«Before 2014, Crimean Tatars, their history, and culture were a terra incognita for Ukraine

History

What is the difference between the status of ‘indigenous people’ and an ‘ethnic minority’ in Ukraine? Are they treated in a different manner in our society? What kind of problems do they face? The guests of our today’s Ai tu Jianes (‘Do you know this?’) are Isliam Tohlu, islamologist, Director of the Crimean Tatar Cultural Centre in Lviv, President of Lviv Muslim Community, and Amet Bekir, Crimean Tatar Activist and President of AREKET NGO. Listen here to the first part, interviewed by Eva Raiska.

In accordance with the law «On National Minorities (Communities) of Ukraine» indigenous peoples of Ukraine are: Crimean Tatars, Karaims, and Krymchaks.

«We, an indigenous people, have no other country save Ukraine. Ethnic minorities [as per legislation—ed.], on the other hand, have a home country abroad. Take, for instance, Romanians: they have Romania. Armenians have Armenia, Greeks have Greece, and so on, and so forth. We, on the other hand, are an indigenous people of Ukraine. Our territory is Crimea, and Crimea is Ukraine. That is, we have formed as a people within the territory of Ukraine», – explains Amet Bekir, a Crimean Tatar activist and the leader of AREKET NGO.

Participants of the conversation have stressed that, prior to the 2014 Russian aggression and occupation of Crimea, Ukrainians had a mostly negative opinion on Crimean Tatars. In Isliam Tohlu’s opinion, this was due to Russia imposing its narratives upon us:

«Schools were dominated by Russian narratives—narratives Russia injected into the Ukrainian history. In this ‘history’, we were depicted as a more negative factor whereas Russia was portrayed as a ‘brotherly nation’. After 2014, when it finally dawned upon everyone that Russians, not Crimean Tatars, are the enemy in Crimean—only then the attitudes began to change. The Crimean Tatar and the Ukrainian nations started looking for similarities in each other’s culture and started to realise that they had a common enemy, common problems, and that they have a lot in common in their respective histories».

«What I see from my experience at the moment is that the attitude [towards Crimean Tatars in society—ed.] is quite good. I have never faced a Ukrainian who has a negative attitude towards us or expresses himself in a negative manner. Indeed, people are very interested and willing to find out more about the history and culture of Crimean Tatars, — added Isliam Tohlu.

He also noted that a lot of people visit the Crimean Tatar Cultural Centre in Lviv – students as well as the elderly, so eager to find out more about Crimea’s indigenous people and about its cultural, religious, spiritual, and other peculiarities.

Amet Bekir has concurred with Mr Tohlu as he said that, after 2014, he never ever faced a discriminative attitude towards him in Ukrainian society: «I have been residing in the ‘continental’ Ukraine for ten years now. (…) And I have never been treated badly, nor have I ever seen Crimean Tatars treated badly here».

At the same time, both guests have confirmed that there do exist problems that keep being of immediate importance. One such problem is the language problem.

«For a nation, language is its foundation, and Crimean Tatars have a lot of issues with it. After we were deported to Uzbekistan and Siberia back in 1944, we started losing our language. We were torn off our land, our homeland, and we started losing our language once we were placed on a foreign turf. Now we are already facing a threat of losing any connection to our language altogether, as we now face the occupation by Russia which is  doing what it has always been doing: closing schools where Crimean Tatar language is being taught. Here, in Continental Ukraine, it is most important to support those initiatives that are aimed at promoting Crimean Tatar language», –  said Isliam Tohlu, Director of Crimean Tatar Cultural Centre in Lviv.

Listen to the full version of the first part of this podcast by opening the audio file attached