Revisionism and expansionism in Turkey: The case study of Alexandretta and Antioch
Turkey’s official narrative claims that Hatay province voted in a referendum to join Turkey in 1939, with Turkish President Erdoğan noting in 2019 that “Hatay…chose to embrace the motherland of its’ own free will.”
Additionally, Hatay is often known as Turkey’s “capital of tolerance”, where all the diverse religious and ethnic groups of the area, such as Alawites, Armenians, Greek Orthodox Christians, and Turks, are said to live side-by-side and peacefully.
Turkey’s Daily Sabah concurs with this, stating that “Hatay is a center of tolerance where Sunni Muslims and Alevis, various Christian sects, as well as Jews have been living in peace for centuries without any religious or ethnic discrimination”, with Anadolu Agency focusing on “the dinner table of tolerance in Hatay”, at which members of all sects present in the province gathered to break the Ramadan fast.
But is Hatay really the tolerant utopia it appears to be, and is it even rightfully a part of Turkey in the first place?
To answer these questions, we must first look at its’ history.
The cities of Alexandretta, founded in 333 BC by emperor Alexander the Great and named after him, and Antioch to the south, founded in 300 BC by Seleucus I Nicator, have a rich, predominantly Syro-Greek history. Antioch, the capital of the Seleucid Empire, was one of the 4 cities of the so-called “Tetrapolis Seleukis”, which were the centers of Syro-Hellenism at the time. Antioch was also the capital of Roman Syria, as well as the city where Christ’s disciples were first called Christians. The Antiochian Greek Orthodox Patriarchate was also seated in Antioch until the Rashidun conquest, at which point it was exiled.
Regardless, Antioch and neighboring Alexandretta served as centers of Levantine Hellenism for millennia, retaining large Greek, and later, specifically, Greek Orthodox populations under Byzantium. Cilician Armenia, formed by Armenians fleeing the Seljuks, also contributed to the demographic makeup of the cities, Alexandretta in particular, to the extent that the Gulf of Alexandretta earned the name “The Armenian Gulf”, due to the large Armenian populations on its shores. Subsequently, Alexandretta and Antioch came under Seljuk and Ottoman rule.
During the mass murder and genocide of 1915 and thereabouts, Alexandretta, under de facto French control, actually served as a safe haven for Armenians, Greeks, and Alawite Arabs fleeing massacre and deportation in Asia Minor. Antioch, Kessab, and Musa Dagh to the south of Alexandretta were not as safe, remaining under Ottoman control during this time, and the massacres were able to progress there — the most famous being the resistance in Musa Dagh, where the Armenians of the six villages of Musa Dagh fought off deportation and massacre for 53 days, after which they were eventually rescued and transported to Egypt.
After World War One and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, Alexandretta and Antioch, being under Mandatory French control, were placed on the Syrian side of the Turkey-Syria border, with Turkey explicitly renouncing claims to sovereignty to anything south of said border, including Alexandretta and Antioch, in the Treaty of Lausanne and the Treaty of Ankara. The border fell just south of Payas, with Iskenderun and everything south being on the Syrian side, as noted in Article 8 of the latter. This was also laid out in the terms for the French Mandate of Syria and the Lebanon, specifically in Article 4, which clearly stated that “The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no part of the territory of Syria and the Lebanon is ceded or leased or in any way placed under the control of a foreign power.”
Since Alexandretta was on the Syrian side of the border, under Mandatory French control, its’ population swelled with refugees expelled from Cilicia (mostly Mersin, Tarsus, Adana, Antep, and Marash) by the nascent Republic of Turkey, with the support of the local population. Just the Armenian refugee population in Iskenderun amounted to 20,000 or so people around 1922, not to mention the Greek, Arab Alawite and other Cilician refugees in Iskenderun [note 1]. Unsurprisingly, the refugee influx led to a humanitarian crisis in Iskenderun, where local conditions were described as those of a “veritable swamp”, with fears of “a massacre by mosquitoes” prevalent.
Due to the large number of Turkish speakers, Iskenderun and the surrounding area, now known as the Sanjak of Alexandretta [note 2], were given semi-autonomous status, and Turkish was made an official language. That said, it was still an integral part of Syria, being “distinct but not separate” from the Aleppo State, and later, as part of Greater Syria.
However, Turkey had other plans. During a 1923 speech in Adana, Ataturk claimed that the Sanjak of Alexandretta was “a Turkish homeland for forty centuries” and that “it couldn’t be held captive at the hands of an enemy”, based on Pseudo-Turkology, which, in essence, states that almost all languages and cultures originated from ancient Turkic peoples, when in reality, Turkic peoples only arrived in Iskenderun from 1084 AD onward, via the Seljuk conquest. Ironically, and in stark contrast to Ataturk’s claim, the cities of Alexandretta and Antioch were in fact founded by Greeks — Alexander the Great and Seleucus I Nicator, respectively!
In his speech, he also noted that “The country has finally been returned to its rightful owners. The Armenians and the others have no rights at all here. These fertile regions are the country of the real Turks”, which was a dire warning of what was to come for Alexandretta.
The semi-distinction of the Sanjak of Alexandretta, as well as the designation of Turkish as an official language in the Sanjak, were made in accordance with the principles of the League of Nations, which encouraged minority language rights and political representation. Therefore, the status of the Sanjak was, at the time, seen as a satisfactory compromise by the League. However, Turkey maintained they had the right to the Sanjak based on the majority ethnolinguistic group in the Sanjak being Turkish. Even though this was a false pretense, it would eventually lead to Turkey emerging victorious over the Sanjak.
Mandatory Syria’s 1936 push for independence led to Turkey outright demanding the Sanjak’s independence and eventual union with Turkey, as Turkish and Syrian national sentiment rose, leading to the worsening of pre-existing intercommunal tensions and violence. The issue was raised once again to the League of Nations, as bilateral Turkish-French negotiations did not yield an agreement over the future status of the Sanjak.
The League of Nations convened on the issue and prepared a report on the Sanjak, which, among other things, stressed the unique semi-autonomous status of the Sanjak in which all ethnic and religious groups were to enjoy fair representation.
It’s at this point that the demography of the Sanjak must be considered. The Sanjak’s population counts were a point of fierce contention, with Turkey claiming that since the majority of people in the Sanjak were Turks, the Sanjak belonged to Turkey. However, according to the best estimates available, and various informal counts carried out, the approximate population breakdown of the Sanjak around this time was as follows:
(It must be emphasized, though, that these figures are not exact and they do not represent any specific year’s demography. They give a reasonably accurate picture of the ethnic makeup of the Sanjak, as corroborated by various sources herein, but do not signify exact demographic information by any means. In [note 6] can be found a detailed analysis with regards to the precise Armenian population of the Sanjak.)
While Turks were the largest single ethnic group in the Sanjak, their population did not amount to a majority as Turkey claimed, nor to even a plurality of 40 percent. Collectively, the Arab Sunnis and Alawites, Arabic-speaking Greeks (known as “Christian Arabophones” or “Arab Christians”) [note 3], Armenians, Kurds, Circassians, and Jews made up about 62 percent of the population of 222,000 (the given total of 220,000 is rounded, further demonstrating the approximate nature of the data), signifying a clear majority of non-Turks. Why, then, did Turkey claim that the majority of people in the Sanjak were Turks?
It wasn’t just ethnic Turks who spoke Turkish in the Sanjak of Alexandretta. Many Armenians, having taken refuge in Alexandretta as a result of the Genocide, could speak Turkish, as could many of the Cappadocian Greeks who fled to Alexandretta [note 4]. Nor was this limited to merely multilingualism, as intermarriage was commonplace as well, with Alexandretta’s residents living in ethnically and religiously cosmopolitan districts. This resulted in an environment where many of the Sanjak’s residents, despite not being Turks, spoke Turkish, thereby fueling Turkey’s irredentist claims, with these claims based on the linguistic, rather than the ethnic/religious affiliation of the Sanjak’s population.
Taking into consideration the population distribution of the Sanjak also paints a very different picture than that on which Turkey based its’ claim, as illustrated in this ethnic map [note 5], complied around 1935:
Once again, the particularly heterogeneous ethnic makeup of the Sanjak stands out. Alexandretta’s large Christian community made up 71 percent of the city’s population, with an Armenian majority [note 6], mostly comprised of refugees from Cilicia. The Alexandretta-Arsuz coastline was largely populated by Arab Alawites, and Arsuz (Rhossos) was Greek Orthodox and Arab Alawite, with a Greek Orthodox majority. Kirikhan to the east of Alexandretta was 73 percent Armenian, the remainder being Arab, with the town of Belen, to Iskenderun’s south, also being majority-Armenian. The Nur mountains were mostly Turkish, with the notable exception of Musa Dagh, a cluster of 6 Armenian villages at the foot of the Nur mountains, which, as previously mentioned, successfully resisted the Armenian genocide.
As with much of the coastline, the towns of Daphne and Seleucia (Samandağ) on the banks of the Nahr al-Asi (Orontes River) were largely Arab Alawite. Antioch city, also located on the Orontes, was quite diverse in and of itself, with Sunni Muslims, split between Arabs and Turks, being 58 percent of the Antiochian population, giving Antioch a Sunni majority, though not an Arab or Turkish one [note 7]. 25 percent of Antioch was Arab Alawite, with most of the remainder being Christian, primarily Greek Orthodox (i.e. Arabized Greeks).
To the south of the Orontes lay the Armenian-majority coastal town of Kessab, with much of the countryside south of the river being populated with Turks and Sunni Arabs, as well as the Greek Orthodox town of Jneydo in al-Qusayr, and the eastern countryside of the Sanjak populated by Turks, Sunni Arabs, and Kurds.
Overall, the Sanjak was not decisively Turkish as Turkey claimed, with none of the large cities having a Turkish majority. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of the Sanjak’s population preferred the status quo of autonomy within Greater Syria, due to the economic prosperity the Sanjak enjoyed in this framework, as well as the outright opposition to joining Turkey resulting from anti-Kemalist sentiment [replace with “Syria and the French Mandate” excerpt here] prevalent among many of the Sanjak’s Turks.
None of this, however, served to deter Turkey in its’ expansionist aims over Alexandretta. In spite of the fact that the Sanjak’s deputies to the 1932 Syrian Chamber represented the Sanjak’s population relatively accurately, with 4 Sunni Turks, 3 Alawite Arabs, 2 Greek Orthodox, two Sunni Arabs, and one Armenian, Turkey insisted that this wasn’t fair, citing inflated figures of 150,000–240,000 Turks in the Sanjak, out of about 300,000 total residents.
Furthermore, around this time, officials and organizations in Turkey deliberately incited Turkish nationalist sentiment in the Sanjak, notably, with the governor of Antep’s 1934 visit to Antioch, leading to large pro-Turkish demonstrations and counterdemonstrations, as well as the public observance of Turkish holidays in the Sanjak. The Turkish press also helped with this, with newspapers in Adana, for instance, speaking of Alexandretta as “mistakenly” included in the French mandate, and being Turkish land. Pseudo-Turkology was brought into the equation once again, with İsmail Müştak Mayakon, a deputy for Siirt in Turkey’s Grand National Assembly, releasing a statement repeating the myths of “Hittite Turks” having ruled Alexandretta for 40 centuries, and stating that the Turks’ ancestors were known as “Hatay” when they lived in Northern China many centuries ago, thereby introducing the name “Hatay” into common use.
In spite of the aforementioned Treaty of Lausanne in which Turkey renounced all claims to the Sanjak, as well as the League of Nations report stressing the Sanjak’s unique autonomous status within Syria, Ataturk declared “Hatay is my personal affair” and even threatened war over the Sanjak if Turkey could not obtain it. A propaganda campaign was launched across Turkey, with the Sanjak of Alexandretta portrayed as an innocent young girl who was taken from her mother, and with Turkey as the girl’s mother looking to reunite with her. Ataturk is even said to have partaken in an enactment of this in Adana, in which “the little girl approaches Ataturk with flowers in her chained hands and tears in her eyes, begging him to save their homeland. Ataturk is very touched by this little girl and replies with tears in his eyes, “the land that has always been Turkish will not stay captive. Hatay will be freed. Be at ease.”
[Fake referendum/Fisk/Shields/Khoury evidence/exodus (use Armenian exodus map/additional info from the book on the Census/the Armenian Weekly article/the Aleppo book/Aleppo taxi driver/the Syrian Turkmen article/the Turkish settlers/racist poster and Crimea annexation parallel]
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/11740817.pdf
Though no precise consensus exists on exactly how many people fled Alexandretta after the imposition of Turkish control, the exodus overwhelmingly and disproportionately involved the Sanjak’s Christian community, which constituted about 20 percent of the population pre-1939. Roughly 80 percent of the Sanjak’s Christian population fled, largely to Aleppo, Syria, resulting in its’ Christian community, already mostly comprised of Armenian, Assyrian and Greek refugees from Turkey, increasing to 37 percent of the city’s population by 1947.
The majority of Christians who fled the Sanjak were Armenians, distrustful of Turkish sovereignty, as most of the Sanjak’s Armenians were expelled from Cilicia not 20 years ago. One source places the number of Armenians who fled the Sanjak at “22,000 Armenians, comprising 90 percent of the Armenian population…[who] fled to Syria.” This is reasonably consistent with the Sanjak’s known Armenian population of 25,000 in 1936, with the cited figure of 22,000 comprising approximately 90 percent of Armenians in the Sanjak.
However, it is noted elsewhere that 26,500 Armenians fled the Sanjak, and while this is higher than the entire Armenian population counted in 1936, it is plausible when considering Alexandretta’s Crypto-Armenian population. Most Crypto-Armenians would not have registered as Armenian in the Sanjak, but they would presumably have registered as Armenian upon fleeing to Syria and Lebanon.
Figures concerning the Sanjak’s Greek Orthodox population, meanwhile, are less consistent. While it is often stated that 5,000 Greek Orthodox and Catholics left the Sanjak, this does not account for the 80 percent of Alexandretta’s Christian population known to have left — since the Christian community prior to the exodus, having numbered some 46,000 individuals, would have seen about 36,000–37,000 emigrate, and only 9,000–10,000 or so remain in Alexandretta.
This is corroborated by the documentation of 11,500 to 12,000 Orthodox and Catholic Christians leaving the Sanjak for Damascus and Aleppo, Syria. When considered with the Armenian population that fled, this lines up with the aforementioned exodus of 80 percent of the Sanjak’s Christian population, in which about 25,000 Armenians, and 11,000 to 12,000 Greek Orthodox and Catholics, comprising about 80 percent of the Sanjak’s Christian population of 46,000, departed from the Sanjak as a result of the imposition of Turkish control.
Much of the Sanjak’s Sunni Arab population left for Syria as well, with approximately 6,000 to 10,000, or about one-third to half, fleeing the Sanjak. As for the Arab Alawites, the overwhelming majority remained in the Sanjak, with only 10,000 or so of the Sanjak’s 62,000 Alawites leaving for Syria. Why, then, did most Alawites choose to stay behind?
In contrast to the metropolitan populations of the Sanjak’s main cities, Alexandretta and Antioch, many Arab Alawites, as well as Sunni Arabs and Turks, were rural landowners and farmers, and emigration would have meant abandoning their entire livelihood, thereby being much harder. Meanwhile, for urban residents of the Sanjak, emigration was much easier due to established financial and socioeconomic ties to Syria, largely to Aleppo, resulting in the bulk of emigrants from the Sanjak arriving there. Hence, most rural Arab Alawites, Sunni Arabs, and Turks had no choice but to remain, in spite of not necessarily supporting Turkish sovereignty over the Sanjak, as leaving would have meant abandoning their lands – an economically disadvantageous move, to say the least.
Additionally, many anti-Kemalist Turks departed for Syria and Lebanon as well, in stark contrast to Kemalist propaganda insinuating that Turkey enjoyed the support of all the Sanjak’s residents, Turks and non-Turks alike. Exact numbers of Turks who fled the Sanjak are difficult to ascertain, but at least a few thousand, if not more, are recorded to have left the Sanjak.
In total, with about 36,000–37,000 Armenian and Greek Christians, 15,000–20,000 Alawite and Sunni Arabs, and a few thousand Turks leaving the Sanjak from 1938–1940, about 55,000–60,000 people can be realistically estimated to have left for Syria and Lebanon. This lines up with the 25 percent decrease in population recorded as a result of Turkey’s annexation of the Sanjak, which would equate to 55,000–56,000 of the Sanjak’s 222,000 residents recorded in 1936 having left for Syria and Lebanon.
As a result of the annexation, the city of Aleppo was cut off from its’ main outlet to the Mediterranean, Iskenderun’s port — which, as of 1938, handled 60–70 percent of Aleppo’s trade. The newly built Iskenderun-Aleppo highway also saw a dramatic decrease in use, to the point where grass grew in its’ cracks not long after the Sanjak’s annexation! Aleppo, now largely cut off, economically speaking, from the rest of the world, relied on Latakia in place of Iskenderun for naval trade.
Aleppo itself was also threatened by Turkey’s irredentism over Syria, being encompassed in the so-called “Misak-i-Milli”, or “National Pact” — essentially, neo-Ottoman borders for the Republic of Turkey. In fact, in places such as Azaz, in Aleppo’s countryside, citizens of Turkey tried to harass and intimidate Armenian landowners, maintaining that “Turkey would soon control all of northern Syria, in addition to the Sanjak of Alexandretta” and pushed them to sell their land at minimal prices! This also extended to Turkish officials intervening in property disputes, telling a Turkish woman in dispute with a Syrian citizen over land that “it was not worth going to Syria to solve [the] issue, for in ten days the Turkish government is going to occupy Syria [anyway].” French Mandate officials attempted to quell the disturbance, but concern over the rest of northern Syria’s future remained.
[Artificially expended borders incl. Dortyol]
All this considered, what brought me to Iskenderun, the once-Syrian city now occupied by Turkey? I wanted to see if any traces of its’ cosmopolitan past remained, visit the churches, interview locals to hear their perspective (many of whom I contacted prior to and after this trip, with most requesting me to withhold their names, out of concern for their safety), and of course, find out if Iskenderun, and Hatay province as a whole, live up to their reputation of “Turkey’s capital of tolerance”, as oft-promoted by the Turkish government. As I would soon discover, this was far from the case.
When I was in Iskenderun, having first arrived on the evening of August 21, 2021, the first major thing I observed was the relative lack of spoken Arabic, even though Iskenderun city is about one-third Arab. I scarcely heard any spoken Arabic, and most people I asked were unable to speak it — this was unsurprising, though, considering the “Citizen, speak Turkish!” law of 1934, which largely banned the teaching and use of all non-Turkish languages, including Arabic, in public or private life, and made the usage of any such languages punishable with prison time, fees, and the like. While the absolute ban was later slightly relaxed, proficiency in Arabic has dropped significantly in Iskenderun/Hatay, with 85 percent of people considering the usage of the Arabic language in Hatay to be on the decline, according to a 1998 study.
In my subsequent visits to Iskenderun, though, on August 9 and October 11, 2022, I did hear relatively more Arabic being spoken. I would personally attribute this to having visited the western, Alawite-majority districts of Iskenderun, as well as gaining access inside of the churches in October. Moreover, in addition to spoken Arabic, there were a few signs in Arabic and Turkish (add pics) scattered in various places around Iskenderun. This came as a pleasant surprise, considering the [bans and restrictions] (insert source there) on Arabic signage elsewhere in Turkey.
I felt that it was miraculous that Arabic survived in Iskenderun at all, though, considering the repressive and Orwellian measures previously implemented against it. I was told by a Greek Orthodox lady from Karataş and Iskenderun, who grew up between Beirut and Iskenderun, how as a child in the 1950s, she went to Iskenderun for summer vacation from Beirut. Every before they left for coffee, the seaside or anything, she was told by her father to keep quiet until returning home, because that was when the aforementioned “Citizen, speak Turkish!” program was being fully implemented in Iskenderun. Having learned Arabic and French as a child, with her mother particularly liking to speak in French with her, none of that was possible in Iskenderun. With regards to the enforcement, in particular, she noted that people would be arrested and fined by police just for speaking languages other than Turkish and that posters saying “Vatandaş, Türkçe konuş!”, meaning “Citizen, speak Turkish!”, were everywhere. Although she didn’t know what they meant at the time, since she spoke no Turkish as a child, she came to understand what the posters meant in later years, as she learned to speak Turkish.
The extensive state-sponsored Turkification she spoke of was also corroborated by an Arab Alawite academic whom I spoke with in Iskenderun (who himself spoke Arabic), telling me that “many of our [Alawite] youth, in particular, have been subject to Kemalist brainwashing, as in the schools they are only taught Turkish, not about their Levantine heritage, and as a result have largely lost the use of Arabic, especially here in Iskenderun [city].” He explained that (get more interview material for this)
A Greek from Antioch city noted that “most of the young Christian community cannot read or speak Arabic, the older generations could speak more Arabic but the younger generation assimilated and speaks Turkish”, with much of this assimilation being “from social pressure on the Greek Orthodox community for being non-Turks and non-Muslims, and so they have to assimilate in order to avoid discrimination.”
Additionally, I was informed by a Greek Orthodox man from Antioch, Aleppo and Latakia of his 2010 visit to relatives in Antioch that “most of them didn’t speak Arabic particularly fluently, with the younger generation being almost non-Arabophone entirely past a few words in prayers.”
I found it particularly unfortunate that Iskenderun, once a very diverse city not even 100 years ago in which one could hear Arabic, Armenian, Turkish, Greek, French, and other languages spoken on a daily basis, with Christians, Muslims, Jews living side by side and with minarets and church steeples right beside each other, barely retained any of that today. The aforementioned Kemalist/ nationalist Turkification policies implemented in Alexandretta not only reduced the usage of Arabic, but notably also Greek, spoken by part of the Greek Orthodox community and Cretan Greeks in Iskenderun, in addition to Armenian, spoken in addition to Turkish but much of the departed Armenian community. Thus, with the exodus and assimilation of the overwhelming majority of Alexandretta’s pre-1939 population, the Turkification of Alexandretta was a resounding success.
I was frequently reminded of Alexandretta’s former cosmopolitan character, largely resulting from its’ status as a prominent Mediterranean port, such as when I was in the formerly Alawite-majority coastal Yenişehir district. Though today, Turkish flags flew on the seaside next to the port of Iskenderun, a century ago, Armenian refugees arrived by boat from Cilicia, fleeing Kemalist massacres and relied on Alexandretta as a safe haven. Subsequently, they had to flee in large numbers less than 20 years later, fleeing once again, largely to Aleppo and Beirut, leaving everything they knew behind and starting fresh once again. (Add Byblos Museum explanation + pics)
While Erdogan says “Hatay…chose to embrace the motherland of its’ own free will,” with streets in Iskenderun even named after the date when Hatay supposedly “voted” to join Turkey, no mention is given to the Armenian-majority population of Iskenderun, who overwhelmingly fled immediately afterward. No mention is given to the Arab Alawites, who were subjected to a Pseudo-Turkology propaganda campaign in order to convince them they were “Hittite Turks”, and subsequently discriminated against for decades. And no mention is given to the Turks who opposed Turkey’s occupation of the Sanjak and subsequently left for Syria and Lebanon. That begs the question: when Turkey celebrates Hatay’s “union with the motherland”, is it not also celebrating the ethnic cleansing and cultural homogenization of one of the Levant’s most diverse regions?
It’s hard to deny this is the case — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, for instance, who was the chief architect of Turkey’s irredentism over Alexandretta, left no qualms over this in stating that “Whatever has befallen the non-Muslim elements living in our country is the result of the policies of separatism they pursued in a savage manner.”
Another general theme of my time in Iskenderun was the nature of Turkey’s self-proclaimed “tolerance” in Hatay. On the one hand, most of Iskenderun’s residents with whom I spoke expressed positive views on my visits to Iskenderun’s churches, and I even spoke with a Turkish lady who visited Vakifli, the last Armenian village in Turkey, telling me that it was beautiful and even encouraging me to visit. On the other hand, though, it quickly became very clear to me that the Turkish government’s official narrative, implying that the Turkish state is tolerant towards and respects Hatay’s minorities, couldn’t have been further from the truth. In essence, while Iskenderun’s people may be tolerant, their government is anything but.
In fact, while interviewing people in other parts of Turkey about the issue of Hatay, I observed very little collective awareness on the issue of minorities and the like. For instance, while in Kefken a week prior to my first visit to Iskenderun, I interviewed and talked to a schoolteacher, who was originally from Macedonia, as she told me. She explained to me that because of the persecution the Balkan Muslims, such as her own ancestors and the like underwent, they needed Anatolia as a home, but that the Western powers unfairly carved up Turkey, took away its’ land, and the reason there was conflict/strife in Syria and Iraq was because (and I am paraphrasing here), “none of these nations fought for independence except for us, Turkey was the only country in the Middle East that fought for its’ independence. Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, all these are artificial Western/Imperialist creations. None of these national identities of “Arab”, “Kurd”, or whatever existed before, it was all Turk. Everyone was an Ottoman, and therefore an Ottoman Turk. And since everyone in these lands were Turks, they should belong to Turkey.”
I agreed with her on the significant persecution of the Balkan Muslims, but questioned the reasoning of everyone being Turks and Turkey deserving large portions of the Levant and Mesopotamia as a result. In particular, I brought up the case of the Sanjak of Alexandretta, barely 40 percent Turkish and with large Christian and Arab communities which did not support joining Turkey, as well as the exodus of many of them upon Turkey assuming control over the Sanjak.
She then insisted “no, Hatay voted to join Turkey, Hatay’s people love Turkey and Turkey gave them everything”, and furthered her point from earlier about everyone being Turks, stating that “In France, an Armenian politician was being interviewed and said he wanted ethnic pluralism in Turkey, so that Armenians, Kurds and others could be recognized as such. Yet he stated he is French, and in France, everyone is French. Why can’t everyone in Turkey be a Turk like this? The West wants to exploit them against us, they want to divide our country by making these false national identities!”
Despite my attempt in asserting that the Treaty of Lausanne explicitly recognizes Turkey’s Greek, Armenian, and Jewish communities and that Turkey is legally bound to respect it, she insisted that “everyone in Turkey should be a Turk” and that “In Hatay, everyone is a Turk, there is no problem with this” even in light of the exodus of many people caused by Turkey. In fact, with regards to the exodus, she stated “The people who don’t like it leave, that’s how it works, there was a vote and the people chose Turkey”, despite the fact that the exodus disproportionately involved non-Turkish minorities, especially the overwhelming majority of the Christian population, and even some Turks!
Regardless of this being a clear indicator of questionable legitimacy to the “vote”, however, as well as Alexandretta and Antioch being part of historic Syria long before the Seljuks and the Ottoman Empire, she maintained that Syria was “made by Western imperialism” (once again, this was in spite of the fact that Antioch was literally the capital of historic Syria over a millennium before Turkey existed), and that Turkey had the ultimate historic right to Hatay and enjoyed the full support of its’ people.
Many others I spoke with shared her view that Turkey had every right to Hatay, that everyone there was Turks and loved Turkey, and no one I spoke to in the other places in Turkey I visited was actually aware of Turkey’s forced exodus of 25% of the Sanjak’s population, including most of its’ Christians and many Arabs. Most people I spoke to were actually particularly defensive over Hatay, more so than other issues I raised (such as the Armenian Genocide), taking excessive nationalist pride in that it “voted” to join Turkey and that Ataturk “worked day and night to save it from the French.” I was also met with general ignorance about the non-Turkish populations of Hatay, in the sense that many people didn’t seem to know they even existed and had the idea that everyone there was Turkish from the start.
Nonetheless, I wanted to hear from Iskenderun’s people themselves, and I started at the the Greek Catholic church of Iskenderun, the only one in Turkey. Though it was recently restored, the Greek Catholic community remaining in Iskenderun is quite small, roughly 350 people, most having fled during and after the 1939 exodus. My intention was to meet with the Arab Alawite academic there to interview members of the churches of Iskenderun (Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, and Armenian) and perhaps film a documentary. Unfortunately, I wasn’t intially able to meet in person with him, and could only do so the second time I was in Iskenderun — the first time, he was in Arsuz and I wasn’t able to travel there, so I interviewed him by phone the first time I was in Iskenderun.
Regardless, all the churches I went to in Iskenderun on my first and second visits were locked and closed anyway, despite it being Sunday morning the first time. At the Greek Catholic church, there was razor wire on top of the fence, as well as sturdy, locked metal doors — the presence of this extra security, as with that on the Greek Orthodox church, came as no surprise, though, considering the 2010 murder of a bishop in Iskenderun. Additionally, the church was located on a street named after Ziya Gokalp, a Pan-Turkist member of the Committee and Union and Progress (CUP), and key perpetrator of the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian Genocides.
The third time I visited, however, on October 11, 2022, I was able to go inside the church. Although it was not Sunday, the gate was open and unlocked, and there were two people inside having language classes. they were not available for interview at the moment, but they did permit me to look around the courtyard and such. I did so and left, and just as I was updating my notes on the day, one of them came running after me, stating that the language lessons were over and he would be happy to accompany me for the day! This was quite helpful, but when I mentioned the book I was writing on it, he requested me to conceal his identity for his own safety. I gladly obliged, and as such, his anonymity is kept, but this serves to demonstrate quite well the risks of speaking critically of the past in Turkey.
(Photos of interior)
We continued onto the Greek Orthodox church from there, which I had previously visited twice, but had not been able to enter as of yet. As we walked to the church, I recounted my previous experiences there to my new friend — namely, that when I arrived at the church for the first time, on August 22, 2021, I was struck by the iron gates and spiked wall around it. This, as I was told by the Greek Orthodox lady from Karataş and Iskenderun, was gradually built at risk of demolition, as since the road in front of the church was being expanded, the municipal authorities took land from the church, and left the entrance to the church almost directly on the main road. She noted that every time they would try and build it, with the door to the church being directly on a main road, necessitating the construction of a wall in front of the door, they received demolition notices in spite of the prior reduction in the church’s property, with a “secret order” being behind all this. Thankfully, these did not materialize, and the wall was gradually completed. He actually happened to know her family, which was a pleasant surprise, but not entirely unexpected, since the Greek Orthodox community in Iskenderun is very small and close-knit.
During my first visit to Iskenderun, I was under the impression that the Greek Orthodox church in Iskenderun would be open on Sundays, that the door wouldn’t be locked and that anyone could go in, just like the mosques in Iskenderun. However, just like at the Greek Catholic church, the front gate to the church was firmly shut. After a few minutes, I noticed a police officer behind one of the side gates of the church, whom I promptly approached and asked about entering the church, but despite explaining I was a journalist and looking to interview people, I was not permitted entry.
The second time I visited the church, on August 9, 2022, it wasn’t even a Sunday, thus it was closed and locked once again, but that was to be expected. I was able to meet up with my Arab Alawite friend this time, though, and he told me about how the Alawite and Orthodox communities are very similar in many ways and he sees himself as quite close to them — as he said, they share many holidays and theological beliefs, as well as relative societal liberalism.
Nonetheless, I was eventually able to enter the church when I visited Iskenderun for the third time, on October 11, 2022. Although there was no service running at the church (as once again, it wasn’t Sunday), I was able to get in, thanks to my friend helping me for the day! He had a Catholic father and Orthodox mother, and therefore, contacts within both the Catholic and Orthodox churches of Iskenderun. As a result, we actually got past the gate – he pushed the buzzer, spoke with the police and we were let in.
While inside the courtyard, my friend and I spoke with an older man who was bilingual in Arabic and Turkish. I’m not particularly proficient in either language, so my friend translated for me. Upon my translated explanation of who I was and why I was in Iskenderun, in particular looking to interview people, I understood that he agreed with my general overview of the situation, but that it wasn’t really safe to talk about it, so, unfortunately, we had to leave. That wasn’t unexpected in the slightest, though, as my friend’s earlier request of anonymity demonstrated to me.
(Pics of interior)
Regardless of my general inability to interview people at the Greek Orthodox church of Iskenderun, I had spoken to many members of Alexandretta’s Greek Orthodox community, both those who left in 1939 and those who remained, and some common themes emerged. I was told by a Greek Orthodox lady from Samandağ, who was born in Beirut, that “there [was] a complete loss of an autonomous sense of community identity.” With the exodus resulting in the departure of more than two-thirds of the Greek Orthodox community, who were subsequently hit with the ”Varlik Vergisi” of 1942, legally mandating them to pay 156% of their income in tax and serving as a further blow to the already-reduced community, aggressive Turkification was indeed the new normal for the Greek Orthodox of Alexandretta. As well, a common derogatory term used at the time was “giaour”, meaning “disbeliever” in Turkish (referring to Christians, Jews and others), with its’ frequent use serving as yet another detriment to Alexandretta’s Christians.
As well, the 1955 Istanbul Pogrom, which targeted the city’s Greeks, Jews, Armenians, and others almost repeated in Iskenderun, but as I was told by the Greek Orthodox lady from Karataş and Iskenderun, the governor of Hatay, with the military commander, sent troops to Dörtyol where armed rioters were approaching Iskenderun, and stopped the bulk of the violence. However, she noted that the homes of most of the Christians in Iskenderun and Antioch were marked with crosses, and her father was awake all night, holding knives in fear of the pogrom happening. She only heard of all this the next day, as she was very lucky to have been in Beirut at the time, with her grandparents. As a result of this, many of the remaining Christians in Iskenderun fled soon after, such as her husband’s brother, a well-known jeweler in Iskenderun, who left everything behind and moved to Venezuela.
By 1965, the Christian population of Hatay numbered less than 8,000 individuals, which, after considering the Armenian population, as well as other small Christian groups present, such as Latin Catholics and Assyrians, the Greek Orthodox population was about 5,000–6,000 people, itself constituting hardly one percent of Hatay’s total population of around 500,000, from ten percent just a few decades ago. Continued emigration led to the Greek Orthodox population of Iskenderun city stagnating at about 3,000 people by the late 1980s.
Furthermore, around this time, the Cyprus crisis of the 1960s-1970s led to Christians across Turkey facing persecution, and the Greek Orthodox of Alexandretta were no exception to this. Members of the Greek Orthodox community were accused of “treason” and “supporting the Greek Cypriots”, despite a Greek Orthodox man from Iskenderun serving in the Turkish army on Cyprus. His mother was harassed and accused of being pro-Greek Cypriot, all while her son was fighting for Turkey, and putting his life on the line to do so — not to even mention the Greek Orthodox church near Samandağ blown up in 1974 as retaliation against Alexandretta’s Greek Orthodox community for the Cyprus crisis! These being just a few of many instances demonstrating the reality of the “tolerance” Turkey speaks of in Hatay.
In addition, the Greek Orthodox lady from Karataş and Iskenderun mentioned to me how some of the Greek Orthodox population of the Sanjak still carried Greek identity documents, though this put them at further disadvantage during the Cyprus crisis, when Turkey expelled people who carried Greek IDs, giving them 24 hours to leave with very little money allowed to be brought. She explained how her sister-in-law’s husband was affected by this, and how he first went to Greece, but wasn’t successful there especially because he was a manufacturer back in Iskenderun and being expelled forced him to start over again, having lost everything. Next, he went to Lebanon, but had to flee to Syria once the Lebanese civil war broke out, and then died of a heart attack, which devastated his remaining family, who carried Turkish IDs and were not deported.
I even saw this monument in Iskenderun, within the aptly-named “Sehitler Parki” (Martyrs’ Park), commemorating the aforementioned 1974 invasion of Cyprus. Insinuating the entire island of Cyprus belongs to Turkey, it shows all of Cyprus with the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot flags. All this on top of the fact that it’s in Iskenderun, which was also illegally occupied by Turkey in 1939!
Next to the “Sehitler Parki” which this monument was in, was Iskenderun’s clock tower. I noticed how similar the clock tower in Iskenderun, with the surrounding buildings and all, looked to the Bab al-Faraj clock tower in Aleppo, Syria, which came as no surprise, considering Iskenderun and Aleppo’s centuries of socioeconomic and trade links.
What did come as a surprise, however, was being told by IYI Parti politician Ilay Aksoy that I should have my Turkish citizenship revoked as a result of this, and even seeing Suleyman Soylu, and other authorities in Turkey, called upon to do so! It seems the Greek Orthodox of Alexandretta weren’t the only ones to be accused of treason, unfortunately.
Now, to be fair, I wouldn’t have any issues with losing my Turkish citizenship (and would even count that as a bonus), but regardless, this still goes to show how Turkish society as a whole is inordinately brainwashed and non-receptive to criticism of Turkey. Attacks and delegitimization as opposed to rebuttals being the response of choice (as seen here) demonstrate the collective consciousness ingrained in Turkey by the decades of propaganda, as well as the silencing of nearly all diverging narratives implemented throughout the Republic’s history, even extending back to CUP triumvirate rule. Ilay Aksoy’s personal views definitely don’t help here, either, as she ran for mayor of Istanbul’s Fatih district in 2019 under an anti-Syrian campaign slogan, and even doxxed a Syrian medical student at Trakya University!
But nonetheless, while the exodus of 1939 saw the larger towns and cities of Alexandretta, Antioch, Arsuz, and to a lesser extent, Samandağ, largely depleted of their Greek Orthodox populations, one Greek Orthodox village, in the Altinözu district, remained: Tokacli. Known in Arabic as “Jneydo”, i.e. “Paradise”, it retained a population of about 3,000 up until the 1970s, despite attacks from neighboring towns from the 1960s onwards as a result of the Cyprus crisis. The 1980 military coup in particular, as well as general discrimination, accelerated emigration from the village in the 1980s onward, with many leaving for France, Greece, and Germany.
All this culminated in a 2005 pogrom, which was incited by rumors of a fight between Muslim and Christian residents of Altinözu. In response to this, over 100 people from the nearby village of Karsu proceeded to chant “There is no room for infidels here” and “Get out of here, you have no business here, this land is ours.” They also broke windows and assaulted Greek Orthodox residents of Altinözu, with 10 houses and 5 people, in total, ending up damaged or injured.
By 2010, Tokacli’s population stood at about 300 people, most of them elderly, with a diaspora of over 10,000, in places such as Greece, Syria, France, Austria, Germany, and Istanbul.
Unfortunately, when Tokacli’s residents left for better opportunities elsewhere in Turkey, they faced more discrimination, such as that which Tokacli native Can Kılçıksız and his parents did, when they moved to Izmir. They were disrespected on account of being Christian by customers in their grocery store, who were discriminating against them because their own ancestors were forced out of Bulgaria by other Christians — of course, this is completely absurd, and the very definition of collective punishment, and thus, Can’s family moved to France shortly after, seeking asylum there due to discrimination like this, omnipresent in Turkey.
One of Tokacli’s Greek Orthodox residents, speaking of the Greek Orthodox community in Syria, even noted in a 2012 interview that “They live better now in Syria than we do here in Turkey.” Corroborating this is the fact that even in war-torn Syria and crisis-stricken Lebanon, the churches in Aleppo, Damascus, and Beirut are open and people are free to come and go as they please. Although I have not yet visited Aleppo or Damascus, I observed this in Beirut and across Lebanon. Meanwhile, in Iskenderun, the churches were locked and fenced, and in order to enter the Greek Orthodox church, my guide had to press a police buzzer and talk to them to gain entry. This is a clear indicator that in spite of the instability, economic troubles and the like plaguing Syria and Lebanon, religious and ethnic minorities are generally much freer than in Turkey.
All this begs the question, what is the current Greek Orthodox population of Hatay? Estimates vary, but it’s generally considered to be roughly between 1,500 and 10,000 people, as noted by Hurriyet Daily News in a 2012 article. TRT World, for their part, put the figure at 2,500 people in 2018, which largely concurs with the “0.1 percent of the population” I was told of the Greek Orthodox of Hatay by the Greek Orthodox man from Tokacli/Antioch.
Other estimates, however, place the population on the higher end of the 1,500 to 10,000 range, with roughly 7,000 cited as the population at the time of former Turkish president Abdullah Gul’s 2010 visit to Antioch. This is probably the most accurate current population estimate for the Greek Orthodox of Hatay, with one of the larger communities, in Samandağ, consisting of 2,400 people, and nearby Antakya having 1,200, which, when considered with the Greek Orthodox populations of Tokacli and Arsuz (300 people and 18 families, respectively), leaves the Greek Orthodox population of Alexandretta, which was 3,000 in the late 1980s, and is roughly the same today, leaving for about 7,000 Greek Orthodox in Hatay.
The Greek Orthodox community of Samandağ, being largely rural in contrast to the metropolitan communities of Alexandretta and Antioch, meant that the exodus of 1939 resulted in greater numbers staying, as they were attached to the land to a much greater extent, being farmers and such, and thus emigration would have been much more difficult, as was the case with most of the Arab Alawite population of the Sanjak. Thus, it remained as one of the larger Greek Orthodox communities for much of the 20th century and up to this day.
In 2015, the cemetery of the Mother Mary Greek Orthodox Church in Samandağ was rezoned as “green space” in a plan drawn up by Hatay Municipality, and being the only space the Christian community was allocated to use since 1870, they fought in the courts for 5 years to keep it. Eventually, the re-zoning plan was discarded by the authorities, but only after People’s Democratic Party (HDP) Adana MP Tulay Hatimogullari, herself from Samandağ, submitted a parliamentary question about the cemetery’s rezoning:
“In the mentioned development plan, the area owned by the Antakya Rum
Orthodox Church Foundation and used as a cemetery is declared a green space. It is the only area that the Christian community has used as a cemetery since the 1870s.Doesn’t declaring the area, which has been used as a cemetery for centuries and the title deed of which belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church Foundation of Samandağ, a park in the new zoning plan mean that the Christian community is disregarded both materially and spiritually?
For which reason was the area used by the Christian community as a cemetery declared a green space in the new zoning plan? Is an area that has a green space status used as a cemetery anywhere in the country?
There is not an area that the municipality has allocated to be used as a cemetery. Isn’t this approach contrary to the principle of regarding the Christian community as equal citizens?”
Every church I visited had a Turkish flag on it, as if it was showing the Christians their place: “You are in Turkey, you must be Turks!” I was told by a Greek Orthodox man from Tokacli/Antioch that these flags were placed on the churches out of fear — he noted that, in particular, many nationalist segments of Turkish society see the mere presence of Armenian and Greek churches, such as those in Iskenderun, as separatism and dividing the nation, therefore it’s necessary for the Christian community to publicly profess loyalty to Turkey, for their own safety.
In fact, during the 2018 Turkish invasion of Afrin, the Greek Orthodox church of Iskenderun had a Turkish flag draped over the exterior in alleged support for the Turkish army, and hailed by CNN Turk as all the more evidence that the Turkish army’s invasion of Afrin was acceptable and justified. However, the reality of Turkey’s crimes in Afrin demonstrates that this couldn’t be further from the truth.
After Turkey occupied Afrin, a Christian schoolteacher was threatened with death by Failaq al-Sham for not turning his school into an Islamic education institute. Sharia Law was imposed in Afrin, and the church in Afrin’s city center was burned. As a result, all Christians fled Afrin, as well as large numbers of Yezidi and Kurdish residents of Afrin, who were replaced
[Afrin flag church/TRT/Are Turkey’s Christians/Hawar News/Jihad/Idlib bus jihadist guy]
In addition to this, many of Hatay’s municipalities are also gerrymandered by ethnicity to benefit the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). For example, in 2013, the city of Antakya, previously a district in its’ own right, was split into Sunni-majority Antakya and Alawite-majority Defne, much to the disdain of the city’s residents, with Antakya’s locals even comparing it to the Berlin Wall. In Iskenderun, the western Alawite districts of Karagaac were added to the district of Arsuz, thus residents of Karagaac had to go to Arsuz, 30 kilometers away, to receive municipal services, and were bureaucratically separated from Iskenderun, with the objective of all this being to prioritize Sunni Turkmen districts of Hatay in elections, thereby ensuring an AKP win. Erdogan left no qualms about this sectarian agenda of his in lamenting the “53 Sunni citizens” killed in the 2013 Reyhanli bombing, further increasing intercommunal tensions in Hatay.
This is hardly the extent of state-sponsored discrimination against Turkey’s Alawites, either — for much of the 20th century, the Arab Alawite communities of Cilicia proper (Mersin and Adana) were forbidden from speaking Arabic and freely practicing their faith, which, being an offshoot of Shia Islam, stood at odds with Sunni officials in Adana and Mersin. The large Alawite population in the Sanjak, in particular, led to concern among officials about the difficulty of assimilating the Alawites across Cilicia, viewed as non-conformists in comparison to the Turkish population.
[Anti-Alawite discrimination/Turkish settlers/Alawite perceptions of them/Israel Golan/nationalist brainwash/Mehmet interviews/source of forgetting about the Christian migration]
[Antakya jihadis]
[Lindsey Snell/interviews with her/park in Iskenderun commemorating 1939 + 2016 pic/irony of “democracy” claim]
Similar to the Cyprus and 1939/2016 parks, I saw CUP/Young Turk propaganda in Iskenderun, and a large Grey Wolves/Bozkurtlar flag in Belen, both on public display, and both representing Turkic-supremacist ideologies strongly hostile to Armenians, Greeks, and others. The
[DIVIDE THIS UP APPROPRIATELY: the CUP propaganda with the Greek Catholic church and the Grey Wolves propaganda with the Armenian exodus, or the Turkish settlers]
Finally, I arrived at the Surp Karasun Manuk Armenian church of Iskenderun. Today, it serves a congregation of only 100 people, in spite of Iskenderun having been an Armenian-majority city less than a century ago. Re-opened in 2011 after being closed for some time due to the lack of a priest, it is perhaps the only visible reminder of Iskenderun’s Armenian past, and is one of only six active Armenian churches in Turkey outside of Istanbul, with the only other active Armenian church in Hatay being in the Armenian village of Vakifli, itself with a population of 150 people. As with the other churches I visited that day, Iskenderun’s Armenian church was locked and closed the first time I went, on August 22, 2021.
On my second and third visits to Iskenderun, though, on August 9 and October 11, 2022, I was able to gain partial (and later, full) access to the church. During my second visit, the church was still locked, but the door on the side of the church was unlocked, and I went through it. Behind it, I found a staircase that led to a balcony overlooking the courtyard of the church! The balcony appeared to be mostly separate from the church though, as the church wasn’t accessible from it, as far as I could tell — rather, it was connected to 2 adjacent offices. These offices were quite helpful on my third visit to Iskenderun, however, when my friend and I encountered the church in much the same condition, with the front door locked and the side door open. We climbed the stairs and my friend went inside the offices to ask if there was any possibility of accessing the Armenian church, and after some back-and-forth, we were given the keys and permission to enter!
(Balcony photos)
Immediately upon entry, we found ourselves in the courtyard, with various potted plants and a bench, plus a sign over the door to the church, indicating when the church was consecrated by the Armenian patriarchate. As we went into the church itself, it was empty (as was to be expected) but seemed fairly well upkept. The altar was pristine and the coloured glass on the dome was rather nice as well. In the corner was the tombstone of (someone, details needed), and (add more). Ideally, I would have been able to interview someone at the church, and before I visited, I was given the contact information of the priest. Although I wasn’t able to get in touch with him, and hence, was unable to conduct any interviews, I nonetheless found this to be a fascinating glimpse into one of the few surviving post-genocide Armenian communities in Turkey, and was quite glad to have had the opportunity to visit.
Prior to this, the closest thing I was able to get to an interview with a member of Iskenderun’s Armenian community was my correspondence with an Armenian lady whose parents were from Adana and Marash, but fled to Iskenderun after the Armenian Genocide, where she was born in 1935. She noted to me that “we had forty-eight hours to leave our two-story house [in Iskenderun], and left on July 28, 1939”, and that “the French government [who handed over the Sanjak to Turkey] evacuated us to Beirut, Lebanon through Tartus, Syria, where we were dumped like trash on the seashore.”
(Interior photos)
Most of Iskenderun’s Armenians left in 1939, having been, by far and large, Cilician Armenians already expelled from southern Turkey, and thus, distrust of the Kemalist authorities on their behalf was widespread, and not without merit either-many Armenians who remained behind in Cilicia after the resumption of Turkish control, for instance, suffered massacres, deportations, and widespread confiscation of property. There was no reason not to expect the same fate under Kemalist rule in the Sanjak.
Armenian migration from the Sanjak, 1939. Source (in the absence of a better one)
Indeed, emigration numbers were far greater for the Armenians than any other ethnic group in the Sanjak, with some towns such as Kirikhan and Belen emptied completely of their Armenian population, and other areas, such as the aforementioned Musa Dagh, a cluster of 6 Armenian villages on the slopes of the Nur Mountains, saw the complete liquidation of 5 out of 6 of the villages, and the partial liquidation of the 6th, Vakifli, with most of the villagers (about 4,500 people) establishing the town of Anjar, in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley. Others went to Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere.
Unfortunately, poor conditions were more of the rule than the exception during the exodus from the Sanjak — the caravans from Musa Dagh en route to Anjar, for example, were robbed at the new Turkey-Syria border, and many also died resulting from inadequate shelter, rough terrain, and the like between Ras al-Basit and Anjar.
(Need a caption)
Regardless, life worsened for what remained of the Armenian community after the imposition of Turkish control over the Sanjak — for instance, Armenians were taxed 232 percent under the “Varlik Vergisi” in 1942, and, as with all other non-Turkish languages, the usage of Armenian in private and public life was banned. By 1965, the Armenian community had dwindled to a mere 1,000 people, with 120 remaining in the only Armenian village of Vakifli. Similar to the Greek Orthodox church in Samandağ blown up as a result of the Cyprus crisis, the 1980 coup and subsequent implementation of martial law led to the monument to the Musa Dagh resistance in Vakifli being blown up soon after, preventing the commemoration ceremonies held at the monument each September. As recently as 2015, the centennial anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and the Musa Dagh resistance, Vakifli’s residents are still cautious of commemorating their past.
The next day in Beirut, on October 12, 2022, I met an Armenian historian from Iskenderun
(Hamo dialogue + Camp Sanjak in Beirut and Aleppo)
Hamo and I were planning to go to Anjar together while I was in Lebanon, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to do so. Hence, I went to Anjar on my last day in Lebanon (October 25, 2022), in order to meet the descendants of those who fled Musa Dagh, hear their stories, and learn about their lives in Anjar today. Taking the bus from Cola in Beirut, I watched the towns on the road to Damascus go by: Aley, Bhamdoun, Sawfar, and eventually, the well-known “Frontiere Syrienne” sign near Mdeirej. From Chtoura, a major transport hub at the intersection of the roads to Beirut, Homs and Damascus, I boarded the bus to Syria (which passed by Anjar, where I intended to get off), and went through the Beqaa Valley, with the peaks of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in the distance denoting the Syrian border.
Anjar is, geographically speaking, the closest town on the Beirut-Damascus highway to Syria — although the border crossing is at Majdal Anjar/Masnaa further down the road, the Syrian border bends closer near Anjar before heading east at the Masnaa crossing. Upon arrival, I exited the bus and was immediately greeted with a multilingual “Welcome to Anjar” sign in Arabic, English, and Armenian. I proceeded onwards into Anjar, where I inquired with the local Anjartsis walking around about where I could go for interviews. They were very kind, inviting me to their homes and offering me water, and many of them even spoke Turkish! That came as no surprise, though, considering the aformentioned widespread usage of Turkish among non-Turkish residents of the Sanjak.
(Anjar pics)
I was taken to the home of a man who had contacts in the municipality, and he called some people while I was given water. Eventually, a local policeman pulled up, and said he would drive me to the municipality. I didn’t see the necessity of this, since Anjar is a very small and walkable town, but along I went. Once at the municipality, I explained to the staff who I was and what I was there for, and they photographed my passport, went inside to inquire about things on my behalf, and such. Eventually, I was told that the mayor was away at the moment, and would only be back by 3:00 P.M. Given that it was 12:00 P.M. at the time, I was advised to go to the Anjar Museum while waiting for the mayor, and as it so happened, the Anjar Museum was right across from the municipality! I thanked the workers and headed to the museum, eager to see the story of Musa Ler told firsthand.
(Museum and municipality pics)
Upon entry into the Musa Ler Ethnographical Museum in Anjar, I was greeted with a map of the villages of Musa Dagh and the area with their pre-Turkification names. As I was told by an Arab Alawite friend of mine from Antioch upon showing him the photo, many of the locals still use these names as opposed to the Turkish ones. Various artifacts were on display from the defense of 1915, including the flag that the Armenians of Musa Ler used to alert the French to their plight. There were also documents such as a 1938 electoral card for the Sanjak of Alexandretta, written in French, Arabic, and Turkish, in addition to newspaper clippings about the resistance of Musa Dagh, and some Turkish-language Bibles, written in the Armenian alphabet, that were brought from Musa Dagh to Lebanon in 1939.
(Museum interior pics)
I was given a tour of the museum by the lady administering the front desk, got an excellent explanation of these artifacts and more, and once we were done, I met with a local researcher and historian in the museum’s conference room. He told me that he was writing a book about the 1915 resistance of Musa Dagh, incorporating several of the narratives that exist surrounding it, and hence, had done substantial research into the history of the Sanjak of Alexandretta. As we were in a conference room with a bookshelf, he happened to have an extra book on hand which he gave me, titled .“من جبل موسى إلى حوش موسى – عنجر، ملحمة أرمنية بين الموت و الحياة” This translates to “From Musa Dagh to Houch Musa (Anjar) — An Armenian epic between life and death”, and deals with the Adana massacres of 1909 (Insert source), the genocide of 1915 and the Armenian resistance in Musa Dagh, as well as the fradulent 1939 annexation and subsequent evacuation to Lebanon. Although my Arabic is minimal, I did look through it a few times and noted population tables/explanations relatively similar to those I found in English and French-language resources, which are sourced herein.
All things considered, I was quite excited to interview him, having hoped for, but not actually expecting such an opportunity in Anjar! He mentioned that years ago, he met Robert Fisk at a conference in Beirut, who was one of the most prominent voices calling for Armenian Genocide recognition (source that), as well as condemning the annexation of Iskenderun in 1939 and the exodus of the Armenian community. Much of this was laid out in his book “The Great War for Civilization” (Link to it), and unsurprisingly, his work led to condemnation from Turkey (https://www.dailysabah.com/op-ed/2019/01/24/robert-fisk-and-legitimizing-terror), denoting him “[a] pioneer of the modern era of propaganda”. And to be fair, while there are legitimate criticisms to be made of anyone’s work (in this case, an applicable example of reasonable criticism would be some of Fisk’s Syria reporting — needs source), ad hominem used to deny genocide is hardly fair or reasonable, and is a common technique used in dismissal of Turkey’s crimes. (Add source). I would have been honoured to meet Robert Fisk and interview him about Anjar, but unfortunately, he passed away in late 2020.
In addition to meeting Robert Fisk, the historian I interviewed told me about the Armenians who remained in Musa Dagh post-1939, noting that many of them are preserving their unique identity quite well. He explained to me how the only Armenian village that didn’t fully evacuate in 1939, Vakifli, was a hub of Armenian culture in post-genocide Turkey, and that the Armenians left there preserve their heritage very well. I was very pleased to hear about this, but slightly confused, as I previously heard about some Armenians in Musa Dagh who neither left in 1939, nor retained their Armenian culture — rather, they converted to Islam and were Turkified. Upon my inquiry, though, he noted to me that this only happened with one or two families in Musa Dagh, and that the vast majority of the Armenian population retained their identity, whether they stayed or left.
He also told me about the remaining Armenian communities of Northern Syria and how they fared in the aftermath of the annexation of Iskenderun, such as those of Kessab, Afrin, Aleppo, Ayn al-Arab (Kobane), Tel Abyad (Girê Spî), Qamishli, and Deir ez-Zor. The Syrian rebels in northern Syria, as he told me, were heavily backed by Turkey, leading to local minorities, such as Kurds and Armenians, being targeted by them. In particular, Turkish support for rebels in Aleppo was fairly constant since the start of the war, with FSA commanders in Damascus even noting to the New York Times in October 2012 that “We take orders from ourselves…not like the Aleppo fighters, who take orders from Turkey.”
(More Anjar interview material)
Since Kessab remained in Syria post-1939, it retained much of its’ Armenian population, along with sheltering Armenian refugees from Iskenderun, such as an Armenian woman I interviewed whose grandmother lived in Iskenderun and fled to Kessab after 1939, as well as the several Alawite refugees escaping Turkish persecution who also settled in Kessab. As a result, Kessab was the last (mostly) whole Cilician Armenian settlement, with all others (from Tarsus to Sis to Alexandretta) having fallen under Turkish control by this point, with the subsequent complete or near-complete exodus of their Armenian populations. Within Syria, Kessab enjoyed relative prosperity, serving as a popular seaside resort for Syrians on summer vacation, although many of the nicest beaches in the Kessab area were, by all accounts of the local Kessabtsis, deliberately cut off from Kessab and included in Turkey’s 1939 annexation of Alexandretta, in order to leave Syrian Kessab with the rocky, lower-quality beaches and not the better ones.
In any case, Kessab’s multi-decade era of peace and stability in the years after 1939 even extended partially into the Syrian crisis. As larger cities such as Damascus, Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, Homs and Raqqa descended into war, Kessab initially remained calm, with the main issue (apart from tourism grinding to a halt due to the conflict) being not bombs, but hailstorms which hampered produce yield. Kessab, serving as a general bastion of safety within Syria, also served as a safe haven, in particular, for Armenian refugees fleeing the jihadist onslaught across northern and eastern Syria. As of 2014, Kessab was home to 60 Armenian families from elsewhere in Syria — namely, 35 families from Aleppo, 14 families from Yaqoubiyeh (Idlib), 5 families from Raqqa, and one each from Deir ez-Zor, Qamishli, and Hasakah. In considering the significance of the Armenian IDPs who sheltered in Kessab, the displaced Armenian families from Aleppo, compromising over half the Armenian refugees in Kessab, are paramount to the crux of the issue, as they were a direct result of substantial Turkish involvement in the Battle of Aleppo.
As far back as 2011/2012, weapons were freely flowing across the Turkish border to Aleppo, which rebel factions in Syria used to storm Aleppo and attempted to wrest control from the Syrian government. In particular, however, the idea that the rebels stormed Aleppo, rather than liberated it from government control, is key — Aleppo remained a pro-government city throughout the Syrian uprising, with a local rebel commander even admitting that more than two-thirds of Aleppines supported the Syrian government. Anas Joudeh, a Syrian lawyer who partook in the 2011 protests, expressed similar sentiments in an interview with the New York Times — particularly, that “[while] no one is 100 percent with the regime, mostly these people are unified by their resistance to the opposition…They know what they don’t want, not what they want.” [note 9]
Many of the rebel brigades in Aleppo also espoused radical Islamist ideology, such as the Al-Tawhid Brigade, a group established by Turkish intelligence in 2012 in line with Turkey’s plans for Syria — namely, the overthrow of Assad and the establishment of a pro-Ankara, Sunni-dominated authority in Damascus instead. Accordingly, Turkey can be labeled as the main responsible party for the devastating battle of Aleppo, having also allowed rebel proxies to loot the city’s once thriving industry — over 1,000 factories and properties in and around Aleppo were looted, with their contents sold in Turkey. Of course, though, the civilians of Aleppo paid the ultimate price for all this, including Aleppo’s Armenian community, specifically targeted throughout the war by pro-Turkish rebel groups, and as a result, was disproportionately decimated. On the whole, though, the Syrian government bears substantial responsibility for the general destruction of Aleppo, but it was entirely because of Turkey’s involvement that the Armenian community of Aleppo was targeted and exiled, in a de-facto continuation of the Armenian Genocide nearly 100 years later.
The districts of Aleppo with significant Armenian populations (Al-Azizyah, Soulemaniya, but in particular, al-Midan district, also known as “Nor Kyugh” in Armenian), were all located on the frontline between government-held and rebel-held Aleppo. As a result, they were an easy target for radical pro-Turkey groups in control of east Aleppo. From 2012 to 2016, indiscriminate attacks on the Armenian districts of Aleppo were the norm, with al-Midan, as previously mentioned, being the hardest-hit district.
[Kessab 2014/Refuge for other Armenians, including Armenians from Aleppo who fled Turkey’s terrorist groups shelling their districts/Deir ez-Zor church/Turkey and French Mandate border minorities, e.g. Kurds to Beirut and Damascus]
it was still encompassed in Turkey’s irredentist claims — most recently, in 2020, when Daily Sabah published an article stating that Kessab was taken illegally and not Hatay, citing article 22 of the French Mandate of Syria and the Lebanon. However, the Mandate agreement only encompasses 20 articles in total, with article 22 being nonexistent!
Additionally, the apparent “article 22” cited therein, which allegedly states that “the mandatory state would pay maximum attention to preserve the territorial integrity of the region it administrated”, can, in addition to article 4 of the Mandate, be retroactively applied to argue against the separation of the Sanjak from Syria, and thus invalidates Turkey’s claim to it — if Kessab can’t be separated, then why was Alexandretta?
Nonetheless, as I stood in front of the Armenian church of Iskenderun that evening, contemplating my time in the city, I looked up at the Turkish flag on the church, and wondered, “How can Turkey have any legitimacy in Iskenderun, when they claim that Hatay voted to join them, and even go so far as to claim it’s their “capital of tolerance”, when in reality, they are occupying it under international law through a false referendum and breach of 2 treaties, ethnically cleansed many Christians, Alawites, and others, with significant discrimination still in place against those who remained, and even destroyed Kessab, the only part of the Sanjak to remain in Syria? Is this not, quite literally, the polar opposite of the tolerance Turkey claims, and at that, the very definition of Orwellian hypocrisy?”
That’s exactly what it was — blatant Orwellian hypocrisy at its’ finest.
And, I realized, right then and there, that in light of such Orwellian hypocrisy, the Turkish flag had no right whatsoever to fly here, and especially not on the Armenian church of Iskenderun, because it was under this flag that, by Talaat Pasha’s own numbers, more than one million Armenian men, women, and children were sent on death marches into the Syrian desert, and that the nascent Republic of Turkey finished off the ethnic cleansing of Asia Minor.
It was under this flag that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk stated, “The country has finally been returned to its rightful owners. The Armenians and others have no rights at all here”, and that he claimed Iskenderun, in blatant irredentism, as “a Turkish homeland for forty centuries.”
It was under this flag that Syrian national movements were suppressed by Turkey and France, while Turkish ones were extensively promoted in Iskenderun, despite ethnic Turks making up less than 40 percent of the Sanjak.
It was under this flag that, in flagrant violation of the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon, as well as the Treaty of Lausanne, the falsified referendum was held and Iskenderun was permanently occupied by Turkey.
It was under this flag that 80 percent of the Sanjak’s Christian population fled for Syria and Lebanon after the “vote”, as well as large numbers of Arabs, and even Turks who opposed Turkey’s occupation of the Sanjak, not to mention many, many more who wished to leave but were unable to do so.
It was under this flag that the so-called “Varlik Vergisi” tax was imposed, forcing the Sanjak’s remaining Greco-Levantines and Armenians to pay 156 percent and 232 percent, respectively, of their income in taxes.
It was under this flag that in Vakifli, the last Armenian village in Iskenderun, the memorial to the Musa Dagh resistance was blown up, and the village is kept silent on the genocide to this day.
It was under this flag that all languages other than Turkish were banned for several decades, in a further attempt to Turkify the Sanjak.
It was under this flag that the 2005 pogrom in al-Qusayr decimated the last Greek Orthodox village in Iskenderun, under the pretense of “there is no room for infidels here.”
It was under this flag that Kessab was attacked by pro-Turkish proxies, leading its’ residents to flee just as those of Musa Dagh did, 75 years prior.
It was under this flag that Lindsey Snell, merely for reporting the truth, was held in Iskenderun prison for 67 days under the pretense of being “a Gulenist spy”, simply because an American dollar bill was found on her.
It was under this flag that the Greek Orthodox cemetery in Samandağ was almost confiscated as “green space”, only being saved at the behest of the HDP.
And it is under this flag that I categorically refuse to be silent any longer about what has happened here!
As the now-imprisoned former co-chair of the HDP, Figen Yuksekdag, noted in a 2016 speech, “Our history is a history of massacres. Recognizing the massacres is a historical responsibility.”
And then, only then, once Turkey recognizes the truth, shall it be set free.
Thank you very much.
In addendum: To be clear, I recognize and understand that, given the status quo in Syria, it’s most likely that Iskenderun will remain under Turkey’s control for the foreseeable future, and that no such return to Syria will take place. However, this does not excuse Turkey’s past actions in Iskenderun, and does not give them legitimacy there.
Turkey’s claim that Iskenderun voted to join them, and that it’s their “capital of tolerance”, couldn’t be further from the truth, and it is on this basis that Turkey has no right to Iskenderun — if Turkey uses falsified referendums, ethnic cleansing, and the like to obtain control of Iskenderun, sends armed militias through Iskenderun, thereby fueling the Syrian war, and even repeats such theft of Syrian land in other areas such as Afrin, Tel Abyad (Girê Spî), and Ras al-Ayn (Serê Kaniyê), then why do they have any right to Iskenderun?
Any genuine answer to the above question (other than possibly “it was a fait accompli, regardless of all this Iskenderun is ours now and that won’t change”) will never be given by the Turkish government.
I do expect that writing this article will lead to more threats and charges of treason, insulting Turkishness, and the like brought against me, but will charging me with these even address the facts about what happened in Iskenderun? No. It won’t in the slightest. And if I am jailed or otherwise retributed for writing this, especially with charges of terrorism added, it will send a clear message as to Turkey’s approach vis-à-vis factual criticism.
Additionally, if I’m accused of revisionism and irredentism over this, I will, quite frankly, be speechless. With Turkish President Erdogan implying that Turkey’s occupation zones in Syria should belong to Turkey, and Devlet Bahceli outright demanding Mosul and Kirkuk as Turkey’s 82nd and 83rd provinces, Turkey is one of the last countries to be able to accuse others of revisionism and irredentism.
In any case, should I face prosecution for this article, it will be wholly baseless and without valid pretense, since I am merely exercising freedom of speech. Hüseyin Çelik, former deputy chairman of the AKP, laid this out well in stating of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), that “[it] can take up Abdullah Öcalan’s views in Parliament. It can speak about Turkey’s division or about a federal system or autonomy. When you do that in a democratic environment in Parliament, without doing politics in the shadow of arms, it is freedom of thought.” Should this not also apply to Turkey’s approach to journalism, scholarship and the like? I think it should.
In summary, that is the core essence of Turkey’s occupation of Iskenderun — lies, violation of international law, and a facade of “tolerance”, with the reality being anything but. And, once again, nothing in the world can give any legitimacy to these.
[Note 1]
According to the French mandate’s census of 1921–1922,
[Note 2]
Iskenderun and Alexandretta are used interchangeably, and sometimes in reference to the entire Sanjak, though usually in reference specifically to the city of Iskenderun.
[Note 3]
The term “Christian Arab” refers to the Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic populations of the Levant, who are mostly Arabic-speaking, hence “Arab”. However, they are ethnically Greek, largely originating from the days of the Seleucid Empire, rising to prominence under Byzantium, and even tried to join the 1821 Greek Revolution, demonstrating their Hellenic roots. They were also counted as ethnic Greeks in an 1876 population study of the Levant, and were only Arabized in the last century or so. Therefore, despite the name “Arab Christian”, they are ethnically Greek Orthodox and Catholic (Melkite) Christians, and mostly referred to here as “Greek” or “Greek Orthodox”.
[Note 4]
In the mid-19th century, the cities of Mersin, Tarsus, and Adana received an influx of Cappadocian Greeks from Kayseri and the surrounding area, many of whom were Karamanlides, i.e. Turcophone Greek Orthodox Christians. After the Greek Genocide and 1923 population exchange, many were transferred to Greece, but large numbers also fled for Mandate Syria and Lebanon, including the city of Alexandretta, thus increasing the size of the Turkish-speaking community despite not being Turks themselves.
[Note 5]
While the map’s source notes that the French Mandate authorities may have deliberately tampered with the display of different ethnic/religious groups, this map is reasonably accurate. The current demography of Hatay largely concurs with the Mandate’s map, which shows Arab Alawites concentrated on the Gulf of Iskenderun’s shore, as well as around the city of Antioch and the mouth of the Orontes, Sunni Arabs in the eastern countryside, Kurds in the northeast, and Turks in the north, south, and the Nur mountains — although today’s population map is notably absent of Christians, save for the Armenian village of Vakifli in Samandağ, and the Greek Orthodox village of Tokacli in Altinözu.
Although the status of Alexandretta as a Christian-majority city is also called into question, this is corroborated by the significant presence of Armenian refugees in the city during the 1920s and 1930s, as well as a fairly large Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic population, detailed in [note 5].
[Note 6]
In 1922, the city of Iskenderun was home to between 17,000 and 20,000 Armenian refugees. Some of these refugees soon fled abroad — largely to Latin America, as I was told by Lebanese-Armenian historian Hamo Moskofian, himself from Iskenderun, “The Armenians mostly arrived in Latin America, Buenos Aires and Uruguay…from the Sanjak [of Alexandretta] by sea.” However, many chose to stay in Alexandretta, as seen in the Sanjak’s census, showing approximately 25,000 Armenians, from 1936.
Additionally, Alexandretta’s 1924 population was about 17,000, with 71 percent of these being Christians of several denominations, split between Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, and Armenian. Armenian emigration from Alexandretta to abroad lessened after 1924, with Alexandretta’s 1936 population standing at 18,097, showing that most of Alexandretta’s Armenians chose to remain in Alexandretta after 1924.
Of the 25,000 Armenians in the Sanjak around 1936, 6,000 lived in Musa Dagh, and Kessab to the south had approximately 3,500 Armenians as well. Kirikhan’s 4,000 Armenians, as well as the 2,000–3,000 or so Armenians living in Belen, Antioch, and elsewhere, adds up to about 16,000 Armenians in the Sanjak, not including Alexandretta, leaving for roughly 9,000–10,000 Armenians in Alexandretta, making up about 50+ percent of the city’s population. This estimate is consistent with the large refugee influx around 1922, as well as the Armenian migration out of Alexandretta soon thereafter, in which roughly half remained, and half left.
However, this does not account for the thousands of crypto-Armenian families in the Sanjak, of whom 1,100 remained in 2007, these being Armenians who outwardly took on Turkish, Arab, Kurdish, and other identities in order to survive the genocide, but are aware of their Armenian origins. Many Crypto-Armenian families found refuge in Iskenderun during the genocide, though most remained in hiding. Accordingly, they weren’t included in most counts of the Sanjak’s Armenian population, despite being Armenian themselves.
Therefore, Armenians can be reasonably estimated to have constituted about 50 to 60 percent of Alexandretta’s population during the 1920s and 1930s.
[Note 7]
Some sources state that the entire 58 percent of Sunni Muslims in Antioch were Turks, and so, Antioch city was Turkish-majority, though this count excludes the Sunni Arab population, which today comprises roughly 20 percent of Antioch’s total population, 40 percent of its’ Arab population, and 30 percent of its’ Sunni population. The 1935 population data for Antioch gives the total Sunni population as 58 percent, of which Sunni Arabs likely comprised approximately one-quarter, or 25 percent, splitting the Sunni majority between Arabs and Turks.
Thus, while Antioch was a Sunni-majority city, it was not a Turkish-majority city, even though Turks were the largest single ethnic group present.
[Note 8]
No, I am not a Gulenist, nor am I affiliated in any way with FETÖ, nor do I support them. Just because I criticize the Turkish government’s anti-democratic purges in the aftermath of the July 15, 2016 coup does not mean I am pro-FETÖ, though I expect that such accusations will nonetheless be made, thus necessitating this disclaimer.
[Note 9]
Parts of this dissertation may come across as being pro-Damascus, especially with regards to the criticism of the rebel groups fighting in Kessab, Afrin, and Aleppo. However, I share the views of Mr. Anas Joudeh on Syria’s government and rebel groups — namely, that while I am opposed to the Syrian government, I have the greatest and uttermost disdain for the rebels, the majority of whom are little more than al-Qaeda in disguise. And with Turkey heavily funding and arming several such groups up until today, they (as well as the Syrian government, of course), bear substantial responsibility for Syria’s destruction. I personally support the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (link), which, for their part, sheltered many IDPs in Aleppo’s Sheikh Maqsoud district who escaped shelling by Turkish proxies and the Syrian army. These included Christians in Aleppo from Turkey’s attacks, including many Armenians. (Source + Kurdish and Arab IDPs)
[Idlib/Manbij/Raqqa IDPs]
