New BAKEŞ book on Lausanne: Scientific work or propaganda pamphlet?
BAKEŞ announced the 73rd publication, a book by Kerem Abdourachimoglou on Greece's Muslim minority, which critics dismiss as propaganda distributed within closed circles rather than genuine scholarship.
In a coordinated communications effort, BAKEŞ – the Cultural and Educational Association of the Minority of Western Thrace – which maintains direct links with the illegally operating and judicially dissolved “Turkish Union of Xanthi” (TUX) and the mechanisms of other parastatal structures of consular revisionism – has announced its 73rd publication.
The book in question is an English-language work by Kerem Abdourachimoglou (the newly elected President of TUX) titled Lausanne’s Legacy: Greece and the Persistence of a Conventional Minority Regime, which attempts to present a one-sided, “rights-based” perspective on the Muslim Minority in Western Thrace.
However, the very nature of the publication and the manner of its distribution reveal that this is not a scholarly work, but rather another propaganda tool.
Scholarly work or closed-circuit pamphlet?
For a written or scholarly work to be considered a contribution to the international community, researchers, and readers, it must conform to the rules of the open academic marketplace: it must be freely available in bookstores, publicly presented, and subject to free scholarly dialogue and criticism.
When a book is distributed exclusively within a closed, narrow, and ideologically guided circle for internal consumption, it loses its scholarly substance. It becomes a simple propaganda pamphlet, whose purpose is to recycle and legitimize the established revisionist positions of well-known circles.
The book’s “white gaps” and historical truth
While K. Abdourachimoglou’s study claims to analyze “historical practices” and minority policies based on the Treaty of Lausanne, it is more than certain that it completely ignores how Turkey itself implemented – or rather demolished – the Treaty of 1923.
If the author were genuinely interested in the real “legacy” of Lausanne, he should have included as appendices the black book of documented, systematic, and brutal violations of Articles 37–45 of the Treaty by the Turkish state, which led to the complete annihilation of the Hellenism of Constantinople, Imbros, and Tenedos.
Editor’s note
Scientific integrity does not hide behind controlled distributions. If BAKEŞ and its author wish to speak about Lausanne, let them answer us whether their book includes the complete list of Turkish violations that transformed a thriving Greek community of over 130,000 souls into a tiny minority of elderly people:
Economic and property strangulation: Law 2762 of 1935 concerning “Vakoufia” (Vakıf properties), which handed over the management of minority institutions to Turkish trustees, leading to the seizure and confiscation of thousands of properties (from 12,000, very few remained), as well as the notorious Varlık Vergisi of 1942, the extortionate wealth tax that drove minorities into economic destitution and forced labor camps (Aşkale).
The leveling of Imbros and Tenedos autonomy: The complete abolition of the self-governance regime of the two islands by Law 1151 of 1927, the closure of Greek schools, the prohibition of the Greek language, and later, in 1964, the implementation of the secret “desertification program” (Eritme Programı – Decision 35) with mass expropriations of estates at humiliating prices, installation of military battalions and open prisons for convicts, which transformed 90% of the Greek population into less than 1% today.
Professional and social apartheid: Law 2007 of 1932, which prohibited Greeks from practicing over 30 basic professions (from musicians and photographers to tailors and street vendors), combined with fascist-style campaigns “Citizen, speak Turkish!” (Vatandaş Türkçe konuş), where people were criminally prosecuted for “insulting Turkishness” if they spoke Greek in public.
Persecution of education and religion: The closure of 68 Orthodox educational institutions in Cappadocia as early as 1922, the gradual abolition of the Greek language in minority schools, the prohibition of morning prayer, and the imposition of “military” classes taught by Turkish officers. The systematic degradation and strangulation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (denial of legal personality recognition, closure of the patriarchal printing press) culminating in the forced closure of the Theological School of Halki in 1971 and the seizure of churches (Panagia Kafatiani).
Physical extermination and expulsions: The state and deep-state organized anti-Greek Pogrom of September 6–7, 1955 in Constantinople and Smyrna (20 dead, hundreds of rapes, looting and destruction of 2,600 homes, 4,340 shops, 73 churches, and 26 schools, desecration of Patriarchs’ graves). This was followed by the mass expulsions of 1964, when through the unilateral denunciation of the Greek-Turkish Trade Agreement, 12,000 Greek citizens (and with them 48,000 of their relatives, indigenous Romioi of the City) were expelled within a few hours, allowed to take with them only one 20-kilogram suitcase and 20 dollars.
For Greece, the Treaty of Lausanne remains the non-negotiable compass of international legitimacy. For Turkey and its mouthpieces here, it is simply a text they invoke ad hoc, after first taking care to tear it to shreds in practice.
- Source: BAKEŞ Press Release / Historical and Diplomatic Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Treaty of Peace of Lausanne (1923) Edited by: Nikos Arvanitis / Editorial Team RodopiPress
Source: TAXIARCHISpress
