No, it was not understood

This promptly brings to mind the question of whether there really is racism among Turks, like the one in the West.

It is clear that what was said in 1932 Turkish History Congress had been influenced by the biological racism theory. As a natural continuation of Darwin’s "Evolution" theory, biological racism was generally welcomed in the Western world in the later 19th and early 20th centuries. In this sense, it constituted a distorted aspect of the Enlightenment. All Western countries started to investigate their racial origins. According to them, civilization was stemming more from biology, that is unchanging characteristics, rather than being a socio-cultural phenomenon. Developments in the field of linguistics merged with quests for racial origin. "Grand" Western scholars found their racial origins in the Caucasus and discovered origins of Indo-European language in the northern border of the Indian sub-continent.

Of course, there was better than the better in terms of race and language. Because they were "mixed" and "easterner", Slavs were belittled. Germans, whose racial and linguistic purity was the highest, was placed in the topmost level of the hierarchy. But we would have called all this "nonsense about a wrong theory" and paid no more attention, if that were all. Yet, those who saw their race supreme started to disparage others. Hungarians and the Finnish were belittled as "Mongol." They went even further; Jews were relegated to a sub-human category. All kinds of degrading adjectives came to be used to describe them. They were filthy, ugly, traitorous and what is more, cursed because they had killed Jesus. Even their God, Yahve, was bad. It was believed that every bad thing that happened to humanity was because of them and that the humanity would never be salvaged if they were not destroyed. They were destroyed by the Holocaust.

Lighter versions of the anti-Semitism based German-Nazi theories existed in other Western countries as well. For instance, according to a sterilization law that was adopted in the early 1930 and stayed in force in Sweden even when Olof Palme was alive, women who were not of Arian origin were forced to abortion, just like the mentally disabled.

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire naturally created a big identity problem for Turks. Though not a positive thing, no one would say that it was odd to make use of the biological racism theory that was valid at that time. What is more, the West, while destroying the Ottoman Empire, described Turks as racially inferior. Arguments such as "we are not inferior in terms of the race. We are white like you. Our skull is brakisefal, body shape is alpine, etc" are completely defensive. Such an approach can be criticized as "weakness" rather than racism.

It was in line with the "scientific" approach of the day for Turks to associate race with civilization and explain the history of civilization on the basis of their own race. The only difference was that the fact that the supreme civilization was that of the West made the westerners’ linking civilization to Arian race and Indo-European language look like a right thing.

But Turkey, which used the racist theory in a different context, to define an identity, cannot be called racist in the Western sense because it did not disparage people of other races, attack or kill them. For this reason, the racist element in the word "Turk" came to be sidelined in a short time. The word "Turk" came to include those who feel Turkish for one or another reason, going far beyond its strict sense of being member of a certain race. As such, it is as suitable to define a supra-identity for all ethnic groups living within Turkey’s borders as at least the word "French."

This search for the identity phase should have been over for Turkey a long time ago. Promoting "being of Turkey" today will mean nothing but overemphasizing the "different" racial characteristics of other ethnic groups. This racist approach that could even lead to Kurdish ethno-nationalism and the PKK terrorism is unacceptable. Constitutional citizenship is certainly a good concept and can be used provided that the context is also right. But it cannot be considered a concession to racist ethnic identity.