Wednesday 20 July 2016

“Erdogan Lives - And Secular Turkey Dies”

 

Let me alert you to an exceptional piece by Chris Trotter on the events of the weekend on the streets of Turkey, and how Turkish strongman Erdogan has used them since to his advantage. His argument is summarised in the title: Erdogan Lives - And Secular Turkey Dies.

The collapse of this attempted coup d’état has been met with many sighs of relief in Western capitals. Had it succeeded, President Barack Obama, in particular, would have faced an extremely difficult choice. To condemn the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of a Nato ally; or, to endorse the constitutionally sanctioned role of the Turkish military as the secular Turkish Republic’s ultimate protectors. Because it was precisely in this guise that the soldiers who rose against Erdogan presented themselves. As the last, desperate hope of all those Turks who still cling to the legacy of Mustapha Kemal – the father of the modern Turkish state.
    That it was colonels, and not generals, who ordered their men on to the streets, says much about the state of Turkey. Those who might have struck a more telling blow in the name of the republic, the nation’s most senior military officers, had long ago been arrested under trumped-up charges by Erdogan’s followers, dismissed from their posts and thrown into prison. A similar fate befell the nation’s senior judges and police officers. In the slow-motion coup Erdogan and his Islamist political allies have been carrying out since coming to power 2003, they have been careful to ensure that the secular state they were striking down would never again rise to its feet.
    Those who have been issuing congratulatory statements to the Erdogan regime, should ponder the meaning of its first acts upon reclaiming the levers of power. Yes, thousands of rebel troops and their officers have been detained. That is to be expected. But so, too, have upwards of twenty thousand judges, prosecutors and policemen. Is that the response of a democratic government? No. It is the response of a tyrant who described the failed coup attempt as “A gift from God.”

And what was the nature of “the ‘democratic’ crowds who, at Erdogan’s bidding, poured on to the streets of Ankara and Istanbul to confront the rebel troops”?

Did they shout: “Long live the Turkish Republic!” Or, “Long live Turkey’s secular democracy!” No. The moustachioed men (there were no women in evidence) shouted “Allahu ekber!” – “God is great!”, and declaimed the shahadah: “There is no god but God – and Muhammad is his prophet!”
    Secular Turks disdain the facial hair of Erdogan’s followers – although, with the backbone of their judiciary broken, and the last of their military protectors in detention, it might be wise for secular Turkish men to put away their razors, and for secular Turkish women to cover their heads.
    Is this the true import of Erdogan’s jubilant description of the failed coup as a gift from God? Does he now feel justified in speeding-up his party’s progress towards the creation of a Sunni Islamic Republic in Turkey? A fanatical religious regime to rival the Shia Islamic Republic of Iran? And how much in common would such a republic have with the theocratic extremism of the Sunni Saudi Kingdom? Between these two powerhouses of radical Islam would stand only Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan – and Israel. Of those five states, only Israel possesses the military strength to defend its borders.

Dangerous times.

Read and reflect: Erdogan Lives - And Secular Turkey Dies – Chris Trotter, BOWALLEY ROAD BLOG

.

4 comments:

Richard Wiig said...

Dangerous times? It is world war, and the Western elites are making sure that the enemy is pouring in behind enemy lines, aided and abetted by Leftitarians. Erdogan doesn't just want a Sunni Islamic Republic in Turkey. He wants an Islamic empire that extends beyond his borders. Robert Spencer and other counter-jihadists have been documenting the Islamisation of Turkey for a long time now. BTW, a few weeks back Trotsky wrote a piece blaming the Orlando atrocity on Leviticus.

Peter Cresswell said...

I wouldn't call what Spencer does "documentation," but that's just an aside.

And Trottersky is hardly a model of scholarship either, but credit when credit is due: when he's right, he's right.

Richard Wiig said...

No matter what you call it, he has been observing the ongoing Islamisation of Turkey ever since I've been following his site, which is from not too long after 9/11. He has consistently been correct throughout all that time. When the cartoon hysteria broke out the majority were completely bewildered by it all, but Jihadwatch had been observing the whole thing grow from it's inception, right from the Imam in, Norway I think it was, making the first moves to orchestrate it, in hand with members of the OIC. Certainly Trotsky's article is on the nail, but Jihadwatch has a depth and understanding that goes far beyond Trotsky. And I'm not saying that to take away from Trotsky's article, but because there's possibly some disparagement in your loaded comment.

Richard Wiig said...

Something Gulen said, in 1999.

“You must move in the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers… until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 [in] Syria… like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete, and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it… You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey… Until that time, any step taken would be too early – like breaking an egg without waiting the full 40 days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside. The work to be done is [in] confronting the world. Now, I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all – in confidence… trusting your loyalty and sensitivity to secrecy. I know that when you leave here – [just] as you discard your empty juice boxes, you must discard the thoughts and feelings expressed here.”