Turkish Referendum: Neo-Ottomans Victorious
Over the past eight years, Prime Minister Rejep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamist government and his AKP (Justice and Development Party) have been successful in undermining Mustafa Kemal’s legacy and the character of the state founded upon that legacy. What remained, until last Sunday’s referendum, was an increasingly empty shell of constitutional secularism. That shell was nevertheless an obstacle to the formal grounding of the new legitimacy in Islam at home and neo-Ottomanism abroad. Erdoğan and his team were determined to remove it, and on September 12 they succeeded. Turkey’s voters approved, by a large margin, a 26-article package which will end the Army’s role as the guardian of secularism. On current form, there is but little doubt that Erdoğan will be reelected with a simple majority when he calls the general election next spring.
We are witnessing the end of a process that could be predicted with precision. Seven and a half years ago I wrote in Chronicles (The American Interest, April 2003) that the Bush Administration was mistaken to pretend that Turkey was “a truly indispensable nation” with an “indispensable partnership with the United States,” a nation “central to building peace from Southeastern Europe to the Middle East and eastward to the Caucasus and Central Asia . . . crucial to bridging the dangerous gap between the West and the Muslim world”:
In his pitch to the West Mr. Erdoğan is unsurprisingly eager to minimize his party’s Islamic connections by stressing his “secular” and “conservative” credentials. His assurances were keenly accepted in Washington . . . During a recent trip to Turkey by The Rockford Institute’s fact-finding team we were repeatedly warned that things were no longer as they used to be a decade ago . . . The escalating crisis of Turkey’s economic and political system over the past decade reflected a deeper malaise, the loss of confidence of the old Kemalist elite. The implicit assumption in Washington—that Turkey would remain “secular” and “pro-Western,” come what may—should have been reassessed after the Army intervened to remove the previous pro-Islamic government in 1997. Since then many voices . . . have warned that “democratization” would mean Islamization, and that America needed alternative scenarios and regional strategies.
Plus ça change . . . Erdoğan and his team now claim that the constitutional reform approved last Sunday heralds the country’s democratization. Practicing the Islamic art of the taqiyya in its purest form, foreign minister Davutoğlu claims that the referendum was all about advancing civil rights and Western-style liberties, that it reflects “the Turkish nation’s will to live in a freer and more democratic environment in compliance with European Union standards.” It is “an important turning point for democracy in Turkey,” he says, and “a result of the Turkish nation’s interest in the reform process carried out in light of universal and European norms.” With an eye to Brussels, he also noted that the amendments introduced “constitutional guarantees for positive discrimination for women, children, the elderly and the disabled.”
Equally true to form, Washington’s self-deception is continuing. On Sunday afternoon President Barack Obama praised the “vibrancy of Turkish democracy” by citing high turnout in the referendum during a telephone conversation with Erdoğan. On Monday State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the United States hopes the reforms endorsed on Sunday will “further enhance Turkey’s democratic process and human rights protection.” Asked if he disagrees with the claims of Turkish secularists that the changes will inhibit the judiciary’s ability to “oversee” the executive, Crowley replied that this was, in fact, a “decisive vote to move towards greater civilian oversight of these democratic institutions . . . We respect that statement by the Turkish people. And we hope that the government will, again, use this mandate to deepen democratic processes in Turkey as well as guarantee human rights protections.” Crowley ended by reiterating the US support for Turkey’s membership in the EU. Obama’s and Crowley’s statements are insane, confirming that those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
The terminal loss of confidence of the old Kemalist elite is somewhat more surprising. The lack of support in Washington is a factor, but more important is the manner in which Erdoğan and the AKP had succeeded in obtaining the compliance of the secularist elite in the crucial early years. Turkey’s activist foreign policy has seduced them with the vision of an autonomous sphere of Turkish influence in the old Ottoman domains in the Middle East, the Caucasus, and the Balkans. It has enabled the Islamists to co-opt into the project many senior civil servants, diplomats and generals who are not sympathetic to the ideological assumptions of the neo-Ottoman paradigm, but who were ready and willing to support its "quantitative" aspects. They subscribed to the ostensibly traditional, nationalist components of Davutoğlu’s neo-Ottoman concept of strategic depth, without realizing that it was a Faustian pact.
On the day of his appointment as Turkey’s foreign minister in May 2009, Davutoğlu asserted that Turkey had an “order-instituting role” in the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus, quite apart from its links with the West: “Turkey is no longer a country which only reacts to crises, but notices the crises before their emergence and intervenes in the crises effectively, and gives shape to the order of its surrounding region.” He further declared that Turkey had a “responsibility to help stability towards the countries and peoples of the regions which once had links with Turkey”—thus explicitly referring to the Ottoman era, in a manner unimaginable only a decade ago: “Beyond representing the 70 million people of Turkey, we have a historic debt to those lands where there are Turks or which was related to our land in the past. We have to repay this debt in the best possible manner.”
For the sake of Turkey’s status as a first-rate regional power—pleasing to their Kemalist-nationalist sensibilities—the secularist elite were prepared to close their eyes to the fact that Islam is the all-encompassing denominator of the project. Back in the fragile early days of 2002-2003 the AKP leadership wisely grasped the need for the secularist nationalists to be given a slot in the national consensus on Turkey’s multi-layered identity. Those days are now over.
Many inherited Weimar officials, Wilhelmstrasse diplomats and top officers of the Reichswehr were likewise not supportive of the Nazis when Hitler came to power. During the crucial early years of the Third Reich (January 1933-January 1938), they were likewise willing to offer their services to his de facto revolutionary project in the name of promoting traditional German national interests and objectives. In early 1938 they were inevitably swept away in a fresh wave of Gleichschaltung, heralded by the removal of General von Blomberg and foreign minister Konstantin von Neurath.
With last Sunday’s referendum, Turkey’s Islamists are finally able to do the same to the Kemalist civil service and army cadres. Their replacements, steeped in Islamism and neo-Ottomanism, are being groomed at the lower levels of the hierarchy as we speak. Their dilemma, for many decades before Erdogan, had been to resist the lure of irredentism abroad, and at home to turn Islam into a matter of personal choice separate from the state and distinct from the society. It could not be done.
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Cogent analysis, as always, from our former and now current Foreign Affairs Editor. (Amusing note: all the postpostpaleo internet gossip about rifts!)
Two trivial footnotes of a personal nature. When Dr. Trifkovic and I were in Turkey together a few years ago, many conversations with Turkish political intellectuals reached the point where they said, "Now I am not suggesting that we should restore the Ottoman Empire, but when we were running (fill in the blank, the Balkans, the Middle East) we kept order." Actually, this was never true. The Ottoman Empire could never control its provincial gangster-nobility who preyed upon Christians and made war on each other, as visitors to both regions complained.
More recently I found myself on a plan to Chicago from somewhere with a young lady--and her bloody cat!--who had been a teacher in Ankara at a school for the children of military officers. ALthough the officers all expressed opposition to Islamism and support for secularism, a strange thing happened on major holidays: Many of their children became so ill they could not attend school. How far this subversion of the secularist Turkish military has gone, I do not know. Luther is supposed to have said--though I think this has not been confirmed--better a wise Turk than a foolish Christian, which is a very foolish thing for anyone to have said. But, better a bad Turkish Muslim any day than a good Turkish Muslim.
An interesting question arises: Can Turkey's special relationship with Israel survive this Great Islamic Awakening?
Glad to hear he's back in his old position, Dr Fleming. The disinformationistss at Wikipedia make it seem like he left in the first place because he didnt like Chronicles strong Catholicism.
I had always thought the Turks kept a handle on the Holy Land fairly well, only less so than the Crusaders, but I dont mind being corrected.
The "special relationship" with Israel is over. First a symbolic gesture (from Maariv, August 15 2010, p. 8): “Relations between Israel and Turkey continue to deteriorate: Israel’s ambassador to Ankara, Gabi Levi, was the only one not to be invited to the traditional meal that precedes the Ramadan fast, which took place over the weekend in the presence of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and senior officials of his Justice and Development Party. All of the other ambassadors were invited.”
Israel’s defense community is saying that Turkey was moving toward becoming a radical and nuclear Islamic state. Officials and leading analysts assert that Erdogan was rapidly dismantling the secular Turkish state and turning Turkey into another Iran – a radical Muslim state soon to be armed with nuclear weapons.
"There could be a deep strategic change," Amos Gilad, a senior Defense Ministry official, says. They are particularly concerned by his success in intimidating the once-powerful Turkish military. They point out that Turkey has launched plans to build at least two nuclear reactors and produce enriched uranium. Israeli analysts add that under Erdogan Turkey could acquire weapons technology under the cover of a civilian nuclear program.
"If there is not a change in personality, then Turkey will become Iran No. 2," former National Security Council director Uzi Dayan says.
An astute observation from a reliable font of information and insight. It warms my (Croatian-American!) heart to see Dr. Trifkovic's formal return to Chronicles.
It seems the dangers in the Middle East rise in inverse proportion to our elites' -and their neo-con handlers - abilities to comprehend them. I wonder if the US government will now desist in pressuring the Europeans into granting Turkey complete EU membership ? (Notwithstanding the de facto demographic membership Turkish Muslims continue to earn)
In a futile effort to see the glass as half-empty, a radical mohammedan Turkey will probably drive the nail into the coffin of thier EU membership. Western Europe, Germany in particular, has had enough of these marauding invaders, who breed like rats.
Someone's lying, Lord, kumb-allah!
re remark at #5, regarding the Saracens' breeding like rats.
No, sir. They are multiplying, like normal human beings. This is why God is taking Europe and America away from us and giving it to them. Their religion is a delusion, but at least they have not abandoned their basic humanity. Our society, as a whole, has.
"has had enough of these marauding invaders, who breed like rats."
Wow.
You know, when they first introduced trains in Britain, a duke complained that trains had allowed "common people to move about needlessly". His legacy was protected by all the folks like George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and other Fabian Socialists who thought the poor should be sterilized or murdered for their own and society's sake, lest they "breed too much".
I am sure you are a better man than Shaw, Wells, or that Duke, Etienne. It's just a really unfortunate statement.
Welcome back Dr. Trifkovic. Although head and shoulders above the rest, Chronicles was not quite the same without you.
Although I would almost never disagree with Fr. Allen, I would point out that Muslims do not in fact breed as the Lord intended. Muslims not only can have four legitimate wives but are also able to take any number of concubines. If Adam and Eve are the model couple for Christians, it was a monogamous and perpetual union of one man and one woman. The Jews corrupted this perfect marriage into an institution that permitted polygeny, divorce, and concubinage, but it was not so from the beginning. Most species of rats are, by the way, polygamous.
"Turkey will become Iran No 2"
And under the NATO umbrella...
PS Trains, interstate highways, and air travel, in setting the masses physically and socially free from the restraints of local community, and films, radio, TV, and the Internet in setting the masses free in mind and spirit from local and ecclesiastical control have contributed greatly to the degeneration of ordinary people. The reason common people once had common sense is that like Agatha Christie's Jane Marple they lived in coherent communities that checked some of their wilder impulses and formed their minds on the wisdom of tradition. Now they are "free" to live like rats and think like fans.
Dr. Trifkovic:
As I walked the streets of Timisoara (Temesvar) in western present day Romania in the early '90s, I noticed, above the entrance to a 19th century municipal building, an inscription in what I took to be (and what an older passerby agreed was) Turkish. Did Turkish rule extend to that area, and if so, what were its effects? For instance, I saw no mosques in the vicinity. If their rule did not obtain there, how did the Turkish inscription come to be there and what might it have meant?
I agree with you that Turkish irredentism may be hard to resist for Turkish politicians. Having the tailwinds of the high birthrate and rising religious fervor of a muslim people behind them, and militant potential proxies abroad such as the Kurds and Albanians, they are in a far better position to act than other nations with similar emotions such as Russia and Mexico.
Dr. Fleming,
Does your reference to Agatha Christie mean that you consider her a worthwhile read? It was your praise of Chandler, by the way, that convinced me to give him a try, and I thank you for leading me to some of the most pleasurable reading I've done since reading Dumas as a child. Unfortunately, I've only got two of Chandler's books left to read. I'm saving them for when things get really bad.
The region known as the Banat, of which Timișoara (Ger. Temeschburg or Temeschwar, Hung. Temesvár, Serbian Темишвар) is the center, came under the Crown of St. István in 1030. It fell to a Turkish army of 160,000 in 1552. The commander of the doomed garrison of 3,000 men, Stefan Losonczy, was promptly beheaded. It remained under Ottoman rule for nearly 160 years and underwent a process of Islamization, which was mercifully reversed (like in the rest of Hungary) after Eugene of Savoy conquered it for the Habsburgs in 1716.
It is strange to watch the elites in Europe and the US put a positive spin on the election which is another step in cementing Turkeys drift into an Islamic state. The US continues to support the inclusion of Turkey into the EU which is suicide for its Judeo-Christian civilization.
Not to get off topic but I am not at all a fan of Christie. Her plots are convoluted and she often cheats by withholding or distorting evidence. Ngaio Marsh is much better if you like that sort of thing, which I do in the Summer or when I am worried about something. The best of Eric Ambler is pretty good; I usually have trouble with Dorothy Sayers--too sicky-sweet and self-conscious, though I enjoyed the 9 Tailors and Gaudy Night. Ross McDonald is too Freudian and a bit leftish, but his evocation of LA brings back memories of Chandler. The Commie Hammet is very good-I reread all the novels this summer, and I was surprised to find I really liked Red Harvest, which I had previously detested. It must have inspired Kurosawa's comic masterpiece Yojimbo--at least both have the same interesting twist, the detective who plays both sides against the middle. The first and greatest detective masterpiece is Sophocles' Oedipus. Sorry for the interruption, but I have so detoxed from TV and most films that I have wasted a lot of time on light reading in the evenings.
George @10 above posits a likely and frightening outcome to the developments in Turkey. What better illustration of the insanity of preserving NATO long after its useful shelf-life than having mullahs at the controls of the large Turkish Army and nuclear weapons - with the US and Western allies committed by treaty to coming to its aid in a conflict!
Of course, any modicum of sanity within our government would have precluded it from pushing to incorporate Georgia into NATO either. Regarding Turkey I'm inclined to paraphrase the late, great Woody Hayes, talking about the forward pass; "several outcomes are possible, almost none of them good."
Talking of NATO, check out
http://www.balkanstudies.org/blog/russia-and-nato
Dr. Fleming at #9 - I welcome your correction; of course, as a Christian priest, I uphold the law of marriage as taught by Our Lord in the Gospel. Is it not demonstrable, however, that fecund polygamy, however flawed, is morally preferable to contracepted monogamy? God in His mercy showed forbearance to the fruitful polygamy of the patriarchs but condemned Onan. The Hagarenes, however abhorrent in so many ways, at least have the sense to reproduce themselves. For races that want to survive, contraception is, as Talleyrand and Dr. Trifkovic might say, worse than a crime: it is a mistake.
Indeed. Geopolitically speaking, the proof of the demographic pudding is in the invading. They are eminently rat-like quasi-humanoids, living zombies inherently devoid of any self-reflective capacity, of course, but they are nevertheless out there... We need a newRaspail to find the right words for the problem. The hostile invaders must be either converted, or expelled, or ptherwise dealth with.
Mr. Trifkovic, a slight curiosity if you don't mind. Are you familiar with the work of Alexandre del Valle? Also, what is your opinion of L. S. Stavrianos?
I stand by my comment. Not only do mohammedans have many children, but they bring them into socialist protection via western health care systems where the survival rate is much higher. In better days we used to send missionary doctors over to their lands to cure their sick, but now we invite them here for medical care, where inbreeding (they still marry first cousins) can perpetuate low IQ idiocy, and other physical genetic syndromes. In the West our own high birth rate was once kept in check by diphtheria, comsumption, typhoid, bubonic plague, etc. diseases which Western doctors practically obliterated during the 20th century.
A friend of mine, who worked alongside the Polizei during the 1980s witnessed first-hand the high crime rate among Turks living in Germany, will back me up when it comes to keeping out immigrants who refuse to assimilate, and so become a burden on its host nation.
When it comes to tolerating diversity - sorry. I'm not there yet. Probably never will be. The Turkish president compared minarets to bayonets. They make no bones about their colonization of the West.
We do have something to protect: our future. The Swiss seem to understand.
@7
Quite frankly, I'm glad you're offended. But in all honesty, I believe being scolded by a teenager -- as you claim to be -- is quite unnecesary. I'm a lot older and wiser than you are. Don't tell me what to think, it's insulting. I rebuke you.
America has not a true friend in Asia Minor: least of all Turkey. The Turks have, and always will be, baby murderers and practitioners of ethnic cleansing. They are savages.
@George
The Turks also died fighting as American allies in the Korean War, and accepted American missiles pointed towards Russia, at great risk to their own country, in the name of fighting communists.
Name one instance where these minor favours were repaid.
America's friends have included people worse than Turks, no less Reagan's good old friend Pol Pot in Cambodia. At least the Turkish establishment did its best to de-Islamize the nation and rid itself of a dangerous self-destructive ideology.
As for baby murdering and ethnic cleansing - what do we suppose happened when American bombs fell in Baghdad in the Iraq War and villages in Iraq in the Gulf War? I don't think we can doubt that this act also killed many babies and also imposed collective punishment on non-combatants just for being Iraqis.
@21 Half a century after publication, "The Balkans Since 1453" by Stavrianos remains a key reference work on SEE history. Contemporary propagandists parading as Balkan experts (Noel Malcolc, Tim Judah et al) compare to Stavrianos like Maya Angelou compares to Virgil.
Re. Del Valle: He is interesting in the way no public figure in the U.S. dares be interesting. His intellectual "godfather" was the late General Gallois (see obit. Sept. 3). He is also right on most points: opposition to Turkey's EU membership & diagnosis of its slide into post-Kemalism, Islamization of Europe, advocacy of a "pan-West" that would include Russia, along the lines of my "Northern Alliance," the red-brown-green alliance against the West, critique of U.S. policy in the Balkans & vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia, etc. I think that he went too far, however, with the claim that the use of the Mujj by the Reagan-Bush I administrations was a deliberate, premeditated "alliance contre l'Europe." Plain stupidity should never be underestimated as a force in U.S. foreign policy making...
'Plain stupidity should never be underestimated as a force in U.S. foreign policy making…'
That's incontrovertible fact.
Thanks to Dr. Trifkovic for the link to his NATO analysis at #18 above. I much enjoy his characterization of the current NATO as "roaming vigilantes;" An amusing formulation but one sadly spot on considering its activities in the Balkans.
I'm also eager to read Del Valle particularly because I cannot understand US reluctance to partner with Russia in these dangerous times. We share many of the same threats. Our hostility to Russia I think falls safely into the "plain stupidity" comment at #26 concerning our foreign policy.
Del Valle's site:
http://www.alexandredelvalle.com
Stavrianos remains the authority on the Balkans.
If one wants to understand Turkey today, and its strategy in the Balkans, Middle East, Black Sea and Central Asia, try and read Ioannis Mazis, professor of geopolitics and geoeconomics from National Capodistrian University Athens.
The real problem is the low Christian birthrate, 1.3 per woman in Greece, as in most of Europe. You can't keep the Turks at bay with a rapidly declining population. Christians need to spurn secularist anti-natalism for Christian pro-natalism. Children and large families need to again be celebrated as the greatest gifts.
Politically, the welfare state needs to be abolished and taxes on families slashed at least 80%.
Imagine how things would be if Europeans' birth rate -- especially in Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania - were twice that of the Turks', instead of the opposite.
"...Turkey’s foreign minister in May 2009, Davutoğlu asserted that Turkey had an “order-instituting role” in the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus..."
How preposterous this matter of fact statement of a democratic demagoguery! This rings the bell of Otomans atrocities and savagery and slavery that lasted for more than 500 years over my ancestors, the Serbs... Turkey lacks and will always be historically deficient of respecting anybody's rights and freedom...Their so called democracy has been built on enslaving neighbouring Balkanic countries, beheading them, raping them and stealing from them natural and human recources, like newborn babies, turned to fiercest soldiers over period of time called JANICARI, , which was the backbone of a Otoman's army that waged wars till just about First World war, forcefully converting enslaved population to Islam, etc. ...They are currently stirring up their influences over Bosna and Hercegovina, Kosovo and Sandzak...Balkan will never rest in peace with Otomans looming democracy and its plight!!!
Mr. Gervaise @ 22. John Seiler's post at # 31 states my point more clearly. The invasion of the Mohammedans is not the cause of the problem; it is the consequence. The cause is the apostasy of Christians, which leads to their refusal to have children.
Also, to clarify: At #6 I was not advocating the "diversity" ideology by stating that the Hagarenes are in fact human beings, a biological and philosophical fact. Though they are human, I would very much like for all those who do not wish to abandon Islam to go back home and stay there.
@33 Fr Steven, I understand your point. Post-Christian America and Western Europe have indded put their trust in princes and sons of men to insure social comfort and plenty. Many in the Free Church only have 2 children in violation of God's first commandment, "Be fruitful and multiply." This is so because it's about paying for college education, and exhibits a terrible lack of faith. Perhaps mega-church preachers need to get on the ball with that topic, although donations might drop off and they won't be able to afford their leveraged "temples."
If anything changes it will be a grass-roots movement brought about by an anticipated failure of the Social Security system, and families will need to stick together for better of for worse.
Is it really a commandment (Genesis chapter 1, verse 28 : "Increase and multiply")? I do not think it is a commandment. God said the same thing to birds and fish in verse 22 of the same book of Genesis. But birds and fish cannot understand commandments. I believe, with all due respect to you Etienne, that it is rather, a blessing. Not a commandment. I apologize if I am mistaken.
@35 Michael Ezzo, apologies if you've already seen this but St. Augustine offers a pretty useful commentary on the first chapter of Genesis in his Confessions. His comments there seem to indicate the likelihood of understanding "Increase and multiply" in both of the suggested senses, as a simple commandment to procreate and also, as you indicate, as a blessing, though Augustine's words for the second sense are rather more nuanced than 'blessing.' He interprets the commandment to be both an imperative for procreation as well as a description of the way in which the human mind, made IMAGO DEI, reflects the fecundity of the mind of God. In Book XIII, section 24, he writes:
If, then, we consider the nature of things, in their strictly literal sense, and not allegorically, the phrase, "Be fruitful and multiply," applies to all things that are begotten by seed. But if we treat these words figuratively, as I judge that the Scripture intended them to be -- since it cannot be for nothing that this blessing is attributed only to the offspring of marine life and man -- then we discover that the characteristic of fecundity belongs also to the spiritual and physical creations ... In [many] instances we meet with multiplicity and fertility and increase; but the particular way in which "Be fruitful and multiply" can be exemplified differs widely. Thus a single category may include many things, and we cannot discover them except through their signs displayed corporeally and by the things being excogitated by the mind...But the power of human generation refers to the process of mental conception; this we see in the fruitfulness of reason. Therefore, we believe that to both of these two kinds it has been said by thee, O Lord, "Be fruitful and multiply." In this blessing, I recognize that thou hast granted us the faculty and power not only to express what we understand by a single idea in many different ways but also to understand in many ways what we find expressed obscurely in a single statement. Thus the waters of the sea are replenished, and their waves are symbols of diverse meanings. And thus also the earth is also replenished with human offspring. Its dryness is the symbol of its thirst for truth, and of the fact that reason rules over it."
Thank you Greg for the quotes and the reminder.
"Its dryness is the symbol of its thirst for truth, and of the fact that reason rules over it.”
And "His Mercy droppeth as a gentle rain from heaven on the place beneath.... Merchant of Venice
His Mercy..... is like a soft, still, rain falling on parched earth. Psalm # ???
I believe that's Psalm 56, Robert.