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Turkey's
Conquest Fetish
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Excerpt of the originally published article.
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On
June 4, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told university students, "Just
like our [Turkish] arrival into Anatolia, just like the conquest of
Istanbul ... I know you will be behaving with the same consciousness ...
A new Turkey will rise on your shoulders."
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1071 is a very special year for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
-- and his Islamist ideologues. Erdogan often speaks about his "2071 targets," a reference
to his vision of "Great Turkey," on the 1000th
anniversary of a battle that paved the Turks' way into where they still
live.
In 1071, the Seljuk Turks did not arrive in Anatolia from their native
Central Asian steppes with flowers in their hands. Instead they were in
full combat gear, fighting a series of wars against the Christian Byzantine
[Eastern Roman] Empire and featuring a newfound Islamic zeal. The Battle of
Manzikert in 1071 is widely seen as the moment when the Byzantines lost the
war against the Turks: before the end of the century, the Turks were in
control of the entire Anatolian peninsula.
Another divine date for Erdogan is May 29, 1453. That day saw the fall
of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, after an Ottoman army
invaded what is today Istanbul, modern Turkey's biggest city. The conquest
of Constantinople was not a peaceful event either. The city's siege lasted
for 53 days and cost thousands of lives. The Byzantine defeat left the
Ottoman armies unchecked, clearing the way for their advance into Christian
Europe in the centuries to come. The long and violent Ottoman march into
Europe came to a halt in 1683, when the Ottomans were defeated during the
siege of Vienna. By then the Ottomans were in control of north Africa, most
parts of the Middle East and central and eastern Europe, totaling 5.2
million square kilometers of land.
Turkey may be the only nation that
celebrates its biggest city's capture by the sword from another
civilization.
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On every May 29, the Turks, proud of being -- possibly -- the world's
only nation that celebrates the capture by the sword of their biggest city
from another civilization, take to the streets for grand ceremonies. The
563th anniversary of the conquest was celebrated with a major event created by a team of
1,200 people. It saw a 563-man Mehter concert [an Ottoman military
band], a show by the Turkish Air Force aerobatics team, special conquest
celebrations, a fireworks display, live broadcasts in six different
languages and the world's largest 3D mapping stage used to reenact the
conquest.
There is more than enough evidence about the Turkish Islamists'
"conquest-fetish." Turkey's leaders have too often spoken of "liberating Jerusalem and making the
city the capital of an independent Palestine."
In September, then prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, another Islamist, said:
By Allah's will, Jerusalem belongs to the
Kurds, the Turks, the Arabs, and to all Muslims. And as our forefathers
fought side by side at Gallipoli, and just as our forefathers went together
to liberate Jerusalem with Saladin, we will march together on the same path
[to liberate Jerusalem].
Erdogan and his fellow Islamists are keen admirers of the idea that
Muslim Turks capture lands belonging to other civilizations because, in
this mindset, "conquest" means the spread of Islam. That is
hardly surprising: political Islam typically features a tendency to spread
to non-Islamist or non-Muslim parts of the world. But the way Erdogan
defends "conquest," even in the year 2016, looks just too
ridiculous.
On June 4 Erdogan was addressing students at a theology faculty. In his
speech he said:
When we look at the way Islam has spread
to the world we see that it rather features the conquest of 'hearts' rather
than conquest by the 'sword'... Look, now there is the Islamophobia malady
in the West ... [Its] aim is to stop [the further spread of Islam]. But
they will not be able to succeed.
Then he advised the students:
Just like our [Turkish] arrival into
Anatolia, just like the conquest of Istanbul ... I know you will be
behaving with the same consciousness ... A 'New Turkey' will rise on your
shoulders ... [to succeed] you must reproduce. God [commands] you to have at
least three children.
It is amazing that Erdogan still has the power to shock -- in absurdity
-- even the most seasoned Erdogan observers. In his narrative, Muslim Turks
have never invaded foreign lands by the force of the sword. What they did
was just conquering hearts. This is not even funny.
...
Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based
columnist for the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet Daily News and a fellow at the Middle
East Forum.
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