In the 1970s, Migrants From Turkey Built a Thriving Socialist Movement in Melbourne
When migrants from Turkey arrived in Melbourne in the 1970s and ’80s, they brought socialist traditions with them. The result was a range of thriving cultural associations that organized strikes, education, mutual aid, events, and solidarity campaigns.
The Union of Australian Kurdish and Turkish Workers (UAKTW) at a May Day march, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 1980s. (UAKTW Archive)
The now gentrified suburbs of Melbourne’s inner north were once home to a constellation of leftist ethnic community organizations. Among these were four radical community centers founded in the 1970s and ’80s by migrants from Turkey. Known as derneks in Turkish, these centers were aligned with different Marxist tendencies and Turkish political movements.
They organized migrant workers, supported political refugees, influenced unions, and contributed to the anti-imperialist struggle, both in Turkey and internationally. At their height, contingents organized by Melbourne’s derneks regularly outnumbered mainstream socialist organizations at the city’s annual May Day march.
Beginnings
The Australian Turkish Cultural Association (ATCA) came together in 1974 to meet the growing needs of recent migrants. Its founders drew on the experience of existing leftist migrant associations established by Italians and Greeks. These were at the forefront of a growing “ethnic rights” movement, as it was then known, which demanded language services, better welfare and working conditions, and citizenship pathways for migrant workers.
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