From: senel@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Hakan)
Subject: Forwarding from TRKNWS-L
Originator: senel@irlsp
Organization: Insulting, Ridiculing, Forwarding Inc.
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 17:06:35 GMT


  > From: Haluk DEMIRBAG <TEX5HAD@CMS1.LEEDS.AC.UK>
  > Subject:      BULGARIA'S MUSLIM MINORITY ENJOYS PEACEFUL RESURGENCE


BULGARIA'S MUSLIM MINORITY ENJOYS PEACEFUL RESURGENCE

Ethnic Turks  are reclaiming rights lost  under communism, writes
Mike Power in Razgrad

In  the mountain  vilages  surrounding  Razgrad in  north-eastern
Bulgaria,   thousands  of   ethnic  Turks   have  just   finished
celebrating their main Muslim  festival, Kurban-Bayram, which for
the first time was officially sanctioned as a four day holiday.

As part of the festivities, Bulgaria's senior Islamic figure, the
chief  Mufti,  re-opened and sanctified a  local Muslim monastery
which  had been  closed  since 1978,  when  the former  communist
regime banned Islam and Turkish culture.

"Look  haw far  we have  come since  November 1989  when the  old
communist  dictator,  Todor  Zhivkov, was  removed,"  said  Ahmed
Karaali from Bissertsi,  a leader of the  mainly Turkish Movement
for Rights and Freedoms (MRF).

"We have restored all the rights  taken from us.  Our mosques are
open, curcumcision is  again permitted, we can  speak Turkish, we
have restored our  Turkish names, and can  again wear traditional
Muslim clothes. All this has been done without spilling blood."

"By banning  Islam and  the Turksih way  of life,  the communists
actually encouraged young  people to take more notice  of it," Mr
Karaali said.

Others confirmed  that, until President Zhivkov  forced the Turks
to adopt Bulgarian names in 1984-85, at a cost of 150 lives, most
young Bulgarian Turks had little interest in their cultural past.

The date  of Kurban-Bayram  had added  significance as  the third
anniversary of  the  flight  of some  350,000 Bulgarian  Turks to
Turkey.  This followed  President  Zhivkov's  brutal crushing  of
human rights demonstration in May 1989.

Mehmet  Osman,  the MRF  leader  in  Razgrad, said:  "Things  are
diferent today;  our party  won all  the three  national assembly
seats  in  Razgrad  and  we  govern  the  locality.  We  are  not
interested in  revenge, although  we have replaced  police chiefs
and mayors who actively took part in our oppression."

Ethnic  Bulgarians in  other villages  testified to  the peaceful
mood. In Bissertsi, of whose 2,300 inhabitants only 300 are ethic
Bulgarians, a cafe owner, Plamen Kostov, said; "The Turks respect
our Easter  and Christmas festivals and  we are happy to  join in
theirs."

The MRF  holds 24  seats in  the natinal  assembly and,  with the
Union of Democratic forces (UDF) which has 110 seats, governs the
country.

The Bulgarian Socialist, formmerly Communist, Party (BSP) remains
in opposition with 106 seats.

The MRF leader  Ahmed Dogan, was in Razgrad for  the festival and
was cheered  by adoring crowds. A  dimunitive philosophy lecturer
aged 38,  he spent more than  three years in prison.  Released in
January 1990, he founded the movement.

While the MRF  is fiercely anti-communist, Mr  Dogan describes it
as centre-left, and  adds: "80 per cent of the  Bulgarians are on
the left." Mr Dogan told the  festival rally: " We are Bulgaria's
third force and  are playing a balancing role.  We will therefore
continue  to   refuse  any  official  government   positions,  as
executive power would disturb our  role as a broker in Bulgaria's
polarised democracy."

This  strategy  has made  the  MRF  crucial  in holding  the  IDF
together, and in dividing  the more radical, progressive elements
from the Stalinists  in the BSP. Mr Dogan says:  "This has made a
peaceful, irreversible democratic process  possible, and laid the
basis for  Turks and Bulgarians  to be good neighbours.  And this
opened  the way  for Bulgaria's  acceptance into  the council  of
Europe last month."

This view  is confirmed by  diplomats in the capital,  Sofia, who
say Bulgarians  have increasingly accepted that  democracy relies
on ethnic tolerance.

Mr Dogan's  strategy has  ensured that Turkish  is now  taught in
schools and Turkish language publications are available.

Women have  also benefited. Mr Dogan's  deputy, Sherifay Mustafa,
is one  of Bulgaria's  senior women politicians,  responsible for
the key issues of education and ethic culture. Her MRF leadership
position  represents,  she  says,  "an  attempt  to  destroy  the
oriental myth of male domination among the Turkish population".

THE GUARDIAN 17/06/92
            _
|-| /-\ |_ |_| |< ["I believe that all of us ought to retire
                   relatively young." Fidel Castro, Jan. 1967]

-- 
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God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board
                -- Mark Twain
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