Why some “Turks” are less equal. Suggestions for Ishak Alaton?

Burak Bekdil..
Hurriyet Daily News..
26 December '12..

Back in 2009, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I quietly complained that “we are being crucified daily.” The government’s response was a quick, not-so-veiled threat, issuing a statement that said, “[We] hope that was a slip of the tongue.”

Never mind the threatening wording of the response. Luckily the patriarch has not been literally crucified since then. But it was most bizarre that the official reply to the remarks of a Turkish citizen had come from the foreign minister. Where was the foreign element in the words of a full Turkish citizen?

The bitter truth remains unchanged: Some Turks are “foreign.” Last week, press reports revealed that the prosecutor’s office in Istanbul that had tried the Israeli soldiers involved in the Mavi Marmara incident had asked the intelligence services for a listing of Turkish Jews who traveled to Israel two weeks before and after the incident. The suspects were allegedly put under surveillance and a list was sent to the court.

Once again, the Foreign Ministry replied to allegations of a Turkish Jewish witch-hunt. The ministry’s spokesman said “we strongly rebuff efforts to give the image as if there is any sentiment against our Jewish citizens.” Another little foot note of no importance had been engraved in Turkish history: The foreign – not the justice or interior – ministry officially commented on a prosecution against Turkish citizens.

But why do the Turkish diplomats see nothing weird about commenting on the domestic affairs of fully tax-paying Turkish citizens? And why do tens of millions of Turks just accept that as normal, as the norm, as if there is nothing bizarre about it? Can anyone with a little bit of sanity find it normal if the U.S. Secretary of State “denied efforts to give the image as if there is any negative sentiment against American Jews?”

Who Will Win the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Arab Street: Turkey or Iran?

Harold Rhode
JCPA
Vol. 10, No. 16
16 December '10

- Iran and today's Turkish government are engaged in a battle for the hearts and minds of the Arab street. Iran represents the Shiites and Turkey represents the Sunnis. The Arab world is largely Sunni, with the exception of many of the Persian Gulf Arab countries and Iraq.

- Iran and the Turkish government are also working together against the non-Muslim world - most specifically against the U.S. and Israel.

- Both the Saudi government and private Saudi individuals are funding Islamist extremism throughout the Muslim world, most importantly in Turkey. They have a willing partner in the current Turkish government.

- It appears that the Saudis and the present Turkish government are interested in reestablishing the Caliphate - at first culturally, but later possibly even politically - most likely in Istanbul, the seat of the last Sunni Caliph until the early 1920s.

- Iran is Shiite and is appealing to the Arab Sunni street by trying to co-opt the agenda of the Sunni masses - the existence of Israel and the sanctity of Jerusalem - neither of which are traditional Shiite issues.

- In doing so, Iran seeks to undermine the existing autocratic and dictatorial Arab Sunni regimes by going over the heads of their leaders and appealing directly to the Arab street. That is the major reason why almost all of the regimes in the region hate the Iranian regime more than they hate Israel.

The Sunni-Shiite Divide

Iranian Shiites and Turkish Sunnis are engaged today in a huge battle to capture the hearts and minds of the Arab street, most of which, outside of Iraq, the Persian Gulf, and southern and eastern Lebanon, are largely Sunni. Sunni Arabs feel more of a bond with Turkish Sunnis than with Iranian or Arab Shiites, in spite of the Arab Sunni world's historical animosity toward what they define as Turkish/Ottoman imperialism.

When Muhammad died, the question arose as to who was going to inherit the mantle of Islam. Some supported the family of Muhammad, and later became known as the Shiites. Others - much stronger - who supported the aristocracy in Mecca, later became known as the Sunnis. The Sunni-Shiite divide occurred more than 1,400 years ago, but it is still alive and well. Iran represents the Shiites and Turkey represents the Sunnis in today's battle for the leadership of Islam.

(Read full "Who Will Win the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Arab Street ...")

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An Open Letter to Turkey

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
03 June '10

Dear Former Friends,

Ever since you decided to trade in the Secularism of Ataturk for the Islamism of Erdogan, you also seem to have dispensed with the ability to coexist with non-Muslims on a peaceful basis. These days all we ever seem to get from you, is video clips of your leader, Prime Minister Erdogan, barking at us like a dog that its owner carelessly let off the leash. And if you don't know that Erdogan's owner lives in Riyadh, then you don't know very much of what goes on in your own country.

But your affairs are your own affairs. And our affairs are our affairs. If you want to let a fanatic in a cheap suit destroy Turkish nationalism in the name of Islam, that's your business. But when he gets into business with terrorist organizations who attack and murder our soldiers, then it's our business. And when a country that persecutes its Kurdish, Assyrian and Armenian citizens, and sends their elected representatives to jail-- presumes to self-righteously lecture us on how to manage our affairs, it had better remember that holding a stone throwing contest in a glass house will just lead to piles of broken glass.

You say you want an international investigation into the flotilla raid? Sure. Right after we have an international investigation into that minor matter of Armenian genocide that you've been ducking for quite a while. As the new "standard bearer" in fighting for human rights, I'm sure you will agree that it's only fair that Turkey should undergo the same scrutiny it demands for other countries.

(Read full letter)

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How to Make Defeatism Look Good: Let’s Give Up and Cheer the Islamists

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
07 March '10

I’m not going to bash or rant about a Newsweek article about Turkey by Owen Matthews—shocking and dangerous as it is--but rather talk about what is wrong and inaccurate about it. That article is part of a new wave of defeatism sweeping the West, though it still remains subordinate to the more ostensibly attractive idea that there is no real conflict or at least one easy to fix by Western concessions.

Here’s the title: “The Army Is Beaten: Why the U.S. should hail the Islamists.” Yes, we should thank the Islamists for taking over Turkey. But wait a minute! The ruling AK party says it isn’t Islamist. Indeed, I have been viciously attacked by them in the Turkish media for saying so. Up until now the line--including that from the regime itself--has been that we shouldn’t be afraid of them because they are really just democrats. But now some are willing to face the truth and still sugarcoat it.

Matthews writes:

“The political logic should be simple. The arrest of a shadowy group of generals for allegedly plotting a bloody coup should be a victory for justice. The end of military meddling in politics should be a victory for democracy. And greater democracy should make a country more liberal and more pro-European.”

Each of these sentences makes a false assumption and must be examined a bit.

Sentence one: Arresting military officers is only a victory for justice if they are guilty. Why does the author assume they are guilty? In fact, the claims are ludicrous. That a group of officers created a 5000 page plan for a coup that involved attacking mosques and massive attacks on civilians. It is one of a series of such accusations for which no real evidence has been presented, in which a widely disparate group of people have been arrested as alleged conspirators when their sole connection is that they are critics of the government.

This is ridiculously gullible. It’s like the famous sentence by a newsweekly magazine that even if the Hitler diaries were forgeries (they were) that would tell us a great deal about the history of the time. If in fact the arrests were trumped-up to tame the army so that the current regime can impose a dictatorship in practice it was not a victory for justice but for injustice. Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizballah, and Islamists in general lie a lot (and a lot more than democratic government) so why should they be taken at their word, especially when any serious examination of evidence shows the truth.

(Read full article)
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