"All Turks together?
Turkey is overcentralised and treats minorities badly
Oct 21st 2010
MOST Turkish schoolchildren take part in a weekly flag ceremony during which they recite a patriotic chant ending, “Happy is he who calls himself a Turk.” The old Ottoman empire was a patchwork quilt of different nationalities and religions, but Ataturk’s Turkey was intolerant of non-Turks, even though the Lausanne treaty of 1923 recognised the existence of Armenians, Greeks and Jews. In his book on eastern Turkey, “Rebel Land”, Christopher de Bellaigue recalls going with a Kurdish friend to meet a local governor. When he tentatively tries to ask about the treatment of minorities, the governor brusquely interrupts to say that “we have no minorities in Turkey.”"
More:A special report on Turkey: All Turks together? | The Economist
