Aslı Iğsız
RETHINKING THE LEGACY OF THE GREEK-TURKISH POPULATION EXCHANGE
The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey constitutes an important reference point for the post-1945 era when segregative policies started to be implemented systematically. We can treat segregative policies as spatial, biological and/or social differentiation of groups generalized under a specific definition, and subjecting these groups to different policies. On one hand, these definitions are based on concepts such as religion, ethnicity, language, culture and/or race; on the other hand, they serve as a step towards classifying people assigned to this defined group. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a link in the chain of policies called ‘unmixing’ was the population exchange between Turkey and Greece – which meant people were categorized over a religious definition and they were swapped between their geographic habitations. If that’s the case, how can we rethink the legacy of the exchange?
Treaty of Lausanne, signed on January 30, 1923, granted the institutional and legal framework for the exchange of ‘Turkish nationals of Greek Orthodox faith’ residing in Turkey with ‘Greek nationals of Muslim faith’ residing in Turkey by subjecting them to forced migration. Greek Orthodox Christians residing in Istanbul pre-1918, along with Greek Orthodox Christians in Tenedos and Imbros, and Muslims in Western Thrace were not included in the exchange. Similarly, Muslims living in Dodecanese islands under Italian rule then were not officially included in this agreement.
What could we say about those who were coded using religious concepts during the exchange –that is Muslim and Greek Orthodox– which translated into the language of demographic policies? Today, we know that neither the groups that arrived at Turkey nor the groups sent to Greece were homogenous. In fact, they were just the opposite of that. For instance, the Muslims sent to Turkey comprised of people with different backgrounds, but their differences were made invisible by the umbrella term ‘Muslim’ used to describe them. Among them were people who wanted to go to Turkey, and others who did not. Within this heterogenous group, we could list people who identify with different roots (for example, Venetians who have converted to Islam in Crete, members of the Shabbati Zvi order who had to convert to Islam in Thessaloniki, who are now referred to as ‘dönme(h)’ [convert in Turkish], Muslim relocated by the Ottomans, etc.), religious practices (Bektashi, Mevlevi orders etc.), languages (speaking Turkish, Turkish with an accent; no Turkish and only in Hellenic, and Hellenic with a Cretan accent, etc.); classes and cultural elements specific to a locality in Greece (such as food and music ). We could also add differing political views –and I use this term beyond just nationalism– to this list. Despite their differences and by ignoring them, all the people included in the exchange were grouped under the generalized umbrella of ‘religion’ and sent to Turkey by translating this categorical umbrella into a demographic policy. We are talking about a process by which people are defined using a single concept that renders their will and actions invisible -as long as they are not in line with state policies. For example, conversion was not offered as an option to stay in Greece or Turkey. Though, there could have been people opting to convert with their own will to be exempt from the exchange. This means that there was a type of corporal coding going on, since there are assumptions about these groups beyond their religion. Ultimately, the infrastructure of population policies is dependent on putting a heterogenous mass under a single category and constructing the notion of the state on top of that. In this case, religious differences are attributed a nation, and by changing the demographic distribution, they get to trap the heterogenous group boxed under a single category in the attributed land of the nation; therefore, we could say that the population at hand is built on a segregative logic that is manifested through quantitative and qualitative engineering. Moreover, how such a mixed group can be constructed through unmixing also should be interrogated. What we call ‘unmixing’ is a question about who ‘should not be mixed’ with whom.
This was surely not the first attempt at population engineering by swapping and relocating people. But the 1923 population exchange is considered important for it is the first exchange of its kind implemented following signing of an international treaty. It has become a critical reference point for implementing segregative policies, especially during the years following World War II. Turkey’s exchange policy was considered a ‘success’ story in the international arena during that period. Finally, exchange continues to factor heavily on the population policies as a reflection of the segregative logic.
Today, the legacy of the exchange is mostly treated from a cultural point of view. It’s an important aspect that should not be forgotten. Yet, cultural heritage is a notion that families that have experienced it remember, narrate, examine, self-identify with, and memorialize the exchange from different perspectives. It’s an important notion but one should remember that it is only one kind of all possible manifestations of the exchange today. Pivoting on this point, how can we think about the manifestations of exchange that survived until today beyond cultural heritage?
The segregative policies that were systematized following World War II carry important clues on this issue. For example, what do we see at the end of the World War II in local governments - whose complicity with the Nazi Germany is an issue not adequately addressed -even today? At the historical juncture where the United Nations was formed, instead of recognizing and dealing with the segregative policies that lie in the core of population policies, such as exchanges, we see that the minorities were increasingly perceived as a threat to social and international peace in the post-World War II era. New academic studies demonstrate that this is a process through which segregative policies, to which the United Nations are an accomplice, are justified in the name of ‘peace’ and the demographic distribution transforms into systematic engineering at a larger scale, which includes discussions such as 1945 Potsdam Conference –expatriation of German nationals residing in Central and Eastern Europe–, geographic and demographic distribution of India and Palestine in 1947 and 1948, Jewish communities residing in Arabic speaking countries in the Middle East being forced to migrate to Israel in return for Palestinians in the 1950s. The population exchange between Turkey and Greece constitutes an important reference point for the abovementioned population policies.
If we add the fusion of eugenics and demographics fields into the equation during the period that followed World War II, we see that the spatial distribution of population and restrictions to mobility emerge in different forms. For example, it has become a systematic practice to force so-called undesired groups to migrate to another country, which ensures a rapid outcome by which their numbers are reduced without killing them, instead of waiting out a long process such as securing population growth of a so-called desirable group through reproduction. Indisputably, it’s not the first time these are happening, but their scale and systematization are important aspects to consider. We are talking about an era referred to as the refugee crisis by the United Nations, which creates a platform for these kinds of discussions. Again, naturally, neither massacres nor genocides stop from happening. My point here is that, alongside violence, segregative policies are gaining traction and justified at a grand scale on a liberal platform in the name of ‘peace’ through its translation into population engineering and forced/restricted social-physical mobility. It should also be noted that segregative policies are not limited to exchange or deportations/expulsions – meaning it does not only happen internationally but also by drawing physical and social borders within a country. Examples from other continents include the apartheid regime in South Africa and the reflection of the same mentality through segregation in the USA.
The common denominator of all these is the process conceptualized as biopolitics by anthropologists, political science theorists and mobility researchers. The same concept is treated as engineering by those who historically examine the process. (Within the scope of my research, I have conceptualized biopolitics as segregative biopolitics where I try to define it as numerical redistribution of categorized bodies in places.) Additionally, history of demographics should be treated as a field where an academic discipline is implemented as a population policy. Likewise, demographics, beyond its usage as a synonym of population, has a historical and political contribution to biopolitics. Within this context, when they are treated separately, we can both observe the characteristics specific to each case and how they evolve and retrieve very important data from that case. On the other hand, adopting a local perspective falls short from effectively questioning what lies beneath the convergence point of these spatially segregative policies: biopolitics- comprised of segregative policies that create “public demand” and mobilize them through constructed categories that classify people, and policies that correspond to these “demands”. There should be larger scale conceptual discussions to honor this goal. To sum up, it will be helpful to consider the legacy of the exchange not only from the points of view adopted by Turkey and Greece, but also as a contribution to the systematization of the spatial and numerical distribution of the population through the segregative policies implemented. It’s evident that confronting this legacy should not only be through what it has segregated within the scope of the often-co-mentioned concept of unmixing, but also through inadequately questioned categorizations accepted for the purposes of segregation.
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