Turkey's War on Christian Missionaries

by Uzay Bulut • December 30, 2018 at 5:00 am

American Pastor Andrew Brunson and American-Canadian evangelist David Byle are among many Christian clerics who have fallen victim to Turkey's aversion to Christianity. According to Claire Evans, regional manager of the organization International Christian Concern, "Turkey is making it increasingly clear that there is no room for Christianity, even though the constitution states otherwise."
Today, only around 0.2% of Turkey's population of nearly 80 million is Christian. The 1913-1923 Christian genocide across Ottoman Turkey and the 1955 anti-Greek pogrom in Istanbul are some of the most important events that largely led to the destruction of the country's ancient Christian community. Yet, still today in Turkey, Christian missionaries and citizens continue to be oppressed.
"One issue that differentiates Turkey from the rest of the world is that our national identity is primarily shaped by religious identity. What makes a Turk a Turk is not so much due to ethnicity, or the language people speak, but is primarily about being Muslim... A large majority of Turkish people think there is nothing in ‎their history that they should be ashamed of. [They] don't feel close to Europe or to the Middle East; they basically feel close to only themselves... one striking fact is that we [asked] if everybody would be a Turk, would the world be a better place, and Turks gave a very high rating. No self-criticism whatsoever." — Professor Ali Çarkoğlu of Koç University, who conducted a survey on nationalism with Professor Ersin Kalaycıoğlu of Sabancı University.

Bishop Luigi Padovese, Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia, Turkey, was murdered in 2010 by his driver, who shouted, "Allahu Akbar" as he slit the priest's throat. (Image source: Raimond Spekking / CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

The day after American pastor Andrew Brunson was released from Turkish prison, another Christian who had been living for nearly two decades in the country was detained by Turkish authorities, and told that he had two weeks to leave the country -- without his wife and three children. The American-Canadian evangelist, David Byle, not only suffered several detentions and interrogations over the years, but he had been targeted for deportation on three occasions. Each time, he was saved by court rulings. This time, however, he was unable to prevent banishment, and left the country after two days in a detention center.

When he tried to return to his family in Turkey on November 20, he was denied re-entry. According to Claire Evans, regional manager of the organization International Christian Concern:

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The Growing Poverty of Political Debate

by Amir Taheri • December 30, 2018 at 4:00 am

The European Union, too, is clearly on the decline. Despite Pollyannish talk of creating a European army and closer ties among member states, the EU has lost much of its original appeal and faces fissiparous challenges of which the so-called Brexit is one early example. I believe that the only way for the EU to survive, let alone prosper, is to recast itself as a club of nation-states rather than a substitute for them.
Another significant trend concerns the virtual collapse of almost all political parties across the globe. Within the year now ending, a number of mostly new parties forced their ways into the center of power in several European countries notably Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Holland and Sweden. Interestingly, the more ideological a party is, the more vulnerable it is to the current trend of decline in party politics. This is why virtually all Communist and nationalist parties have either disappeared or been reduced to a shadow of their past glory.
The massive development of cyberspace has given single-issue politics an unexpected boost. Today, almost anyone anywhere in the word could create his or her own echo-chamber around a pet subject. Here, the aim is to fight for one's difference with as much passion as possible.That trend is in contrast with another trend, promoted by the traditional, or mainstream media, offering a uniform narrative of events. Turn on any TV or radio channel and go through almost any newspaper and you will be surprised by how they all say the same thing about what is going on.

The weakening of political parties, trade unions, international organs, and institutions like parliaments that provided platforms for debate and decision-making, has deprived many societies of both a space and a mechanism for the battle of ideas and the competition among different policy options. (Image source: iStock)

As the year 2018 draws to a close, what are the trends that it highlighted in political life?

The first trend represents a growing global disaffection with international organizations to the benefit of the traditional nation-state. Supporters of the status quo regard that trend as an upsurge of populism and judge it as a setback for human progress whatever that means.

Today it is not the United Nations alone that is reduced to a backseat driver on key issues of international life. Its many tentacles, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, too, have been reduced to a shadow of their past glory. In the 1990s, the two outfits held sway on the economies of more than 80 countries across the globe with a mixture of ideology and credit injection. Today, however, they are reduced to cheer-leading or name-calling from the ringside.

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