Talking Arabic, feeling Turkish

Talking Arabic, feeling Turkish

A recent visit to Turkey took Reda Hilal, Al-Ahram's senior political correspondent, first to the disputed Iskenderun or Hatay region claimed by both Turkey and Syria. He reports here on how he found that most residents of Iskenderun identify themselves as Arabs, yet their loyalty is to Ankara. Subsequently, he travelled to Turkish Kurdistan, where he witnessed the deteriorating living conditions of millions of Kurds and visited the remains of several villages burned and forcibly evacuated by the heavy-handed Turkish army

A Turkish crowd lifting a huge portrait of modern Turkey's founder, Kamal Ataturk, during a recent rally in Ankara (photo AFP)

Al-Ahram correspondent Reda Hilal during his visit to the disputed Iskenderun region
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When I arrived in the city of Iskenderun, coming from Adana, the Syrian Arab characteristics of the region were immediately apparent. Iskenderun is the second city of the disputed region known as Iskenderun to the Syrians and Hatay to the Turks, after the capital Antakya. The region as a whole, in heritage, culture, and language, remains more Arab in nature than Turkish. In the streets and markets, Arabic is the primary spoken language.

The Arab character of the region dates back to the 7th century AD when the Arabs occupied it for the first time following the time of the fall of the Byzantine Empire. However, with the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, in 1921 France, with the approval of the League of Nations, was given a mandate over all of Syria. Turkey agreed to allow France to control the Iskenderun region, as being part of Syria.

Following the Lausanne Agreement of 1936, in which the borders of modern Turkey were defined, Turkey agreed to give up all claim to the areas south of its borders, among them the Iskenderun region. However, the French soon suggested granting Syria total independence, and when the country was divided into nine governorates later the same year, the Iskenderun region became one of them. This led Ankara to protest and declare that the region fell under its sovereignty. The dispute was taken to the League of Nations in 1937, which ruled that the region's special status should be lifted and that henceforward its internal affairs should be under Syrian jurisdiction. Both Turkey and France appeared to agree to this outcome.

France, however, then went on to help set the scene for Turkey's army to invade and occupy the region on 5 and 6 July 1938. In light of this development, France and Turkey signed an agreement on 27 July 1939, granting the people of the region the right to Turkish nationality. In this way, Turkey managed to secure the region as part of its territory. The reason this surprising move was to be found in Europe: on the eve of World War II, France wished to make allies against Germany. This move also accorded with France's historical interests in the region, as became even more apparent in the late '30s. France was well aware of Turkey's importance as an ally, given its geographical location and its control over several strategic sea straits.

The city of Iskenderun was established by Iskender the Great after he defeated the Persian King Darius at the battle of Asseus in 333BC, with the aim of creating a trading zone. Under Arab rule, it was transformed into a port, and under the Ottomans sat astride a major trading route leading to Aleppo, the Arabian Peninsula and Persia. It is still today a functioning commercial port and a major point of contact between Turkish and Arab merchants, as well as an important industrial city and military base.

At Inono Square, site of the city's main bus station, I asked whether any Arabic newspapers are published in the region of Iskenderun. The answer was no. I also asked how it came to be that the primary language in the region was Arabic, when the schools taught only in Turkish? The answer was that the Arabs speak Arabic at home, and not Turkish. They also speak Arabic when dealing with people in the markets and on the streets -- unless they are talking to Turks.

On the road leading south-east of the city through the mountains, I stopped at the town of Belin, which has been known since Roman times as "the Gateway of Syria". From there I travelled on another 25 kilometres until I reached Antakya, the capital of the Iskenderun or Hatay region. In spite of its name, which comes from the Latin "Antioch", Antakya is distinctively Arab in appearance, as if totally removed from its Turkish surroundings.

As soon as you alight at the bus station in Antakya, you can clearly see the Al-A'si River which flows down from Syria and cuts right through the city. A few steps away lies the Rana Kubru, a bridge over the Al-A'si River which can be dated back to the 3rd century AD.

Across the river, on the opposite bank, lies Antakya's town hall. If you turn left into Ataturk Street, also known as Al-Saray Street, you immediately notice its resemblance to the more modern shopping streets of Ankara or Istanbul. If you turn right, however, you soon come across shops selling Syrian shawarma which have all kept their Arabic names.

If you continue on in this direction, you find yourself in Kubru Basha market. There you might be in a market in Baghdad, Damascus or Cairo: the streets are crowded with people, horse-driven carts and pick-up trucks. In the midst of this vast market, I sat in the Urta coffee shop. The room was crowded with people drinking tea and boiled lemonade and playing cards by the hour. The people of Antakya are traders by nature, but the rate of unemployment is high and few people have much formal schooling.

I asked my companions about Turkey's recent threats to wage war against Syria. They said that their sons are drafted into the Turkish army, while their relatives live in Syria. That is why they hope there will never be war between the two countries.

I then asked them whether they considered themselves to be Turkish or Syrian. Their immediate reply was that they considered themselves to be Arabs, but that they are Turkish citizens. One man, named Mahmoud, said: "The Iskenderun region has witnessed separatist rebellions from time to time, and Syria brought down a Turkish monitoring plane in 1989. But in general the situation is calm." Mahmoud went on, "The Arabs of Antakya, in spite of their Arabic lifestyle, are fortunate to live in a country like Turkey, where there is a general freedom of religion and life-style, in comparison to their relatives across the border."

When I asked, the residents of the region also seemed to share a single attitude towards two prominent figures: Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and the Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

Mahmoud explained, "The Arabs of Antakya agree on the need to honour Ataturk. Most of them are from the Alawite Shi'ite minority and Ataturk granted them equality with the majority Sunnis in Turkey. They also consider that Ataturk created a modern country, by comparison with other neighbouring Arab states."

As for Ocalan, Mahmoud added, "The Arabs of Antakya agree with other Turks: they consider him their enemy. For Ocalan, they say, kills their children in the army and police. In their view, a Muslim should not kill another Muslim."

Leaving behind me the coffee shops, I ended up once again in Ataturk Street, just in time to witness a procession of armoured cars pulling canons behind them on their way to the Syrian border.