Turkey and Globalization

Mark Miller of Emory Law School, who will take part in the WAIS conference, writes: "I am leaving for a conference in Istanbul on globalization, to be held at Bogazici University with a dozen of so Emory University faculty members who have participated in a semester-long seminar on this topic". Turkey is putting on this major conference on globalization clearly as a statement of its place in the world. Turks are deeply offended by what they regard as the hostile attitude of the EU, a feeling based on history going back to World War I, when the Allies planned to split the country up and in effect to dismember it. Smyrna (Izmir) was a Green city on the Turkish mainland, and the Greeks hoped to greatly expand the area under their control. Turkey was saved by Kemal Attatürk, now Turkey's national hero. Smyrna was lost, and the Greeks were humiliated. As a result Turks and Greeks have their conflicting versions of history, which they expound with a passion which surprises the outsider. A historian told me that he attended a history conference in Turkey and was struck by the hand positions both sides took. A collection of Turkish and Greek history textbooks would be a significant item in the proposed international collection of history textbooks.

Ronald Hilton - 6/2/01