Powerful organizations of world leaders rarely let new members into their ranks. On October 23, 2023, Turkey—a member of NATO since 1952—submitted Sweden’s bid for NATO membership for parliamentary ratification. This is a marked turnaround from Erdogan’s previous, seemingly hardline stance against Sweden’s entry to the intergovernmental military alliance. The Turkish president’s stubbornness primarily stemmed from his conviction that Sweden was promoting “anti-Turkish activities” by allowing members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the Turkish government  classifies as  a terrorist organization, to reside within its borders.

The PKK, an insurgent Kurdish nationalist group, originally arose in response to the Turkish government’s mistreatment of the Kurdish minority ethnic group. Established in 1978, the party aims to extract greater civil and political rights for the Kurdish population in the Middle East—and ultimately, to establish an independent Kurdish nation-state. However, this goal has proven difficult to achieve; due to the widespread dispersion of Kurds across  Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, the ethnic group has not been able to justify the creation of an official Kurdish state. This, alongside the Turkish government’s continuous suppression of Kurdish political rights, has resulted in multiple armed conflicts between the government and the PKK over past decades that have caused tens of thousands of casualties.

This clear animosity between Erdogan’s government and the PKK has made the large Kurdish diaspora in Sweden a point of heated contention regarding the latter country’s ambitions to become a fellow member of NATO. From the very beginning of Sweden’s membership process, Erdogan made it clear that Sweden must increase its crackdown on PKK-related activities within its borders in order to win Turkey’s approval. Even after Sweden complied with these demands, taking actions such as implementing an anti-terrorism law preventing individuals from participating in terrorist organizations (i.e., the PKK), Erdogan remained unsatisfied. He ratcheted up his demands to include the extradition of over a 100 people to Turkey to be put on trial for being involved with the PKK. Erdogan’s stubborn disapproval of Sweden’s policy on the PKK and the Kurdish seemed unlikely to change; that is, until July. 

On July 10th, Erdogan made a sudden about-face and stated that he would approve Sweden’s bid for NATO membership. Such approval would not be unconditional; there are various reasons for why Erdogan could have departed from antagonizing Sweden. For one, he is maintaining his pressure on the Swedish government to crack down further on the Kurdish diaspora and PKK activities. However, Erdogan’s ambitions regarding the suppression of the PKK may extend beyond Sweden’s borders. Galip Dalay, a non-resident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, believes that Turkey hopes to pressure other Western countries—including the US—to take stricter measures against other groups deemed “terrorists” by the Turkish government. Dalay also interprets Turkey’s approval of Sweden’s membership bid as a strategic maneuver to strengthen the ties between Turkey and the EU in order to increase the likelihood that Turkey, which has long-aspired to join NATO, will be able to enter the bloc. 

Turkey may be closer to achieving its political goals with the advancement of Sweden’s NATO membership. But what are the implications of this advancement for the Kurdish population? Turkey’s efforts to push Sweden to take a harsher stance against Kurds have already produced significant outcomes; in July, Sweden sentenced a Kurdish man to four years and six months in prison for allegedly providing funds to the PKK. Now that Sweden in part owes the consideration of its NATO membership bid to Turkey, the Swedish government may feel more indebted to Turkey’s demands regarding the Kurdish diaspora. Given Erdogan’s track record of suppressing the political rights of Turkish Kurds and rousing nationalistic sentiments against the ethnic group, this may not bode well for the Kurdish population in Sweden. Also alarming is how the EU and the US—the two most powerful players in this particular political discussion—have also recognized the PKK as a terrorist organization; this suggests that there may be a lack of accountability regarding Turkey’s potential future attempts to crack down further on Kurdish rights, not only within its own borders but elsewhere. As these developments continue to unfold, members of both NATO and the EU should be careful to keep from conflating the militant PKK with the entirety of the Kurdish population. 

There is solace in knowing that, historically, the EU and the US have criticized Turkey’s domestic human rights concerns and supported movements for the betterment of Kurdish rights. The Turkish government has designated one such movement—the Gülen movement—as a terrorist organization; but the EU and the US still recognize Gülen as a legitimate civil rights endeavor. Although their support does not go much further than mere recognition, there is hope that these world leaders will prioritize protecting the rights and liberties of the marginalized Kurdish community moving forward. As the issue of state sovereignty remains at  the forefront of international issues, NATO and EU leaders may feel more pressure to address the question of whether the Kurdish population will be granted a separate nation-state. Indeed, millions of Kurds facing social and political persecution in Turkey would be glad if such a discussion occurred sooner, rather than later.

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Türkiye, Finland, and Sweden sign agreement paving the way for Finnish and Swedish NATO membership, uploaded June 2022 | Image sourced from Flickr Creative Commons

Introduction

Tensions are rising in the eastern Mediterranean as Cyprus, Turkey, and Greece clash over access to significant offshore gas reserves.[1] Turkey has alarmed its neighbors by sending convoys of research and military vessels into disputed waters to begin the process of surveying and drilling, and Greece, Cyprus, France, and Italy have conducted military exercises or deployed more forces to the region in response. Mediation efforts by the EU have so far failed to broker any compromise, and recent clashes between Turkish and Greek vessels have led many to worry that a more serious conflict could emerge.[2][3] While this conflict is unlikely to resemble a full-blown war, it may develop to parallel the “hybrid warfare” present in a similar ongoing conflict in the South China Sea.[4] Perhaps more concerningly, the two disputes are scuttling maritime international law at a time when the rapidly globalizing world economy is increasingly reliant on the seas.

Defining Context: The Cyprus Dispute

Cyprus has been inhabited by Greek and Turkish populations for centuries, and this ethnic division has been the source of a decades-long conflict over the nation’s political status.[5] The island gained its independence from Britain in 1960, and at first, the government balanced power between the two groups, though the majority Greek population wielded significantly more power.[6] [7] In 1963, however, the compromise broke down, and the Turkish Cypriots left the government claiming that the Greeks had forced them out. The Greeks insisted they had left of their own accord.[8] Violence broke out between the two groups shortly thereafter, prompting UN intervention.[9] In 1974, Greece backed a coup d’état to install a leader who sought to reunify the country as a part of Greece, a primary goal of many Greek Cypriots.[10] [11]  This violated the treaty Turkey, Greece, and Britain had signed in granting Cyprus its independence, prompting Turkey to invade the northern part of the country to protect its independence.[12] Turkey continues to occupy the north, which is now formally organized as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and contains most of the Turkish Cypriot community.[13] Tensions persist between the two groups, and there is no current solution to reunite the country. 

This complicated domestic political situation has significant implications for granting Cyprus economic rights to maritime territory under international law. Turkey is the only nation to formally recognize the TRNC, while the predominantly Greek Cypriot Republic of Cyprus in the south enjoys international recognition, but this alone is not sufficient to solve the problem.[14] [15] Since international law apportions the right to exploit maritime resources to states based on their borders, it is unlikely that any consensus on maritime boundaries can be agreed upon as long as the sovereignty of Cypriot communities themselves remains in question.[16]

The Legal Dispute

Rights to exploit maritime resources are governed by international law under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas, or UNCLOS. The convention grants each country exclusive access to all natural resources within 200 nautical miles of its coastline.[17] This area is known as a nation’s Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ.[18] The exact delineation of EEZs has repeatedly led to conflict, as nations’ 200nm boundaries often overlap, and UNCLOS provides no explicit mechanism for reconciling overlapping claims.[19] Countries are required to work out agreements between themselves, which can be difficult when states have competing interests and a history of animosity.[20] Nations are also occasionally entitled to all waters above their continental shelf up to 350 nautical miles, and definitions of what this entails also tend to spark conflict.[21] 

Much of the gas in the Eastern Mediterranean lies in the UN-recognized EEZs of Greece and Cyprus, but Turkey insists that it too has drilling rights.[22] Turkey’s claims to Greek and Cypriot waters are distinct and both merit a close look. 

[France24 Image]

While Turkey has more coastline on the Aegean Sea, Greece has been able to claim the lion’s share of the maritime territory because of its numerous island possessions which stretch nearly to Turkey’s borders.[23] [24] Turkey argues that these islands are not justification to extend Greece’s EEZ, and international law has so far been relatively inconclusive on the matter.[25] [26] However, neither side so far has been willing to go to the international tribunal in the Hague for arbitration.[27] Instead, Turkey has sent vessels into Greek waters, and Greece has announced a military buildup in reply.[28] [29]

In Cyprus, Turkey also objects to the Republic of Cyprus’s plans to lease drilling rights to portions of its EEZ to European oil companies.[30] Ankara argues that the Turkish Cypriots in the North are entitled to some of the revenues the Greek South was planning to keep for itself.[31] This is where the controversial relationship between the North and the South comes into play. If Cyprus truly is one country, then Northern Cypriots would have a legitimate claim to some of the benefits.[32] Turkey also claims direct sovereignty over some waters off the coast of Cyprus for its own use, alleging that they are rightfully Turkey’s, though this claim has lacked much explanation or legal backing.[33] Ankara is clearly determined, however, as it has sent a number of research and military vessels to survey the area for drilling while forcibly keeping an Italian vessel licensed by the Republic of Cyprus out.[34]

The Verdict

While many details of the dispute, particularly those regarding interpretations of international law, are relatively ambiguous, one thing is abundantly clear: Turkey has demonstrated its willingness to aggressively use military force to exercise its national policy. While Turkey claims territory under UNCLOS, it has not formally signed and ratified the treaty, nor does it seem willing to settle the matter in international court.[35] [36] Turkey’s bold and active use of its military has galvanized its neighbors against it, as Israel, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Jordan, Palestine, the UAE, and France have formed a loose coalition to oppose its claim to the gas reserves.[37]

Turkey appears to have two distinct motivations behind its aggression in the region. One is economic and relatively straightforward; Turkey spent $41 billion on energy imports in 2019, which is economically and strategically disadvantageous.[38] The other is political and much more complex. Erdoğan, like other authoritarian leaders such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, has repeatedly used aggression overseas to project a facade of strength in order to distract from his domestic political failings and weaknesses.[39] Turkish rhetoric has focused on reclaiming a “blue homeland,” referring to parts of the Eastern Mediterranean that many Turkish political elites consider having been stolen from Turkey by European colonial powers.[40] This rhetoric has concerned several European leaders, including one French politician who compared Erdoğan’s aggression and rhetoric to that of Hitler in the years leading up to WWII.[41] While this last comparison is likely an exaggeration, Turkey’s behavior does fall in line with a concerning global trend. Disaffected powers such as Turkey, Russia, and China have increasingly pushed against or outright rejected the authority of international institutions created largely by the West in the past 75 years.[42] There is certainly room for the argument that these institutions were heavily biased to favor the Western powers, but the outright rejection of institutions designed to prevent another world war by some of the largest powers in the world is nonetheless extremely concerning.

A Parallel Crisis: The South China Sea Case

The situation in the Eastern Mediterranean bears remarkable similarities to a congruent flare-up in the South China Sea between China and its neighboring countries.[43] Both regions are immensely important for international shipping and contain significant natural resources.[44] In addition, both China and Turkey have employed similar methodologies, as the two powers have aggressively used naval power to enforce their claims.[45] One notable divergence between the two situations is the level of regional resistance each aggressor has faced.[46] China has largely gone unchecked in its expansion: even an explicit ruling by the UNCLOS tribunal which declared that artificial islands do not carry EEZ rights failed to deter Chinese expansion.[47] Turkey, on the other hand, has faced considerable opposition from its neighbors, many of whom have more developed militaries.[48]

Future of the Dispute and International Law of the Seas

The crash in oil prices brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic offered a chance for all parties to slow down and draft a strategy to de-escalate the conflict, but this chance will likely be wasted, as Erdoğan recently opted to press on and continue the drilling.[49] Going forward, experts predict that Turkey may follow in the footsteps of China and adopt a “hybrid warfare” strategy that includes the use of a paramilitary-style coast guard to enforce its claims.[50] Such conflict is troubling to see, especially in two of the most important sea routes for international trade. The coming years will be pivotal for the future of UNCLOS and maritime international law. If the current institutions fail to resolve these ongoing disputes, the world might need to take a second look at its strategy to ensure peace on the high seas.

Works Cited

[1] Romain Brunet, “Troubled Waters: Greek-Turkish Escalations in the Mediterranean,” France 24, August 28, 2020, https://www.france24.com/en/20200828-troubled-waters-greek-turkish-escalations-in-the-mediterranean.

[2] Robin Emmott, “Greece, Cyprus Told to Wait for EU Action on ‘provocative’ Turkey,” Reuters, October 16, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-summit-turkey-idUSKBN271173.

[3] Alessandro Gagaridis, “Rising Tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean: Another South China Sea?,” Geopolitical Monitor (blog), March 20, 2018, https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/rising-tensions-in-the-eastern-mediterranean-another-south-china-sea/.

[4] Gagaridis.

[5] David Hunt, “Cyprus — Britannica Academic,” August 25, 2020, https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Cyprus/109746#214648.toc.

[6] Sewell Chan, “Cyprus: Why One of the World’s Most Intractable Conflicts Continues (Published 2016),” The New York Times, November 7, 2016, sec. World, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/world/europe/cyprus-reunification-talks.html.

[7] Turkish Heritage Organization, “The Cyprus Dispute at a Glance,” The Cyprus Dispute at a glance, accessed November 7, 2020, https://www.turkheritage.org/.

[8] Chan, “Cyprus.”

[9] Turkish Heritage Organization, “The Cyprus Dispute at a Glance.”

[10] Turkish Heritage Organization.

[11] Hunt, “Cyprus — Britannica Academic.”

[12] Turkish Heritage Organization, “The Cyprus Dispute at a Glance.”

[13] Chan, “Cyprus.”

[14] Chan.

[15] Achilles Skordas, “Oil Exploitation in the Eastern Mediterranean: Cyprus, Turkey and International Law | Wilson Center,” accessed November 2, 2020, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/oil-exploitation-the-eastern-mediterranean-cyprus-turkey-and-international-law.

[16] Skordas.

[17] Rachel Esplin Odell and Annelle Sheline, “Analysis | Greek and Turkish Ships Are Playing Chicken at Sea. There’s Already Been One Crash.,” Washington Post, accessed November 2, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/12/greek-turkish-ships-are-playing-chicken-sea-theres-already-been-one-crash/.

[18] Odell and Sheline.

[19] Odell and Sheline.

[20] Odell and Sheline.

[21] Odell and Sheline.

[22] Brunet, “Troubled Waters.”

[23] Odell and Sheline, “Analysis | Greek and Turkish Ships Are Playing Chicken at Sea. There’s Already Been One Crash.”

[24] Patrick Wintour, “How a Rush for Mediterranean Gas Threatens to Push Greece and Turkey into War,” The Guardian, September 11, 2020, sec. World news, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/11/mediterranean-gas-greece-turkey-dispute-nato.

[25] Odell and Sheline, “Analysis | Greek and Turkish Ships Are Playing Chicken at Sea. There’s Already Been One Crash.”

[26] Wintour, “How a Rush for Mediterranean Gas Threatens to Push Greece and Turkey into War.”

[27] Odell and Sheline, “Analysis | Greek and Turkish Ships Are Playing Chicken at Sea. There’s Already Been One Crash.”

[28] Emmott, “Greece, Cyprus Told to Wait for EU Action on ‘provocative’ Turkey.”

[29] Odell and Sheline, “Analysis | Greek and Turkish Ships Are Playing Chicken at Sea. There’s Already Been One Crash.”

[30] Frisco Dubbelboer, “UNCLOS UNDER PRESSURE: LAW OF THE JUNGLE OR LAW OF THE SEA?” (Clingendael Institute, July 28, 2020), https://spectator.clingendael.org/en/publication/unclos-under-pressure-law-jungle-or-law-sea.

[31] Renee Maltezou, “U.S. warns Turkey over offshore drilling near Cyprus,” Reuters, October 5, 2019, https://fr.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-greece-pompeo-mitsotakis-idAFKBN1WK04G.

[32] Skordas, “Oil Exploitation in the Eastern Mediterranean.”

[33] Dubbelboer, “UNCLOS UNDER PRESSURE: LAW OF THE JUNGLE OR LAW OF THE SEA?”

[34] Dubbelboer.

[35] Odell and Sheline, “Analysis | Greek and Turkish Ships Are Playing Chicken at Sea. There’s Already Been One Crash.”

[36] Dubbelboer, “UNCLOS UNDER PRESSURE: LAW OF THE JUNGLE OR LAW OF THE SEA?”

[37] Wintour, “How a Rush for Mediterranean Gas Threatens to Push Greece and Turkey into War.”

[38] Ahmed Helal, “For Turkey, the Libyan Conflict and the Eastern Mediterranean Are Inextricably Linked,” Atlantic Council (blog), October 28, 2020, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/for-turkey-the-libyan-conflict-and-the-eastern-mediterranean-are-inextricably-linked/.

[39] Odell and Sheline, “Analysis | Greek and Turkish Ships Are Playing Chicken at Sea. There’s Already Been One Crash.”

[40] Wintour, “How a Rush for Mediterranean Gas Threatens to Push Greece and Turkey into War.”

[41] Wintour.

[42] Wintour.

[43] Gagaridis, “Rising Tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean.”

[44] Gagaridis.

[45] Gagaridis.

[46] Gagaridis.

[47] Gagaridis.

[48] Gagaridis.

[49] Dubbelboer, “UNCLOS UNDER PRESSURE: LAW OF THE JUNGLE OR LAW OF THE SEA?”

[50] Gagaridis, “Rising Tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean.”

Written by: Yicheng Zhang, Tufts University ’21

The novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh was written by the Austrian-Jewish writer Franz Werfel in 1933. It tells the experience of the Musa Dagh Armenian community during the Armenian Genocide and their successful resistance against the Ottoman authority. It is very easy today to find a literature work on the topic of genocide, be it academic studies or memoirs from witnesses. So, what has distinguished The Forty Days of Musa Dagh from similar literatures and made it worthy to read in the twenty-first century?

The novel is a fictional rendition of the Musa Dagh uprising against the Ottoman Empire during the Armenian Genocide. The local Armenian population rose up against the Turkish authority and managed to hold up until being evacuated by the Allies navy. The successful resistance at Musa Dagh was an atypical chapter of the Armenian Genocide; but precisely because of that, the event held a significant position in Armenian national history. Werfel dramatized the uprising and his characters, all of whom were based on true historical figures. The main character of the story is Gabriel Bagradian, a wealthy Armenian living in France. By a twist of fate, when he visited his native village of Yoghonoluk, the Great War erupted and trapped him and his family in the Ottoman Empire. After it had become evident that the Ottoman government was deporting and exterminating ethnic Armenians across the empire, Bagradian refused to let his community to suffer the same fate. He persuaded the villagers from the region to abandon their homes and form an armed resistance, based on the nearby Musa Dagh (Mount Moses). Bagradian and his band of rebels fended off several Turkish military attacks, but it was clear that the odds were too great and they could not hold for much longer. During that period, Bagradian, who was brought up in French culture, also had to struggle with his identity and the war’s toll on his family: Bagradian’s French wife was estranged from him and his son was killed in a mission to reach out to the American consulate. Just before the Turks mounted their final assault, the defenders of Musa Dagh were discovered and evacuated by the French navy. With his people now in safety, Bagradian chose to stay behind to led further resistance and was killed by the Ottomans in a skirmish.

When the novel was first published in the 1930s, historical evidence and records of the Armenian genocide were not readily available to the public and historians were yet to reach a conclusion on the issue. The new Republic of Turkey, the successor of the Ottoman Empire, strenuously denied any policy of systematic ethnic cleansing and the scale of the genocide were still unclear to the public. Thus, the novel played an important part in raising the world’s awareness of the Armenian genocide. Reading the suffering of individual Armenian families presents readers with a new and more personal perspective of the event. It reminds the readers that the genocide is more than just a casualty number or a historical event. The gruesome details of the forced marches and other Ottoman atrocities also allow readers to gain a deeper and more direct recognition of the genocide’s horror. Today’s Turkish government continues its stance of denial and actively uses diplomatic tools to silence overseas debates of the topic. Therefore, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh will continue to be a must-read text for anyone interested in that period of history.

To his credit, Werfel constructed a realistic recount of the genocide and the uprising. To create faithful background settings, he conducted detailed research on Armenian and Turkish cultures, traditions, religious practices, Ottoman military and government, geography and climate of the region. Any reader can attest to the lively and convincing Eastern Mediterranean world that was presented in the book. Werfel also extensively consulted historical records and interviews, so that the novel can accurately reflect historical events. For instance, the talk between Enver Pasha and German Missionary Johannes Lepsius was based on the pastor’s real-life interview of the Turkish warlord; Werfel also consulted French official diplomatic archive to recreate the naval evacuation of Musa Dagh villagers at the end of the novel. 

It is worth noting how the author attempts to include Turkish interpretations of the genocide in the book. In the novel, one of the subplot focuses on the German Missionary Johannes Lepsius, a real historical figure, and his attempt to interview the Turkish military leader Enver Pasha in the hope of changing Enver’s mind on the deportation policy. As mentioned above, although Werfel’s depiction of the conversation was partly fictional, it was based on Lepsius’s real-life interview of the Pasha, which the missionary later published in Germany. During the interview, Enver Pasha argued that measures against the Armenians were justified wartime exigencies to forestall their cooperation with the enemies and were necessary to create a strong and stable Turkish nation state. Werfel deliberately presented the Enver’s case for his deportation policy so that readers can not only understand his motives, but also recognize their ridiculousness. Equally worthy noticing is Werfel’s incrimination of the Allies in the genocide through the debate between Lepius and a dervish sheik. Werfel argues that European countries’ forceful introduction of modernization and imperialist policy had disrupted the traditional Middle Eastern socioeconomic order and sowed the seeds of ethnic nationalism, which eventually led to the Armenian genocide. Thus, the West, in Werfel’s view, was equally guilty in the Armenians’ suffering. Werfel skillfully adds complexity to the novel. It becomes more than just a simple imputation of the Ottoman state and this allows readers to more profoundly reflect on the deeper causes of the genocide.

However, the book is more than just a story of the Musa Dagh resistance and the Armenian genocide. Critics have pointed out the novel, published amid Hitler’s rise to power, can be read as “a not-so-veiled warning about the virulent racialism, chauvinism, anti-Semitism, and amoral realpolitik that were about to be unleashed by the Nazi.” ^[1] The parallels between the Young Turks, the ruling Ottoman party during the genocide, and the Nazis are impossible for any reader to miss: both ideologies were obsessed with the idea of establishing living space for the “master race” and would not shy from any means to achieve such goal, the pogroms targeting Armenian shops seem eerily similar to Kristallnacht, and the Ottoman deportation camps were as hellish as the Nazi concentration camps. It’s therefore even more remarkable that the book was written before the Holocaust. Whether or not Werfel deliberately shaped the novel as a wake-up call to the European Jews is still subjected to debate. But it’s certainly true that Werfel possesses a penetrating understanding of the nature of genocide and modern state violence, which makes his work a true masterpiece and relevant for today. Throughout Musa Dagh, Werfel posed his readers many perceptive questions and explored the various topics and themes of state violence. One of the most conspicuous themes examined by the novel was the issue of morality in politics. In one of the later chapters, Lepius confronts the German privy councilor for not intervening on behalf of the Armenians. The German official shows little sympathy for his Turkish allies and is disgusted by their atrocities. Yet he made it clear to Lepius that any intervention would be against German national interests and Lepius’ humanitarian activism was not desirable for the state. The official also argued that Germany was powerless to stop the massacre: any forceful German intervention only would push the Ottomans to switch side and, if that were to happen, the Allies would equally ignore Turkish atrocities for their own interests. Was the German official correct or were his words merely an excuse? Can moralities really play a meaningful role in shaping foreign policy? Should a government cooperate with human rights violators for its own national interests? How can a state reconcile human rights and its geopolitical goals? Werfel hasn’t offered a clear answer in the novel and readers are still struggling to find that answer today. 

Another theme explored in The Forty Days of Musa Dagh is the nature of modern state violence and what distinguishes it from traditional violence. Werfel inserted many details in the novel that would emphasize the “professional” and “organized” nature of the Armenian genocide. If pogroms of the old times were messy disordered murders from which the lucky victims could escape, the deportation was a systematic campaign that aimed to completely wipe out the Armenian population. Those who carried out the murders were no longer rag-tag mobs of the old days filled with religious fanaticism, but instead professional uniformed soldiers with “cold, steady…national hatred.” ^[2] While, in the past, the state was not organized enough to stop pogroms against ethnic minorities (or at least did not explicitly support them), now the entire modern state machine was mobilized to support the atrocities against the Armenians. It was ironic that, even though the empire was under siege on four fronts and its military resources were stretched thin, the Ottoman bureaucracy was still able to squeeze out troops to carry out the deportation order and to organize trains that would transport their passengers to their deaths. The same seeming contradiction also happened twenty years later in Nazi-occupied Europe: the Nazi regime managed to devote enough resources to carry out its systematic mass murder, even in 1944 and 1945 when the military situation was dire for the Axis. Another characteristic (and contradiction) of modern state violence is the state’s obsession with procedures and bureaucracies: orders and procedures that are seemingly-civilized must be maintained, even when they are used to carry out the most barbaric and sadistic violence. The best example of this can be found in Chapter 7 of Book 1. The regional government, with its full murderous intention, still insisted on finding the receipt that would prove the village guilty of possessing firearms. Similarly, the Turkish deportation squad tried to put up a veneer of authority by reading out the deportation order to the villagers. Earlier than most of his contemporaries, Werfel grasped the essence of modern state violence and how it differentiates from conventional violence.

Werfel depicted a diverse group of characters who participated in the genocide, from the low-ranking Ottoman infantrymen, mid-level officers who enforced the deportation, to the masterminds of genocide in the Young Turks’ leadership. Horrible their deeds were, these figures were not simplistic bloodthirsty men; many of them, in fact, were quite ordinary people. One might argue that Werfel already understood Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil” and applied it to his characters. The orchestrators of the Armenian genocide were not psychopathic maniacs indoctrinated by the Young Turks’ twisted ideology. Many of them displayed neither guilt for their actions nor particular hatred against the ethnic Armenians. Some of them were merely banal bureaucrats who, while they might support the policy of ethnic cleansing, did not possess any taste for real violence. The Young Turk official in Chapter 7, Book 1, is portrayed as a “zealous advocate of extermination”; but, not desiring to see blood, he immediately turned away when his men beat up an Armenian priest.^[3] Similarly, Enver Pasha, one of the masterminds behind the genocide, was an intelligent and quiet man and could be easily mistaken for an ordinary officer. The Pasha was neither perverted nor sadistic and he did not harbor hysterical hatred against the Armenians. Enver saw the deportation purely as a means to achieve his political goal and he probably did not have anything personal against the Armenians. Werfel’s fictional depiction of Enver Pasha fit in Arendt’s characterization of the “banality of evil.” These mid-or-high-level bureaucrat murderers with seemingly inconsistent personalities played a key role in the organization of genocides. Werfel portrayal of these characters is convincing and credible and reading them will help readers to fully comprehend the many contradictions in modern state violence.

The Forty Days of Musa Dagh is a faithful and vivid recount of the Armenian genocide and the Musa Dagh community’s resistance. But it is more than just a story recounting that particular chapter of history. Before genocide became conceptualized by post-war academics, Werfel first captured the essences of modern state violence with his penetrating perception, and he was able to put his keen observation in the novel. Reading the book will allow readers to gain a more profound understanding of modern state violence and its nature. This timeless classic will retain its relevancy as long as the world is shadowed by the threat of genocide.

Bibliography

^[1] Franz Werfel, The Forty Days in Musa Dagh, trans. Geoffrey Dunlop and James Reidel (Boston: Verdi Mundi, 2012), 14.

^[2] Ibid., 125.

^[3] Ibid., 504.

Written by Coco Chai

On June 24th, 2018, Recep Tayyip Erdogan from the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was elected President of Turkey. This presidential election marked the end of the parliamentary system of the Turkish government as it removed the office of Prime Minister and replaced it with an executive presidency. Through this election, the AKP achieved its longtime goal of turning the Turkish governmental system into a presidential system.

The Turkish presidential election had a majoritarian electoral system, in which one candidate must obtain more than 50% of the popular vote in order to be elected. If no candidate obtains the majority of the votes in the first round, the election will advance to a second round with the two candidates who received the two highest amounts of votes in the first round.¹ Six candidates ran for the office of President in this election. They were Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the incumbent president at the time and the elected president, from the AKP, Muharrem Ince from the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Selahattin Demirtas from the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), Meral Aksener from the IYi Party, Temel Karamollaoglu from the Felicity Party, and Dogu Perincek from the Patriotic Party. Erdogan received 52.59% of the vote, earning an outright victory without having the election advance to the second round. Erdogan’s main opposition came from Ince, who won 30.64% of the vote. Coming in third place was Demirtas with 8.4% of the vote.²

Erdogan was most popular in the northeastern part of the country. In Bayburt, for example, Erdogan won 82.1% of the vote.³ This was largely due to his championing of the conservative Islam cause. In 2013, for instance, Erdogan’s government repealed a law that had banned female civil servants from wearing hijabs for decades. The conservative and religious side of Turkey deeply resonated with Erdogan’s campaign, and Erdogan was seen among his supporters as “one of the people,” as opposed to the old secular elite.⁴ Ince’s votes were mostly generated from western Turkey, where the population supported a more westernized and secular ideology — one that Erdogan’s supporters abhorred.⁵ The southeastern region of Turkey leaned heavily towards the HDP candidate Demirtas since the Kurdish population strongly identified with the HDP’s pro-minority politics.⁶

The Grand National Assembly of Turkey also held a parliamentary election on the same day as the presidential election, and the electoral rules followed the proportional representation system. Turkey had a total of 87 electoral districts, each electing a certain number of Members of Parliament proportional to the size of its population, and the percentage of votes a party received converted to a certain amount of seats in Parliament. The total number of seats in Parliament was increased from 550 to 600 according to constitutional amendments approved in 2017. Previously, the ruling party AKP firmly controlled Parliament by holding 316 seats.⁷ During this election, however, the AKP won 295 seats, falling short of the 301 seats needed for a majority. Nevertheless, the AKP formed an alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) — the People’s Alliance, and they together hold 344 seats, controlling the majority of Parliament. The second biggest alliance in Parliament, the Nation Alliance, consisting of the CHP, the IYi Party, and the Felicity Party, won a total of 189 seats.⁸

The major implication of this presidential election is that it gave the president sweeping new powers and replaced the parliamentary system of the Turkish government with a presidential system. In 2017, the AKP and its ally, the MHP, proposed a constitutional referendum, which aimed to abolish the office of Prime Minister, give the president more executive power, and reduce the power of Parliament. The “Yes” vote eventually won the majority, setting an initial presidential election date for November 3rd, 2019.⁹ However, in April 2018, the AKP called for the election to be held early on June 24th, 2018 — a strategic move intended to reduce the effects of Turkey’s economic and political instabilities on the electoral outcome and to also catch an increasingly cohesive opposition off-guard.The AKP’s heavy crackdown on media also greatly contributed to Erdogan’s victory.¹⁰  After the election, Erdogan’s new executive powers include the power to declare a state of emergency, which used to conducted by the cabinet, the power to issue presidential decrees, and the power to directly prepare the annual budget. Already a dictator, and with even greater power now, Erdogan is likely to establish an autocracy, marking the end of democracy in Turkey.

Bibliography

Cupolo, Diego. “The Fate of Turkey’s Democracy Lies with the Kurds”. The Atlantic. Published June 23, 2018. Last Accessed April 19, 2019. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/turkey-erdogan-kurds-vote-hdp-akp/563573/

Isikara, Guney. “Six Take Aways From the Turkish Elections”. Jacobin. Published June 29, 2018. Last accessed April 19, 2019. https://jacobinmag.com/2018/06/six-takeaways-from-the-turkish-elections

Lowen, Mark. “Erdogan’s Turkey”. BBC. Published 13 April 2017. Last accessed April 19, 2019 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/Erdogans_Turkey

Pavey, Safak. “The Man Who Could Topple Erdogan”. The New York Times. Published June 19, 2018. Last accessed April 19, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/opinion/ince-erdogan-turkey-election.html

“Preliminary results in the Turkish presidential election of 2018”. Statitia. Published June 24, 2018. Last accessed April 19, 2019 https://www.statista.com/statistics/873950/turkish-presidential-election-results/

Uras, Umut. “Turkey election: All you need to know about the June 24 polls”. Al Jazeera. Published June 24, 2018. Last accessed April 18, 2019 https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2018/06/turkey-elections-june-24-polls-180611104841735.html

“Who won Turkey? Implications from Erdogan’s snap elections”. The Brookings Institution. Published June 27, 2018. Last accessed April 19, 2019. https://www.brookings.edu/events/who-won-turkey-implications-from-erdogans-snap-elections/

Endnotes

1. Umut Uras, “Turkey election: All you need to know about the June 24 polls,” Al Jazeera, published June 24, 2018, last accessed April 18, 2019, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2018/06/turkey-elections-june-24-polls-180611104841735.html
2. “Preliminary results in the Turkish presidential election of 2018,” Statitia, published June 24, 2018, last accessed April 19, 2019, https://www.statista.com/statistics/873950/turkish-presidential-election-results/
3. Ibid.
4. Mark Lowen, “Erdogan’s Turkey,” BBC, published April 13, 2017, last accessed April 19, 2019, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/Erdogans_Turkey
5. Safak Pavey, “The Man Who Could Topple Erdogan,” The New York Times, published June 19, 2018, last accessed April 19, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/opinion/ince-erdogan-turkey-election.html
6. Diego Cupolo, “The Fate of Turkey’s Democracy Lies with the Kurds,” The Atlantic, published June 23, 2018, last accessed April 19, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/turkey-erdogan-kurds-vote-hdp-akp/563573/
7. Uras 2018.
8. Guney Isikara, “Six Take Aways From the Turkish Elections,” Jacobin, published June 29, 2018, last accessed April 19, 2019, https://jacobinmag.com/2018/06/six-takeaways-from-the-turkish-elections
9. Lowen 2017.
10. “Who won Turkey? Implications from Erdogan’s snap elections,” The Brookings Institution, published June 27, 2018, last accessed April 19, 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/events/who-won-turkey-implications-from-erdogans-snap-elections/

Written by Leila Iskandarani

On Friday, April 5, the Yale Law School hosted a panel discussing the rise of multilateralism as states seek to evade their legal obligations to provide refugee protections. The panel, part of the 2-day Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Symposium, included panelists Bill Frelick, the director of the Refugee Rights Program at Human Rights Watch; Sana Mustafa, a consultant and co-founder of Network for Refugee Voices; and Leah Zamore LAW ‘14, the head of the Humanitarian Crisis Program at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation

Frelick opened the panel by offering an overview of the discussion topic. States, he explained, are embracing “externalization,” a concept he defines as “extraterritorial state actions to prevent migrants, including asylum seekers, from entering the legal jurisdictions or territories of destination countries or regions, or making them legally inadmissible without individually considering the merits of their protection claims.” Put simply, externalization is any extraterritorial measure a state takes to prevent migrants from setting foot in their jurisdiction, where they avail themselves of rights. According to Frelick, externalization is often deceptively framed as a “lifesaving humanitarian endeavor” meant to “protect migrants from dangerous journeys” rather than a tool for migration containment.

He then cited examples of externalization in practice. He focused on European and American immigration policies, especially after 2015, which is commonly cited as the starting year of the worldwide refugee crisis fueled by ongoing humanitarian crises across the globe.

According to Frelick, externalization has been a “central plank of European migration policy” since the mass influx of migrants into Europe in 2015. The EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa put 3.4 billion euros forward in scrambling to address the crisis. Much of that money came from the European Development Fund, which is typically used for general development purposes but was then repurposed to stem migration. He went on to say that today, 80% of humanitarian aid is “engaged with forced displacement.” Moreover, only 1% of this funding is used to provide “safe and legal channels for entry into the European Union,” while the bulk of the money is conditionality— that is, a bargaining chip to encourage states seeking development assistance to cooperate on migration controls. This money often goes to maintaining and entrenching oppressive regimes which create the conditions for mass emigration in the first place.

Frelick specifically cited the issue of Libyan migration, stating that 42.4 million euros has been directed to Libyan border coast guards to enhance their capacity to manage the border, which, in turn, stems migration both into Libya and from Libya into the European Union. He also referred to the EU – Turkey deal from March 2016, which gave the Turkish government 6 million euros to host immigrants (particularly from Syria) and prevent onward migration. Apart from granting Turkey funding, the deal, greenlighted Turkey to create safe zones in Syria to prevent migrants from entering Turkey at all.

Frelick went on to discuss externalization policies employed by the United States, especially with regard to immigration from Mexico. Under the Obama administration, the US funneled money into the development of immigration enforcement agencies in Mexico, to great effect— the number of migrants entering the US from the southern border dropped by 57%, while the number deported from Mexico into Central America increased by 75%. President Trump has moved away from the externalization approach, cutting development funds to the US’ southern neighbors and claiming that Mexico has done “nothing to prevent migration,” which Frelick says is “absolutely not the case.”

Zamore spoke next, reframing the discussion in two talking points: first, that “access is not the human right that is most imperiled,” and second, that “refugees stay as refugees for a very long time.”

Elaborating on her first point, Zamore noted that most refugees live in developing countries like Chad, Uganda, and Ethiopia, where the governments largely keep their borders open. She spoke specifically about Lebanon, where the government has closed its borders after having accepted 1 million Syrian refugees, meaning 1 in 4 people in Lebanon is a Syrian refugee— the equivalent of the US having accepted 82.5 million refugees. Consequently, the burden of the worldwide refugee crisis is not globally shared, as ten of the world’s developing countries host most of the globe’s refugee population.

Addressing her second point, Zamore remarked that, although refugees often stay as such for extended periods of time, the humanitarian system (the international community’s default response to refugee crises) operates on short-term budgets. She noted that there are now three generations of Somali refugees living in the Kenyan refugee camp of Dadaab. This means that those who originally fled Somalia are now grandparents to the newest generation of Somali refugees in Dadaab.

Zamore then discussed what she called the “new liberal consensus,” which acknowledges that refugees remain refugees for long periods of time and largely occupy developing countries; as such, countries with large refugee populations should be the recipients of development aid rather than exclusively short-term humanitarian aid. Thus, refugees can incorporate themselves into labor markets and out of camps, ensuring freedom of movement and the right to work. This approach is slowly emerging among the international community— for example, the World Bank has created a “refugee sub-window” of its International Development Association fund, meaning $2 billion is now directed toward governments and communities hosting the most refugees, making the transition out of temporary infrastructures a reality.

According to Zamore, there is nothing new about this approach. In the 1960s and 70s, the so-called “golden age of asylum,” the progressive developmental state model created a welfare state into which refugees were incorporated. In the 1980s, the system transitioned to a largely unsuccessful new development model emphasizing deregulation, privatization, and minimal safety nets for the poorest of the poor. Zamore describes this model, imposed on host countries for the past few decades (though with time, becoming increasingly concerned with inequality and welfare), as “fundamentally incompatible with refugee rights” and names it “largely responsible for the impoverishment of refugees and host communities in these countries.” She cites Somalia, where the per-capita income is 40% lower than that in 1970, and Afghanistan, where the per-capita income just reached its 1970-level.

Zamore emphasized the role the International Monetary Fund (IMF) plays in this failed development model, calling it the “biggest player affecting refugees today” despite being uninvolved with discussions surrounding refugees. In countless states, IMF programs require governments to pay “obscene” debts, which draws the focus away from development or refugee protection. Meanwhile, with the emergence of this new liberal consensus, the international system asks these countries to incorporate refugees into their school and healthcare systems, which pulls host governments in two opposite directions. In Jordan, for example, which is host to 600,000 Syrian refugees, the IMF program states that Jordan’s first priority for 2020 is lowering its debt by 17% percent. Jordan has thus cut refugees out of its public subsidized healthcare programs in an attempt to rid itself of debt. In her closing, Zamore offered more positive news, noting that the debt conversation has picked up since her entrance to the discussion, and that more “critical voices” are being incorporated into these discussions.

Fittingly, Mustafa— a Syrian refugee herself— closed the panel by emphasizing the need for refugee inclusion in discussions about the worldwide refugee crisis. She first made it clear that, though the influx of Syrians into Europe in 2015 is widely considered the starting point of the refugee crisis, Syrians first started fleeing in 2011, though they stayed in neighboring countries like Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. Because the Middle East as a region fraught with refugee crises is a normalized image, the international community only regarded the issue as a “crisis” once the Syrians began “reaching the white land.”

Mustafa maintains that the current system seeks to force refugees to maintain as such. Policies working toward giving refugees long-term legal status are not being considered, which, it appears, only perpetuates the crisis. Mustafa criticized the idea that giving refugees legal status prevents them from returning home, stating that the lack of legal status for Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey is the reason why Syrians fled to Europe in the first place.

She further emphasized the lack of dialogue between development initiatives and policymaking, citing fear of politicization as the reason why development agencies and policymakers fail to collaborate. This, Mustafa says, is the root cause of the perpetuation of the crisis: why give refugees job training through development programs if no policy exists to give them the right to work? Moreover, the longevity of the international community’s failure to effectively address refugee crises has given rise to problems that did not previously exist, like lack of resources and donor fatigue.

According to Mustafa, the inclusion of the refugee perspective into these discussions is a necessary step toward finding a solution. After founding Network for Refugee Voices, Mustafa has engaged in diplomatic fights with governments to get herself a seat at the table. She was granted an observer seat at the Global Compact on Refugees and managed to make the Compact’s final document draft acknowledge refugee participation.

Ultimately, the panel offered a broad overview into the international community’s engagement with refugees worldwide, though offered no final thoughts on what it might take to effectively manage a global refugee crisis that continues to expand. In Frelick’s words, “we’ve got some heavy lifting before us.”