No Matter How Close: Relationships of the Circassians with the State Apparatus in Turkey

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze Circassian relationships with the state apparatus in Turkey which are claimed to be close since the Ottoman Empire. It explores how Circassian activists and intellectuals in Turkey define and narrate their relationships and experiences with the state. Circassian activists in Turkey employ several narratives to explain their relationships with the state and these narratives do not necessarily exclude one another. Despite the popular –and also academic- belief that Circassians relationships with the state are different, harmonious and advantageous, when compared to the relationships of other ethnic groups in Turkey, especially Kurds, relationships with the state are narrated not as a homogenous and complete spectacle of harmony in the Circassian accounts. This study aims to reflect on the multiplicity and heterogeneity of Circassian narratives on the relationships with the state apparatus in Turkey and unease the comfort of the monolithic account of Circassians as the loyal element without any problems with the state apparatus. In these narratives, the relationships of the Circassians with the Turkish state include not only bonds of loyalty, embeddedness and harmony, but also a wide range of strategies, maneuvers, resistance, surveillance and fear for various actors.