechanistic explanations of how the shared characteristics of Minorities lead to the political discourse around them, and then heres a case where it just didnt.
Being obsessed with minority identities is an American thing. It is produced in American academia and politics and later exported to the rest of the World through the extreme penetration power of American media. Gypsies don't really exist in America (or just blend in with the rest of the white trash population as far as I could understand from watching My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding) so they aren't a part of minority politics. This is very much in accordance with how average German, British or Hungarian liberal will be obsessed with black people but ignore or even just dislike the (sometimes much larger) Turkish Arab or Albanian populations in their midst.
Having constant positive concern for some foreigners living among your group and generally acting anti-social even violent towards you is not the normal state of any society and cannot be sustained without constant elite or outside pressure.
I vividly remember backpacking through Europe during the refugee crisis and being approached by random old people who tried to tell me random positive things like how beautiful my eyes are etc. I am a guy and not particularly handsome so I was pretty confused at the time but later I realized this was happening because they thought I was a Syrian refugee with my tattered clothes and backpack and the European media was choke full of the innocent plight of Syrian refugees. It is not anymore, and needless to say I don't get approached by random olds to be told about my beautiful eyes anymore.
The turks do have a kind of minority politics. Its a lot less intense than the US with blacks, but they have their highly credentialed representatives that get a good bit of stage time and diversity-grants, and theyre a topic in political discussion. The mindset you describe exists and is something you might filter into as a visitor from anglostan, but its pretty niche. So I dont think the atlantic fully explains the situation with the gypsies.
I don't think the minority politics of Turks in Europe fit in with the model of American blacks at all to be honest. I am Turk in Europe myself so I will share how I see this phenomenon citing myself as the source.
By and large there are 2 types of Turkish politicians in Western Europe.
The first kind is Dilan Yesilgoz (Minister of Interior from center-right Dutch government party) or Cem Ozdemir (Minister of Agriculture from German Greens). These are people who are nominally Turkish, but very well integrated such that they carry this identity typically as a burden and would probably be happier if they didn't have such funny foreign names. It is generally considered a tad bit racist to remember that they are Turks when discussing their performance as politicians, even though it is obviously in everyone's minds for better or worse. Usually they can't actually attract a sizable Turkish community to vote for their parties, or if they do, it is because of idiosyncratic internal diasphora reasons opaque to the broader population.
The second, and more controversial kind is most clearly exemplified by DENK in the Netherlands, but also most Turkish politicians in social democratic parties used to fit this type. These are mostly recruited and promoted internally in these parties because of their "minority advocate" status, practically subject to different standards than native members. They bring in a substantial amount of Turkish voters with them, and are typically rather conservative Muslims who know how to talk around the European taboos and avoid getting into trouble for their actual views. Their campaigning usually happens in mosques or cultural centers funded by the Turkish government*, in Turkish. The existence of such people make Europeans quite uncomfortable, and they often really want to confirm you aren't one of them when you enter a conversation before going further in more or less polite ways depending on their education level.
The business model of the second kind I have described has collapsed around the time when a lot of European countries were passing Armenian genocide recognition bills through their parliaments. When pressed to make a clear display of their loyalty, they either chose voting no and losing access to the social Democratic Party networks, or they vote yes and lost their constituents, effectively making them useless. Up until this point they pattern-matched much more successfully to the American-black model of minority organizations (i.e. mostly subservient voting crowds for the left in exchange for some gibs). Since then, there is total chaos as to what to do with these people. They are being forced to choose a clear side before being given national prominence. Many of the formerly exemplary "Euroturks" like Mesut Ozil got cancelled when they refused to do so.
Meanwhile you don't see such problems with Jamaicans in Germany for example. They might not be a net benefit to the society, but politically it is basically given that when they are given grants, positions and organizations, they will become adjunct to the prevailing progressive narrative.
The model of the second kind was indeed a big part of what I had in mind. I wasnt aware of the changes. Around when would you say this happened, and how are the supporting organisations that dont have to take a position doing? I would love some more details; so far this sounds to me more like an accidental hiccough than the model not fitting at all.
Until 2010s Erdogan was the sweetheart of many euro politicians and it was imagined that he would usher in an era of Islamic democracy similar to Christian democratic parties, rapidly integrating Turkey to Europe economically politically and socially. Then the euro crisis happened, destroying any pull power European economic model had on a country like Turkey. In aggregate, the EU has seen almost nil economic growth for a decade now and their insane fiscal policies are clearly hurting peripheral countries. So EU has become a very tough sell in Turkish politics. More importantly the Arab spring has turned into a total massive disaster and this unleashed geopolitical chaos where Turkey found itself often competing against European countries in core interest areas.
This bit is my opinion but I think at this point the European countries made a massive strategic mistake, attributed Turkey's hostile turn to Erdogan himself, and burned through their political capital in Turkey (media and academia contacts, NGO networks, more covert agents etc) trying to get rid of him in favor of a more "moderate" leader. What they couldn't identify well is that these new hostile policies had a large support base among the traditional Turkish state, foreign policy and army establishment. So he could survive the attempts on his power through making deals with the establishment and drawing from his massive personal charisma and support base.
Ever since, there is a Cold War between the EU and Turkey and therefore the first type of euroturk politicians had to come out directly against their homeland and alienate themselves, while the second type became vulnerable to attacks of ideological non-conformity. It is considered racist to purge someone because he is Turkish, but totally acceptable to do so if this compels him to violate some newfound taboos about Armenian genocide remembrance or LGBTQ or Erdogan.
I believe at the root of all of this lies the fact that American style minority identity doesn't cover minorities like euroturks very well. Turks themselves can't really identify with it, and the German primal brain doesn't pattern match these people to the blacks/jews minority victim matrix. But the European countries are largely unable to imagine other ways of maintaining minority population relations (like the Russian or Iranian models, who also have lots of Turkic minorities but Turkey has very little pull on those people) and they are stuck to the American progressive liberal democracy model. This creates a wide opening for the Turkish state to maintain a connection with the Diaspora.
So I thought the Armenian is just a collision without deeper meaning, the sort of dissonance that all ideologies have to paper over occasionally. But because the Turkey in the loop not only provides resources for the activism in Europe but still actively sets the agenda, the Germans use it as an indicator of loyalty in their conflict with Turkey, which is the actual problem. I knew euroturks have their nationalist shibboleths that they care about; I didnt notice they were still so responsive to the situation in Turkey. Am I understanding you right?
From the austrian end myself, it doesnt feel like the discourse around the turks has changed much since the 2000s. I still do have the impression that we match them into the minority pattern in some sense. Admittedly it rare to meet someone whos very serious about this without being selected for it. Certainly poking at the associated PC taboos is much less serious then with the jews. With the turks, someone "correcting" you might imply that he knows we just have to pretend to believe this - but it still is there. I can see though how that difference might look much smaller on our end then the receiving one.
For most Turkish people the Armenian genocide represents mainly a time period when outside powers set out to destroy or dominate us, and used the ethnic fractures of the Empire for their ends. The feeling is that they were treacherous at our time of need, and things that happened were unpleasant but deserved and just. So when the topic is brought up it is done so in bad faith and as a tool of domination and therefore the response must be harsh and uncompromising because that is what high asabiyyah communities do when they are under attack. So there is no dissonance in people's minds. I can write further later about how this attitude has formed since until 70s-80s it was well known and accepted by virtually everyone what happened in 1915 and there was no such fighting over history.
Yes I think so. People still vacation back in Turkey almost every summer, watch Turkish TV at home, find marriage partners from back in the village (even instead of other local Turks), socialize their kids at mosques etc. There is very strong emotional connection. I think in the case of America, the cultural and economical power of the country is so immense that no immigrant group can resist almost total assimilation in a generation. Germany, Belgium etc lack such a strong culture and the will to create one so they are failing to break the cohesion of most groups who can't find themselves a place in the overarching American superstructure. It creates a large opening for the Turkish state to exploit. Often it is not even that cynical, the immigrants themselves really want the attention and the sense of belonging and will complain how Turkey should do even more to stay connected with them!
Is it your opinion that it was deserved and just to kill all those armenians? Your empire wasn't seriously threatened at the time, shit you went to war for two german tubs. Okay perhaps some light ethnic cleansing/population exchange was necessary in some sense, but referring to
genocideindustrial scale killing of civilians as just and deserved?I quite like the turks I know, but I chalk that up to he influence of their ‘father’, who rightly despised Islam. I thought perhaps the turks could secularize the rest of the muslim world, show them how it's done. But when Erdogan seemingly decided to roll back his influence, for me the prospect of letting turkey into the eu lost all appeal.
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I meant within german progressives, or the overall coalition. As in, turkish opinions on the treatment of the armenians is something progressives would have a problem with, but is not immediately relevant here and now, so absent the loyalty conflict they could have ignored it.
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