Turkish Hyper-nationalism: A Threat to Minorities in the Region

Turkish hyper-nationalism shares certain worrying aspects with German nationalism of the 1930s. In both cases, it was the people's belief in their own superiority and their right to act with military impunity across the border, coupled with a radical right wing government's readiness to take on an aggressive posture and enter into military adventurism, that made them and indeed makes them a threat to peace. 

Turkey is a danger to its neighbors, it continues to ignore the rights of minorities within its borders, primarily their basic right to be recognized as non-Turks, to preserve and celebrate their own culture. Turkey has attacked the Kurds once again thereby thwarting any possibility of combining efforts to create an effective anti-terror alliance in Northern Iraq and Syria to combat ISIL, which is the bigger threat. 


Turkey would do well to remember that it is not the Sublime Porte and has not been for a hundred years now, that Arabs are no longer its Felaheen subjects nor are they inferior to Turks in any way, and that the Arab World is no longer a private Turkish/Ottoman estate for Turkey to do with as it pleases.



Turkey continues to surreptitiously play the religion card, buoyed I'm sure by the Sunni Muslim World's emotional response to rising Turkish influence and military involvement in the region, especially Turkey's anti-Assad stance. I'm sure that the descendants of many 'orphaned' subjects of the erstwhile Caliphate fantasise that maybe one day the Sultanate would return and Istanbul would once again be the religious, cultural and political centre of the Muslim World. I hate to burst their bubble, but modern Turkey is quite a different political construct. Modern Turkey is foremost a national homeland for the Turks, faith and religion takes a secondary role in politics and in society in general. In addition, Turkey is a Muslim country that openly aligns itself with Israel and it is a pivotal member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), and only recently has it given up on its dream of joining the EU.


But Turkey is not alone in playing the religion card in the region, Israel is a master at this game and has long used the anti-Semitism card to ensure support for its imperial Zionist project. It manipulated Western feelings of guilt over the Holocaust to thwart any attempt aimed at stopping it from killing Palestinians and achieving its real goal: the creation of a contiguous and exclusive homeland for the Jewish nation stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. These are effective tools with which to manipulate people's emotions. Iran too has used its position as the leader of Shia Islam to manipulate Shia minorities in Arab countries and hide its own nationalist imperialist ambitions. None is without guilt, and the Arabs have proven themselves fools on top of that and rather too easy to manipulate!


Turkey and the Turks in general tend to have a haughty attitude towards Arab peoples and seem to project an absurd aura of superiority. I feel this attitude stems from the fact that most of the lands of the Ottoman Sultanate outside Anatolia where taken away from the State as each national grouping within the defunct empire was given the right of national self determination. This almost destroyed the geographical integrity of Anatolia itself, the future homeland of the Turks, so it is understandable that the Turks are bitter. Somehow I feel the Turks never forgave their former subjects for daring to breath free! 



I wonder what would happen if the right of national self determination was extended today to the Kurds and Armenians and other minorities living inside modern Turkey? Could we see a Turkish Spring? Would the national character of the country change? or would the Turkish nationalists resist any attempt to alter the national character even if they had to resort to violence as they did in 1915?!

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