Turkey’s Circassians in uproar over alphabet

Turkey’s ethnic Circassians, the descendants of Caucasian communities expelled from their homeland by Russians in the 19th century, had hardly overcome the shock of being ignored in the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) tickets for the June 7 elections when they found themselves embroiled in another spat with the government. The issue this time is the Circassian language courses offered in public schools.

The Circassian language, known also as Adyghe, has been taught as a selective course over the past three years under a curriculum designed on the basis of the Cyrillic script. The Ministry of Education, however, has now approved the use also of the Latin alphabet, drawing angry reactions from the Federation of Caucasian Associations (KAFFED), the largest civic organization of Turkey’s Circassians that brings together 53 groups. On April 16, KAFFED members held demonstrations at Ministry of Education offices across the country.

Street protests come as a rare reaction by a community that has held senior bureaucratic posts since Ottoman times, seeking to resolve its problems quietly in the corridors of power. True, Circassians have taken to the streets since the 1990s to condemn the wars in Chechnya, Abkhazia and South Ossetia and commemorate the anniversaries of the May 21, 1864, Circassian genocide. But street action to raise demands from the state is something new for the Circassians, who number more than 3 million in Turkey. Demonstrators held banners that read, "Hands off my alphabet," "Our mother tongue should be taught in its official alphabet," "We want our mother tongue alphabet" and "What about Arabic in Latin letters?"

Bonds with the homeland under threat