From: senel@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Hakan)
Subject: Forwarding from TRKNWS-L
Originator: senel@irlsp
Organization: Insulting, Ridiculing, Forwarding Inc.
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 17:07:04 GMT


  > From: "(Al Trh)" <trh@jack.sns.com>
  > Subject:      An Article from the Guardian


kutluk@ccl.umist.ac.uk (Kutluk Ozguven) forwarded this article...
BULGARIA: PEACE IS POSSIBLE EVEN IN THE BALKANS
ETHNIC HARMONY IN BULGARIA

BULGARIA'S MUSLIM MINORITY ENJOYS PEACEFUL RESURGENCE

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Ethnic Turks are reclaiming rights lost under communism, writes Mike
Power in Razgrad
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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 Musfti, 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 Turksih 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 Turksih 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 tsome 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".

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Copied from The Guardian 17/06/92 without permission
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-- 
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God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board
                -- Mark Twain
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Xref: sparky soc.culture.turkish:10476 talk.politics.mideast:20839 soc.culture.greek:9494 soc.culture.europe:8799 soc.history:8811