Sèvres syndrome

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Map of the Treaty of Sèvres with the areas of interest of the Triple Entente and assignments of territory to Armenia and Greece.

The so-called Sèvres Syndrome ( Turkish Sevr Sendromu ) is a conspiracy theory widespread in Turkey today , according to which "foreign powers" want to join forces from the background to weaken and destroy Turkey

background

The term goes back to the Treaty of Sèvres of 1920 between the Ottoman Empire , Armenia , Greece , Great Britain , France and Italy . According to the provisions of this treaty, large parts of the Ottoman Empire were separated and added to other territories or placed under the dedicated influence of the other treaty powers. Only the Anatolian core area around Angora would have remained under Ottoman rule. However, the treaty was never implemented because of the Turkish Liberation War under the founder of the Turkish state, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk . The Turkish historian Taner Akçam describes this attitude as an enduring view that "there are powers that are constantly striving to dismember and destroy us, and that it is necessary to defend the state from this threat."

content

The syndrome refers to “a certain type of perception and the resulting reaction patterns [...] which are rooted in a traumatic past experience with the West and which were not later revised, regardless of how the actual relationship with the West evolved over the course of the year The years have changed. ”It is based on“ deeply rooted memories and the related equally deeply rooted politics of the Turkish nationalist elites towards the West and its domestic allies. ”

The Danish political scientist Dietrich Jung describes these terms as "the assumption of being surrounded by enemies who intend to destroy the Turkish state" and states that it is an important determinant of Turkish foreign policy . The term was used in 1987 in connection with the Kurdish conflict in Turkey ; it describes the attitude of Turkish right-wing extremist circles towards Turkish membership of the EU . The Turkish denial of the Armenian genocide is also attributed to Sèvres syndrome, among other things.

According to Fatma Mugt Göçek, the literature on Sèvres syndrome distinguishes three stages of development of the "syndrome":

  • the initially temporary effects of the Treaty of Sèvres on state and society in the form of fear and anxiety
  • Negotiations during the radical Europeanization of the Turkish Republic, led by the military and the Republican People's Party , internal and external enemies are defined in this phase
  • the institutionalized syndrome is radicalized as ultra-nationalist parties try to systematically exclude such perceived enemies from the Turkish national body

literature

  • Fatma Müge Göçek: The Transformation of Turkey. Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era . Ed .: IBTauris. London 2011, ISBN 978-1-84885-611-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Şahin Alpay: 'Sevr Sendromu' nedir ve neden azar? Zaman , July 7, 2009; archived from the original on December 25, 2013 ; Retrieved July 25, 2013 (Turkish).
  2. ↑ Melih Altınok: Yeni Sevr sendromu da bu mu. Taraf , June 19, 2012, archived from the original on September 13, 2013 ; Retrieved July 25, 2013 (Turkish).
  3. ↑ Cengiz Çandar : Nabucco imzası 'Sevr sendromu'nun defin belgesidir. Radical , accessed July 25, 2013 (Turkish).
  4. ^ Nasuh Uslu: Turkish Foreign Policy In The Post-Cold War Period . Ed .: Nova Science Publishers. Hauppauge, NY 2004, ISBN 978-1-59033-742-4 , pp. 15 .
  5. ^ Morton Abramowitz: Turkey's Transformation and American Policy . Ed .: Century Foundation Press. New York 2000, ISBN 978-0-87078-453-8 , pp. 141 (English): "Previously rarely raised, Sevres became a 'common' word in the Turkish political lexicon in the 1990s."
  6. ^ Daniella Kuzmanovic: Refractions of Civil Society in Turkey . Ed .: Palgrave Macmillan. New York 2012, ISBN 978-1-137-02791-7 , pp. 46 (English): "The Sèvres Syndrome presents a narrative foreign powers and consistently pursuing a hidden agenda when it comes to Turkey, an agenda that entails wanting to destroy the Turkish nation and undermine its sovereignty."
  7. ↑ David L. Phillips : Unsilencing the Past: Track Two Diplomacy And Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation . Berghahn Books, 2004, ISBN 978-1-84545-007-6 , pp. 42 .
  8. ^ Hans-Lukas Kieser : Turkey Beyond Nationalism: Towards Post-Nationalist Identities . Ed .: Tauris. London 2006, ISBN 978-1-84511-141-0 , pp. 232 (English): “The fear of conspiracies directed toward Turkey by international actors is often referred to as the 'Sevres Syndrome'. It is the belief that the international community, and in particular the Western world, aspire to revive the terms of the Sevres Treaty imposed on the Ottoman Empire after the end of the First World War and basically divide up Turkey into smaller ethnic states. "
  9. ^ William Hale: Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000 . Ed .: Routledge. 2012, ISBN 978-1-136-23802-4 , The Alliance Under Stress, 1991-9 ( books.google.com ).
  10. ↑ Fatma Müge Göçek, IB Tauris (Ed.): The Transformation of Turkey. Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era. P. 105.
  11. ↑ Fatma Müge Göçek, IB Tauris (Ed.): The Transformation of Turkey. Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era. P. 116.
  12. ↑ Taner Akçam : From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide . Ed .: Zed Books. London 2005, ISBN 978-1-84277-527-1 , pp. 230 .
  13. ↑ Hakan Yilmaz: Euroscepticism in Turkey. Parties, Elites, and Public Opinion, 1995–2006. In: Gabriele Clemens (Ed.): Turkey and Europe. Lit, Münster 2007, ISBN 3-8258-0782-7 , p. 236.
  14. ^ Dietrich Jung: The Sèvres Syndrome: Turkish Foreign Policy and its Historical Legacies. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, accessed July 23, 2013 .
  15. ↑ Stephen Kizner: Turks See Throwback to Partition in Europe's Focus on Kurds. In: The New York Times . December 7, 1998, accessed on July 24, 2013 (English): “With the Sevres treaty dead, most of the world forgot it. Turks, though, didn't. Many are convinced that the world is still plotting to dismember Turkey. They see every claim for regional or cultural autonomy, including those put forward by Kurdish nationalists, as means to this end. Turkish historians and sociologists call this belief the Sevres syndrome. "
  16. ↑ Fatma Müge Göçek, IB Tauris (Ed.): The Transformation of Turkey. Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era. P. 109.
  17. ↑ Turkey and the "Sèvres Syndrome" . Hamburger Abendblatt . April 19, 2016. Retrieved July 2, 2016.
  18. ↑ Fatma Müge Göçek, IB Tauris (Ed.): The Transformation of Turkey. Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era. P. 110.