Ottoman History Podcast - The Turkishness Contract

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

with Barış Ünlü hosted by Chris Gratien and Kubra Sagir | What does it mean to be Turkish? In this episode, we examine that question with sociologist Barış Ünlü. In The Turkishness Contract, Ünlü studies the historical process by which Turkishness develop through a contractual relationship between the state and its citizens. In our conversation, we explore the late Ottoman roots of this process, as well as how the experiences of religious and ethnolinguistic groups shed light onto the often unspoken and unconscious behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs that govern Turkishness. We also discuss the book's wide reception in Turkish and how in its new English translation, Ünlü connects the Turkish experience to global perspectives on race and belonging in the modern world.    « Click for More »

Welcome to the Ottoman History Podcast. I'm Chris Grayton. I'm Kubra Thur. And today we are joined by my colleague at the University of Virginia, Professor Barish-Undu. Barish, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Barish-un-Lew teaches in the Department of Sociology here at UVA, as well as sometimes in the Department of History. He's a historical sociologist who has a degree from Binghamton University. And he's the author of a new book that, just came out in English for the first time, the Turkishness contract. Our listeners in the United States, depending on their knowledge of Turkish sociology, may be very excited to get to know a new person on the podcast. That's what they tune in for. But our listeners in Turkey are probably thinking, how did the Ottoman history podcast get Barish-Undl as a guest? Because we'll talk about

this book, the Turkishness contract, which, you know, is now just out in English, made a huge splash when it came out some years ago in Turkish. But first, let's talk about the idea at the center of the book. When our listeners hear the word Turkishness, they probably think of a national identity or like an ethnic identity. But you study Turkishness as a relational identity akin to whiteness governed by what you call the Turkishness contract. What's the Turkishness contract? So basically, the Turkishness contract is the conceptual framework on the one hand, but also on the other hand, it's the historical context through which I believe the Turkish state, Turkish nation, and Turkish individual emerged, have evolved, function and perform.

I approached this simultaneous emergence of emergence and functioning of Turkish state, nation and subject as a contractual phenomenon. A set of mutual agreements, promises, rights, and duties between the state and the nation, made up, made by, made of individuals. I approach Turkishness as certain ways of seeing, thinking, feeling, acting, and also not feeling, not seeing, not thinking, not acting, which I call negative states of Turkishness. These states, positive and negative states of Turkishness, they are relational.

They have taken shape within historical and ongoing relations with non-Turks and non-Mongued. In other words, they are product of and also productive of unequal power relations. To use a concept, famous concept of Pierre Burdieu, you know, the concept of habitus. Basically what I mean by Turkishness is history turned into nature, history turned into the nature of Turkish individuals. The habitus is also important because you are usually not conscious of your habitus. It's usually unmarked and unnamed, just like whiteness. The Turkishness contract is the history part of that, you know, formulation.

It is not a history of the past, but a living history of the present. It colors everyday relationships. It continues to shape life, from the functioning of the institutions to the everyday performances of individuals, from individual's schemas of thinking and feeling to the ways people use or carry their bodies or inhabit spaces. Right. What's important here is this concept of Turkishness. It's not an organic phenomenon that's just arising from a people's ethnogenesis.

Neither is it a creation of a few intellectuals imposed by the state necessarily, but it is, as you say, produced and productive simultaneously of a set of relations that develops over time. And you take that story back to the 19th century in the late Ottoman period and something you call the Muslimess contract. I thought this was really compelling, and it follows on a lot of other historical work that traces the origins of the Republic of Turkey into the last decades of the Ottoman period. But as a historical sociologist, thinking about the Turkishness contract in the 21st century, that's why it's most important to us. Why is this late Ottoman period so crucial? And why is it more than just the backstory?

Why is it more than the prehistory of the Turkishness contract? I mean, thank you for this question, because like it is, I mean, the chapter that is called the Muslimist contract is the longest chapter of the book, and it's for a good reason. Because I think it is the real basis or foundation of the Turkish nation. So I believe that the Turkish nation was created from the Muslim nation, and the Muslim nation emerged through this Muslimist contract. But how do we get there? So what we know from the story of Ottoman and Turkish modernization is the story of the Tanzimani. which is, in theory, not a sectarian project, but is rather an idea of Ottoman belonging where non-Muslims are also part of the social contract.

Exactly. So in order to understand the Muslim's contract, we, I guess, need to briefly examine what I mean by the Ottomaness contract. The Ottoman Empire in 18, 20s, 30s, was facing several existential threats, both internal and external. In order to survive those threats, the state, the Ottoman state, tried to kind of find solutions to these problems. And one of the solutions of the Ottoman state was the attempt at least to create kind of an Ottoman nation, kind of a cognitive, emotive unity that people would feel loyal to, you know, what things that we kind of identified with nationality. The Tanzimat period, as you said, like for example, those three, four decades,

or the Tanzimat decree and the Islahad decree in particular, were basically promises given by state in a top-down manner, promises of equality regardless of religious differences. I mean, this is interesting because, in my opinion, at least, usually scholars, people like us, kind of examine these things as ideologies or state politics, like Ottomanism, we call them Ottomanism, then Islamism and then Turkism, you know, the famous three forms of politics, types of politics of Yusuf Archerra. But I want to emphasize the contractual aspects of it.

When we look at contractual dynamics, we see different things because we pay attention to different things. for example, horizontal dynamics or dynamics that emerge from the bottom, so bottom-up dynamics. So anyway, the Ottoman contract eventually failed for various reasons. We all know that. For me, the main reason of the failure was that because it was a state project. It was a state project that did not really resonate with society in general or religious communities or millets in particular. So it didn't resonate really with anyone, except small groups, like elite groups.

As opposed to this, the Muslimist contract turned out to be very successful. Because Muslimist contract was based on, really, based on shared feelings, interests, and expectations of Ottoman Muslims, both local Muslims and refugee Muslims, Muslims who lost everything in the Balkans or in the Caucasus, lost their countries, lost their lands,

lost their maybe of husband's wives, kids, you know, like animals, and they have to leave their homelands and they have to migrate. That's a very important thing to understand, actually, not just the late Ottoman Empire, but also modern Turkey, you know, that's their migration.

And to give our listeners a sense, because they can definitely check out other episodes on this topic, and we're talking a movement of population in the millions of people who are migrating from the North Caucasus and from the Balkans with, you know, Russian expansion and Ottoman fragmentation, over the course of generations, millions of people, so a substantial portion of the empire's population.

Especially after the Treaty of Berlin, the famous Article 61, the Ottoman state basically had to promise to protect Armenians in eastern Anatolia against Muslims. What Muslims had to go through in northern Caucasus or in Balkans became a real possibility for local Muslims of Anatolia. as well, especially Kurds. It basically meant that sometime in the future they might lose their

lands as well, just like it happened in Balkans. So it kind of created this world of emotions, like fear, like hatred, like anger, that kind of united local and refugee Muslims. So after what happened in 1878, and which kind of, of course, coincides with the reign of Abdul Hamid II, I mean, the scholarship usually says, you know, Abdul Hamid kind of introduced Islam or Islamism as a state ideology. But on the contrary, I think that what Abdul Hamid did, what the state did, was to respond to the demands arising from the bottom. This is what I call the Muslimist contract.

So basically the essence of the Muslimist contract, Muslimist contract, is to create a country and also a state that will belong only to Muslims. This nature of contract became even more acute during a decade-long war between 1912 and 1922, so between the First Balkan War and the end of the War of Liberation. So those 10 years became extremely important in terms of Muslimist contract. So for example, Armenian Genocide took place within the framework of Muslimist contract. Again, the same thing, like so many critical people in Turkey, like liberals, like Marxists, kind of tend to think that, oh, it is This is the Union of Progress, the Committee of Union on Progress, which was the party in power.

That was the power organized, the genocide, and they are the real responsible people. Yes, that's true. But really, we cannot really understand the dynamics of the genocide if we cannot look at this horizontal dynamics of the contract. And not just what happened in 1915, but still, like the denial of the genocide and everything has a lot to do with this horizontal dynamics of the Muslim's contract. This is important because especially the War of Liberation between 1990 and 1922 is an interesting case for thinking like in terms of contracts because it was a period basically it was a stateless period. There was no state, not really. So the question was what kinds of states can be established in Anatolia, for example? And those states will belong to whom?

Mustafa Kemal, I mean the movement, the nation's struggle movement under the leadership. of Mustafa Kemal achieved the most important goal of the Muslimist contract that was to create a country and a state that would only belong to Muslims. The thing that started during Abdul Hamid ended in success with Mustafa Kemal. Obviously, Mustafa Kemal wasn't a fan of Abdul Hamid. So it kind of shows how contracts kind of work and function beyond ideological stances. So yeah, you've kind of set up this situation where at the end of the First World War, Turkey has become a much more religiously homogenous country, predominantly Muslim, but contains two contradictions heading into this Turkishness contract.

One is that there are still many non-Muslims, especially in the former Ottoman capital of Istanbul, Jewish communities, Greek, Armenian, people who have survived the war or were exceptions to that process of expulsion. And then the very large population of people who were Muslim, but not Turkish in ethnicity, not speaking Turkish at home. who are being kind of forced by reason of nationality into the Turkishness contract?

Yeah, after the war was won and the new Republic of Turkey was established. Basically now, from this time, in a vertical manner, the state narrowed down the Muslimist contract a little bit and basically Turkified it. So it essentially meant that now one had to be both Turkish and Muslim. So that was basically a call assimilation. People who were Muslims by birth, the door to Turkishness was open for them.

So they were expected to assimilate. And millions of people over the century kind of accepted that in a way invitation and became Turks. And what does it mean to become a Turk? Basically it means to feel like a Turk, to think like a Turk, to act like a Turk. That is what I mean by Turkishness. more than something on paper. And because I kind of emphasize this, because it's important for me theoretically, I believe that the formation of the Turkish nation should be seen as the synthesis of the horizontal and largely spontaneous dynamics of the Muslimist contract, on the one hand, and on the other, the Turkishness contract that was vertically imposed by the Turkish state.

Thank you so much for giving us the historical background. Maybe we can advance in the time period a little bit. let's talk a little bit about your methodological approach in your book. It's a really brilliant approach, especially the choice of study Turkishness through how it experienced by the ones who are excluded from the contract, like whether by their ethnic or like the religious identity. The basic principles of the contract are known to all, all people living in Turkey, the ones who are turkified or who are Turks.

They are like fish in water. And just like fish in water, this is a knowledge mostly unconscious. So the people living within the contract, let's say, so to speak, they don't really feel the weight of the water. It just appears them as the normal way of doing things, you know? So basically, shifting our gaze to what goes on out of water helps us understand and be aware of how life in water works. And those outside of water, as you said, like non-Muslims and also millions of Kurds, never

forgets the rules of the water just like us like going into water when we swim you look right we are just always aware and conscious of it and we might enjoy it but just after a while we just get out to remember to breathe yeah and especially some waters are dangerous you know like you cannot just swim in the ocean as you wish Turkishness contract today yesterday and tomorrow create an interaction order to borrow a concept of Irving Golfman it's an interaction order that regulates the nature and form of everyday encounters between individuals and bodies that are inside the contract and outside the contract.

I mean, that's what I learned from my, you know, like people that I interviewed with. As a Kurdish person, when you enter a, when you enter an institution, let's say, Boashti University or like Ankara University, those people enter those institutions knowing that they are Turkish institutions. If they speak their minds about everything they think, you know, they wouldn't be let existing there. Like just so that knowledge is very deep. But mostly Turkish people are very ignorant about this fact, you know, because as I said, they're like fish. Until they say the wrong thing, thinking it's innocent, and then they find out the hard way.

That also does happen. Like, do you have an example in your mind? I mean. But continue. So do you have some examples like from your fieldwork? about some stories maybe of these experiences? I did kind of a small field study, which I'm not very happy about.

Like, you know, it could have been much better. But I also benefited from the fieldworks of so many other, you know, like scholars. What I was told, like, repeatedly, Kurds kind of live their lives, like, on two different stages. Or, like, on state and the other one is behind these scenes. So on stage, which is always a third. Turkish stage mostly. Of course, it doesn't mean that they hide everything, but they hide

certain things. And when they are behind the scenes, they become, in a way, so to speak, they become their true selves. For example, one of the things that just I was told was, you know, this person told me that whenever I speak Kurdish, I always lower my voice automatically. And just basically I lean towards the other person that I'm talking to, kind of approach, you know, her or his ear. so that, you know, like just nobody would hear that we are speaking in Kurdish. So that's a very very phenomenological experience. You experience your body, and that becomes automatic. When you talk to Kurdish people, you hear such things all the time.

But of course, in order to do that, you need to develop a consciousness about those things. It really speaks to the point you make throughout Turkishness as a sort of constructed whiteness, people shouldn't get hung up on like skin color or racial identity, but this is like a perfect example of what W.B. Du Bois called double consciousness, right? Having to live with both the other's image of you and your own self image and not being those things never being able to merge, which the privilege of whiteness is to not have to live that way, to not be constantly made aware of how you're seen by another. It's just, yeah, I just remember another example, I guess, non-Muslim person, like this person says that.

It doesn't really matter whether I'm in Turkey or abroad. For example, when I speak in Greek, even in Europe, I just silence my, kind of, I lover my voice because that's always what I was told by my mother, you know, like when I was three, four, five years old, when I was speaking like Greek on Istiglajad, this, in Istanbul, my mother was always like, hush, you know, stop speaking in Greek.

And because they become a part of their almost personality, they just can't get rid of it, even if they move to abroad. Even if they move to Athens, of course, that is a very interesting thing that we don't, as Turks, we haven't ever experienced and we don't know how it feels. But those people feel and experience this all the time. For example, I remember reading an account, I guess, by a Greek person, like a Greek from Turkey, say something like this. So, for example, let's say I'm going to a restaurant. I go to a restaurant and then I order a soup and the soup comes and the soup is cold.

I never call the waiter or waitress and say that this soup is called. Just take it away and just bring me a new one. The person says, I never do that because it's just I don't want to create problems. That's my second nature now, you know? because that might create an unnecessary kind of tension in which I might be the I might turn out to be the losing part especially if they understand that I'm not Muslim

or I'm not Turkish. So that kind of thing becoming the second nature of non-Muslims in Turkey it's so widespread. It doesn't just say something about this people but also of course it says a lot about as I said the Turkish people. How we live our lives and how we exist, how we act in this water.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that people that are outside of the contract are trained, especially by their mothers. For the dangerous world, which is the water. I mean, kind of Phonon speaks about this. There isn't a gap or a tension between like a French family and the French, primary school. So just that flow is kind of easy. But when it comes to, you know, the example of, you know, like black students of Martinique, like Fanon himself, there was a big gap. So kind of similar thing is experienced in Turkey as well. So that kind of upbringing is, I guess, of non-Turkish people is something that I really find fascinating. Maybe we can ask you about the

like Turkishness contract and like white studies, black studies. I mean, in the introduction of the English edition of your book, like Turkishness contract, you situate your study, your book in the context of global conversations about race, white supremacy and intersectionality. And you do a great job of explaining what the study of whiteness in Europe and the US reveals about Turkishness. What does a place like Turkey add to the conversation? What does Turkishness reveal about whiteness?

One of the problems here in the United States or in the Western world in general, it is very much focused on the Western world and its colonies and also the white-black binary. But as just Chris mentioned a few minutes ago, double consciousness of Du Bois, that concept, it can be applied to almost anywhere wherever there is an ethnic and racial kind of problem or psychological wage, the concept of psychological wage of the boys. Or we just talked about Fanon. There are so many concepts and so many ideas and so many kind of also realities, not just concepts, that are quite similar to elsewhere in the world or applicable to those places.

So my question was always like, how come? And if that's the case, why do you always talk about black and white? Why don't we kind of try to create a more kind of global framework? And that's something that I can maybe contribute to that that's what I think from the context of Turkey. For example, going back to the historical period like 1923, 1924, 1945, where the Turkishness contract was being established. Around the same period, as you know, there was this huge Kurdish rebellion called Sheh Said Rebellion. And Shea Said Said Rebellion was, in a way, against the Turkishness contract, against the narrowing down of Muslimist contract, against the Turkification of the Muslimist contract. That was the essence of the Shea Said Rebellion, Kurdish rebellion.

But the thing is, you know, around that time, ministers, secretary of, you know, like interior affairs, etc. So many ministers within the cabinet, Turkish cabinet, wrote secret reports as to how we should govern Kurdistan, Kurdish cities after this revolt. rebellion. I mean, in the secret reports that we now know, that are now available, they're talking about establishing a colonial form of government in Kurdistan. They explicitly say so. So there might be some kind of relationality between contractual and colonial logics of power. That's what I'm trying to contribute to the global conversation. The simultaneously and the relationality of contractual and colonial logics of power. Right.

And that's why in, you know, if we, we're talking about like some of the most insightful authors on this topic during the 20th century were these people like Elber Memi in Tunisia or you mentioned Fanon, you know, people who had to, who were part of this contract, but were able to see it because of their position within it. Yeah. Right. These are books written by people who are part of the intelligentsia. Yeah.

which in addition to teaching all these ideas has all these sort of disciplining functions on them and their self-identity. Yeah, exactly. This colonial logic of power doesn't have to be overseas, like, for example, Algeria or France or other colonies. It can just exist within the same national borders or just beyond the walls, like it happens in Turkey, in the context of Kurdistan, or as we see, keep seeing, it happens in Israel, the relationship between Israel and Palestinians is a typical example of the

simultaneous and the relationality of colonial and contractual logics. Partite South Africa was like that. So basically you live next to each other, but according to very different types of power logics or forms of sovereignty. We're recording this like just two weeks after a Puerto Rican performer, Bad Bunny, performed in Spanish at the Super Bowl and was met with all of this backlash from people exactly like what you're describing. To be quiet, keep your voice down, not he's a U.S. citizen, but to your point.

So the thing about contractual logic of power, it is based on consent. It speaks to people, certain people, who are. included in the nation, like Turkish people, white people, you know, like French or like Catholic people or Jewish people in Israel. So basically you get their consent because they feel like the state really belongs to them and state will protect their interests and and they can climb the ladder politically, socially without leaving their ethnicity or religion behind. So they feel that way and there's a reason behind that feeling. It's not

just empty world. Basically, the colonial logic of power is exercised over people who are not part of the contract for some reason. For example, Armenians in Turkey or Palestinians in Israel because they are Arabs, they are, they are Muslims, or blacks here or indigenous populations in the United States for a long time. So basically, they're excluded from the contract because of a reason, ethnic, racial, or religious. And because of their Because they are outside of the contract, they are usually ruled by violence, physical or cultural, or at least a threat of violence. And the state of emergency is constant there. So the life in the contractual world is normal, it's predictable.

But in the colonial context, it's always unpredictable. It's always state of emergency. The constant state of emergency I'm talking about. So that creates two types of existing in the world. In the contractual logic, power functions almost invisibly. It becomes part of yourself. It becomes part of you. You think like the state.

You think like the nation. But in the colonial context, because it is violent, it never becomes really part of you. It's always visible. It's bare. It's naked. I think these two logics of power are very important to understand, not just Turkey or the Ottoman Empire, but elsewhere in the world. So looking at them, looking at the simultaneously and relationality between these two logics, in my mind, enables us to analyze racism, nationalism, nationals, nation formation, colonialism within a more global framework that goes beyond the West.

So, yeah, the Turkish-ish contract is obviously like translation. of your book, Turkluk Szehmesi, in 2018. Which is how many editions now? 17, they say. 17. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you.

Can you talk a little bit about the reception of original book in Turkey? How was reactions? It has become too popular. I mean, of course, I'm kind of happy about that, but also sometimes it has these downsides, especially on social media, people are using it. in both positive and negative ways, but like in a social media ways. So it's not always the way I want them to use it.

Some people use it as kind of a political, maybe almost weapon to say that things like, for example, oh, you are, again, you are acting according to the Turkishness contract. You are signing the Turkishness contract. You are in the contract. Yeah, I see that all the time. I don't have a Twitter account, but I use my friends and look at it. I see it all the time. It's basically like a pejorative term.

Like white privilege. Yeah. When white privilege became. I'm not very happy, but it's kind of an academic cane, you know, like just be kind of. I think it's almost like in the daily usage now. Like, you can say simply like, oh, you're in the contract. Exactly. The listeners might not believe this, but sometimes I read columns, like newspaper columns.

They talk about Turktuk-Soylis. So Turkish contract without naming me. So I guess that kind of proves your point. It's accepted as a valid. It's a privilege. Like it's just, it's a concept now. Yeah, I mean, just it's attracted, receives so many reactions. But to summarize, I guess, I mean, positive reactions mostly came from, obviously, from the people, from those who are outside the contract.

So non-Muslims and non-Turks like Kurdish people, mostly they just, their reception has been very positive. I mean, the thing that I'm hearing all the time is something like this. I have been thinking about this, but I couldn't quite conceptualize it, until reading this book. So now, and this has an empowering kind of effect

because now I can conceptualize it, you know, like, so I am grateful for this, etc. So I've been hearing this a lot. And there are, of course, negative, very negative, reactions too and they are mostly coming from as you would guess from from from some Turkish people not all of them because some of them just loved it and said that you know like it kind of opened my eyes to which to things that were that that I was blind to but yeah the 99% of the negative reactions of course came from Turkish intellectuals and like

most of them some of them Marxists some of them are camelists one of the things that they say is that I am importing concepts from the Western world. And those concepts have nothing to do with the Turkish context or the context of the Ottoman Empire. That's something I've been hearing a lot. Of course, also some people just find it very dangerous, politically dangerous, you know. Just like people, some Kurdish people, Armenian readers, find it politically useful. Some Turkish readers find it politically dangerous like you know kind of some of them are unhappy about the fact that the you know the book has become popular and kind of a little bit shaped the public discourse intellectual discourse about this discussion they're not

happy about this because I mean some of them are very political in the strict narrow sense of the world and they just they kind of feel like I guess the book because of this book maybe they lost some territory in the political space. Why do they think that it's dangerous? To put it in a very simplified way, I guess basically they think that it is poisoning the minds of people. You know, like basically they are accusing this book of pursuing or conducting identity politics as opposed to class politics. So it's the things that I hear all the time that, you know, like, oh, the author is liberal, the book is liberal. And the danger of it is that I guess the book is turning some

minds into liberalism instead of Marxism and communism, which is the opposite of my intentions, but of course, intentions are, there are a different topic. Right. But I mean, what you described perfectly, I think reinforces the fundamental validity of the notion of the Turkishness contract is that once you named it and described it for people, everyone intuitively, instantly understood what it was describing and what it was. So the Turkishness contract then became something that whether critics or those who appreciate the book, they just got, and that's why it spread quickly because it was something that everyone

knows, but that was unnamed. People reading it were like, this is, whatever side they were reading it from, they had an experience of the phenomenon you're describing. Exactly. So they can love it or hate it, but I mean, you kind of described something that exists. I mean, definitely love and hate. They are, I guess, quite accurate words to describe it because, I mean, I've been seeing love and hate, really, love and hate for some time now. And whether positive or negative, the book definitely created some strong emotions in readers, you know, while they are reading it.

Well, one of the reasons why I'm glad the translation is out is that even though some critics of the book in Turkey might say this is important. supporting Western concepts or whatever. Like, you know, we talk about this stuff all the time in American academia, but the way in what you described is different. And like, we're also swimming in that water, right? Even the people who are trying to see the world outside of the water can't necessarily see it. And I think being exposed to how the same issue, this, this, as you said, very common issue throughout

the world is described from a particular vantage point that is not the American vantage point through which race is usually discussed. That can be really eye-opening. Thank you. But I want to finish things up by just asking you briefly, you know, you're a historical sociologist. So how do you think the Turkishness contract has shaped the way Ottoman and Turkish history has been written? Because clearly the scholars who have written Ottoman and Turkish history are not outside of the contract, even some of the ones who are not themselves Turkish or in the sense of nationality. Foreign research is also part of this story now. What stand out to you is the most important ways in which the the phenomenon of the Turkishness contract has shaped our historiography that the Ottoman history

podcast is dealing with week in, week out, month and month out for over 15 years now. So, of course, it's shaped in every way possible. The basic articles, let's say, unwritten articles of the Turkishness contract is something like this. You never speak the truth about what happened to Armenians and what happened to Kurds. And you will never engage in intellectual or political activity that will be in favor of them. The Turkishians contract didn't force people to write about certain things. The most respected scholars in history, in sociology, in anthropology,

everyone, you know, like people, I don't want to name names. What defines them is not the things that they studied, but the things that they did not study, that they did not look at at all. So that is the interesting thing. So there were so many things that were not studied at all. for decades up until 1970s, 80s, like Armenian genocide, like the Kurdish question, so many things. Sheikhseid rebellion, you know, there's some genocide, all those things were not studied at all.

The unwritten rule. Yes. Right? Because I think a lot of people in the U.S. hear about this as something that is like enforced by the state. And the state does have the power to enforce certain clauses like the, you know, insult to Turkishness. But this is something that's primarily enforced through everyone knowing the code. of the contract. Yeah.

And just, like intellectuals, especially universalist intellectuals, like Marxists, let's say, and not just Marxists, but Islamists too, or even Kemalists, you know, like I think they are in a way

universalists too because they are the children of enlightenment, right? So that's the logic of Kemalism. So they, in a way, unconsciously, of course, develop intellectual strategies

and lines of thought to avoid knowledge about Armenians and about Kurds. So they question the source and the nature and the credibility of knowledge to escape from them.

So let's say that they brand them as biased, ideological, emotional, particularist. So Marxists, for example, you still hear this, criticize of Kurds of being nationless

or Islamists criticizing Kurds of being tribalist kind of dividing the Muslim Ummat or Ummah or Kemal is saying that Kurds are reactionary, feudal, etc. So that the information coming from Kurds and Armenians, etc., you know, would not be

taken seriously because they are like this. So these lines of thought and discourses functions as intellectual paths for escaping certain truths. But because they are a universalist, you know, appear to be universalists, they serve as noble escape paths. Escape must leave no trace of shame or guilt in the person. So they really convince themselves. They believe that they're the real universalist and the other is not. So they believe that. But of course, once you believe that, you can avoid every knowledge and you can neglect every knowledge that coming from Armenians and Kurds. So that was the case for a long, long time. And of course, this kind of thing can only be sustained through profound self-ignorance, profound self-ignorance about the ways

Turkishness shapes your life, ignorance about that, and which was the case for me too. So that's the beginning of this book, a turning point that I experienced in my life, that I realize how Turkishness has been shaping my areas of interest, et cetera, things like that. What was the turning point? I kind of explained this in the Turkish preface of the book, but just of all places it happened in the United States, I guess, in 2009, I was just attending this conference of Sabat Tunjell, you know, like back then, MP from a pro-Kurdish party

so I wasn't a chauvinist or anything like that. But I was hosted by this Kurdish diaspora and my friends in Providence. So I just felt like a Turk. And I felt like that. I remember saying that and just everything started

like that. And my friend asked me and kept asking me, what do you mean by there? What do you mean by that? What do you mean by that? I just started like that. I started thinking about it and just over time, over It's a 10-year journey, by the way. I just, yeah, I just, I guess, got to know myself better. And after that, the society better.

You just felt outside the water? I kind of saw that I, actually, I'm a fish. I'm a simple fish. But I didn't know that before. But, yes, I then started to kind of... And a vegan, by the way, so it aligns with your ethics. Yeah. I don't want to attract additional hostility because of my veganism.

So let's cut it out. But yeah, I mean, let's not, I don't want to end with this. Because, like, of course, things are changing, have been changing in the last 20, 30, 40 years. Just like in the U.S., you know, like, especially after the World Revolution of 1968, these things gradually change almost everywhere. And one of the days that I have to mention is Ismail Besichu Kyi in 1970. he was the first Turk, Turkish person in my mind, who really left altogether Turkishness behind, I mean entirely.

Before him, no Turk recognized Turkishness as a world of thought and feelings in the way I mean. So he stepped out and only then was able to grasp the true nature of the life in the water. And that process was cognitively and emotionally enormously challenging and took more than 10 years for him. But once he exit, when he was out, he revolutionized the historiography of modern Turkey and paid a price for it. And he spends more than 17 years in prison. And that's the thing about the Turkish's contract. You're punished if you exit the contract. And he paid for that.

But yeah, just thinking about academics for peace, you know, this group of academics, which I'm part of, signed this petition in 2016, criticizing the Turkish state's kind of militarist and kind of brutal crackdown of the uprising in Kurdish cities. So there was this petition that we signed criticizing the state. And I accept that. It's kind of a radical petition. But yeah, I mean, just the name of the petition, just to remind, it was called, We will not be a party to this crime.

So, of course, this is not the beginning, but the end of a certain transformation that now there are so many young or middle-aged scholars from Turkey and also like foreigners like yourself, Chris, and people, young scholars like Kubra. Yeah, they are thinking in a way outside the water, not outside the box, but outside the water. And all those, I mean, hundreds of those signatures of this petition paid the price by losing their jobs by losing their passports. So many of them now live in exile or abroad. But what I'm trying to say is that there has been a huge change since inspired Beishi was the pioneer of all these things. Yeah. Well, thank you for sitting down here in Charlottesville, Virginia, to talk about

this with us. Kubra is one of the students in a tutorial I'm teaching at UVA, Explorations in Kurdish history, very much motivated by her own interest, more so than my expertise, where we're dealing with a lot of this historiographical baggage of kind of what you very well described in the Turkishness contract. Thank you so much for being with us. Yeah, this was, I think this is my first podcast. And it was a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Yeah, we are so happy to have you. And I'm sure our listeners enjoyed this conversation if they're still listening here at the end. And we want to remind them that they can visit the website, Atomanthistorypodcast.com, to find a link, easy access.

to where you can pick up the Turkishness contract, as well as Turkduksoz-Messi, links to both languages, your choice, and a short reading list of other material relevant to this conversation. And in addition, a number of links to a number of other episodes we've recorded over the years that touch on some of today's themes. That's all for this episode. I'm Chris Grayton. Join us next time, and until then, take care.