Offending ethnic (hyper)sensitivities

Jenny Mikakos is a state Labor politician of Greek extraction in Victoria. On the 4th of May, she stood up in parliament and said a few words about the “Pontian genocide”.

On 19 May the Pontian community in Victoria and around the world will commemorate the 87th anniversary of the Pontian genocide that occurred in present day Turkey. Between 1916 and 1923 over 353 000 Pontic Greeks living in Asia Minor and in Pontos, which is near the Black Sea, died as a result of the 20th century’s first but less known genocide. Over a million Pontic Greeks were forced into exile. In the preceding years 1.5 million Armenians and 750 000 Assyrians in various parts of Turkey also perished.

She then called on the Turkish government to take responsibility for what took place and apologise to its victims:

Unlike Germany, which has taken responsibility for the Jewish holocaust, Turkey has never apologised to its victims. The Turkish government must begin the reconciliation process by acknowledging these crimes against humanity. The suffering of the victims of the Pontian genocide cannot and will not be forgotten.

Naturally, this is a contentious issue with Turkey maintaining that no such massacre ever took place. On the other hand, the Greeks and Armenians, along with a number of international human rights organisations, maintain that huge numbers of their people did indeed die and the Turkish government was responsible.

Regardless of whether one believes Ms. Mikakos’ interpretation of historical events, the hysterical reaction from some members of the local Turkish community is surprising.

We read, for example, that the secretary of the ALP’s Coolaroo branch has written to Mr Bracks accusing Ms Mikakos of “a cynical exploitation of the anti-Muslim sentiment that currently prevails in the Western world due to the threat of terrorism”. The Age reports that the letter accuses Ms. Mikakos of racially vilifying the Turkish community in Victoria and inciting, “inter-ethnic hatred between the various ethnic communities that reside cohesively and peacefully as Victorians in our culturally diverse state.” The remedy? The letter demands that Ms. Mikakos apologise to the Turkish community for the supposed vilification or, if not, that she is sacked as parliamentary secretary immediately.

Likewise, the president of the Council of Turkish Associations of Victoria, Erkal Eken, has written to Mr Bracks urging him to dissociate the ALP from the “inter-ethnic hate speech”. “All the Turkish community sees that she has to apologise,” Mr Eken told The Age.

Now, let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the Turkish government has indeed been the victim of some elaborate historical setup; framed for the murder of 1.5 million Armenians by the United Nations, Western governments and their friends.

In that case, Ms Mikakos is merely wrong.

One cannot see anything in what she has said that would justify the comments of the ALP’s Coolaroo branch that she is threatening the fabric of our society with such statements or that her comments have anything whatsoever to do with Islam. She directed her comments at the Turkish government not at Turkish Australians or even the Turkish people as a whole. That some members of the Turkish community should interpret a criticism of the Turkish government as an attack on their identity as Turkish Australians provides an insight into the extent to which Turkish nationalism permeates even Turkish-dominated branches of the ALP.