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Introduction
Migration - forced or voluntary - is a constant in human history. The African diaspora as a result of the Atlantic slave trade has been much studied. The story of the Afro-Turks is less well known. This article explores the possibility of building an archive and recording oral histories. It attempts to evaluate the available resources about the Afro-Turks in the modern Turk state of Turkey and asks: When, how and from where did African people come to Turkey? How do they understand their history? And what is their place, as an ethnic minority, in modern Turkey?
Exploring the Sources and History of Afro-Turks.
On June 11, 2013, a great crowd of the people converged at Gazi Park, Istanbul to express their displeasure at the news that the Turkish government under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan planned to use the greenish park for the erection of a Mall. The Prime Minister's intentions were both neo-liberal and Islamic; the protesters stood against the despotic tendencies of the government:
Onlara göre biz siyasetten anlamayiz. Onlara göre biz sanattan, tiyatrodan, sinemadan, resimden, siirden anlamayiz. Onlara göre biz estetikten, mimariden anlamayiz. Onlara göre biz okumamis, cahil, alt tabaka, verilenle yetinmesi gereken... yani zenci bir grubuz.
According to them we don't understand politics. According to them we don't understand art, theatre, cinema, poetry. According to them we don't understand aesthetics, architecture. According to them we are uneducated, ignorant, the lower class, who has to be content with what is being given; meaning, we are a group of negroes. (Ferguson, 2014:10).
Thus in Turkey, White Turks are assumed to be intellectual and upper class. They dominate Turkey's administration, military and commercial circles. Afro-Turks are assumed to be illiterate, poor, lower class and crude.
The term Afro-Turk is not common and there have been few studies on the topic. Resources are scarce. Most Afro-Turks are of slave descent. Their tors were during the Ottoman era, and most of them were taken from Zanzibar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Libya and Kenya. Other Afro-Turks are descended from warriors who fought in the Ottoman armies.
Today these Afro-Turks live in various different regions of Turkey but their Turkish identity is questioned. Edman posits that "As a matter of fact, both due to their skin color...