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Turkey’s New Violent Political Culture
At the heart of the matter is a culture that programs most less-educated masses {and in Turkey average schooling is 6.5 years} into a) converting the “other” and, if that is not possible, (b) physically hurting the “other.” A deep societal polarization since President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 has widened to frightening levels.
After opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was taken to a safe-house, members of the mob surrounded it and chanted, “Let’s burn down the house!”
Apparently each unpunished case of political violence committed on behalf of the dominant state ideology (Islamism) and its sacrosanct leader (Erdoğan) encourages the next. In May, a journalist critical of Erdoğan’s government and its nationalist allies was hospitalized after being attacked outside his home.
In a most spectacular show of violence, fans of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in April nearly lynched Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
In most civilized countries, citizens go to the ballot box on election day — be it parliamentary, presidential or municipal — cast their votes, go home to watch news reporting the results and go to work the next day, some happy, some disappointed, to live in peace until the elections. Not in Turkey, where any political race looks more like warfare than simple democratic competition.
None of the incidents that opposition journalists are facing today is a coincidence. In September 2015, for instance, an angry group of AKP fans attacked the editorial headquarters of Hürriyet, Turkey’s largest newspaper, at that time an opposition media company. Smashing the building’s windows with sticks and stones, the crowd chanted: “Allah-u aqbar” (“Allah is great!”) as if they were in a religious war. In fact, they thought they were in one because Hürriyet at that time was a secular newspaper critical of Erdoğan. For a long time, security forces watched the incidents with only one police team. The crowd took down the flag of the Doğan Group (which then owned Hürriyet) and burned it. After repeated demands, extra police were dispatched. The AKP Istanbul deputy and the head of the AKP youth branch, Abdürrahim Boynukalın, was in the crowd. He announced on his Twitter account, “We are protesting false news in front of Hürriyet and we are reciting the Quran for our martyrs.” It was a jihad: attacking a newspaper . . .
A month later, Ahmet Hakan, a prominent Hürriyet columnist and a presenter at CNN-Türk, was outside his home. Hakan was followed home from the television station by four men in a black car before being assaulted near his residence. Hakan was treated for a broken nose and ribs. Only a few months before those incidents, Erdoğan had accused Hürriyet’s owner of being a “coup lover” and described his journalists as “charlatans.”
In October 2016, Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs, or “Diyanet,” issued a circular for the formation of “youth branches” to be associated with the country’s tens of thousands of mosques. Initially, the youth branches would be formed in 1,500 mosques. But under the new plan, 20,000 mosques would have youth branches by 2021, and finally 45,000 mosques would have them, in what would look like “mosque militia.”
Then there is the curious case of the Alperen Hearths, a fiercely pro-Erdoğan group that fuses pan-Turkic racism with Islamism, neo-Ottomanism, and anti-Semitism. In 2016, the Alperen threatened violence against an annual gay pride march in Istanbul. Alperen’s Istanbul chief, Kürşat Mican, said:
“Degenerates will not be allowed to carry out their fantasies on this land . . We’re not responsible for what will happen after this point . . . We do not want people to walk around half-naked with alcohol bottles in their hands in this sacred city watered by the blood of our ancestors.“
The Istanbul governor’s office later banned the march.
Another time, in 2016, Alperen members protested outside one of the most significant synagogues in Istanbul, to denounce Israel’s security measures after a deadly attack at the Temple Mount that left two Israeli police officers dead. “If you prevent our freedom of worship there [at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque] then we will prevent your freedom of worship here [at Istanbul’s Neve Shalom Synagogue],” a statement from the Alperen said. “Our [Palestinian] brothers cannot pray there. Putting metal detectors harasses our brothers.” Some Alperen youths kicked the synagogue’s doors and others threw stones at the building.
More recent times are not more peaceful, sadly. On March 31, when Turks went to the ballot boxes to elect their mayors, violence in one single day claimed six lives and left 115 people injured by sticks, knives, batons and gunfire. A few days later, the death toll increased.
In a most spectacular show of violence, Erdoğan fans nearly lynched Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). In April, Kılıçdaroğlu went to a small town on the outskirts of Ankara to attend the funeral of a fallen soldier, killed during clashes with the separatist Kurdish militiamen. During the funeral, he was attacked by a nationalist crowd and taken to a nearby house for protection. A video of the incident on social media showed a mob pushing, shoving and punching Kılıçdaroğlu as he made his way through the crowd. After he was taken to a safe-house, members of the mob surrounded it and chanted, “Let’s burn down the house!” The man who punched the opposition leader, later happened to be an official member of AKP.
The attacker, Osman Sarıgün, after a brief detention, was immediately released. The next day, he was a hero. Flocks of Erdoğan fans rushed to his farmhouse to kiss his hands in the Sicilian “baccio la mano” manner, paying him the utmost respect for physically attacking a leader of the opposition.
Apparently each unpunished case of political violence committed on behalf of the dominant state ideology (Islamism) and its sacrosanct leader (Erdoğan) encourages the next. In May, a journalist critical of Erdoğan’s government and its nationalist allies was hospitalized after being attacked outside his home. The Yeniçağ newspaper said columnist Yavuz Selim Demirağ was beaten up by five or six people with baseball bats after appearing on a TV show. The assailants escaped the scene in a vehicle.
Everything went miraculously well for Göknur Damat, a 34-year-old beauty specialist who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. In 2017, she appeared on a television show and, weeping, told the audience that her doctors said she would not live longer than six months. She won Erdoğan’s (and other people’s sympathies) and received an invitation to meet the president, who thereafter called her “my foster daughter.” She was now the darling of all AKP supporters. Her business prospered and, even better, Damat miraculously won her fight against cancer. Recently, however, she made a mistake. She donated 20 liras (approximately $3.50) to the election campaign of the opposition candidate running for mayor of Istanbul. Worse, knowledge of her donation somehow fell into the public domain, with thousands of Erdoğan fans asking, “How come our president’s foster daughter donated to the opposition campaign.” Recently, as she came out of her home, an unfamiliar man approached her, asked: “Are you that braveheart?” and stabbed her in the leg. The attacker, like most others, has not yet been found.
Turkey never was a Denmark or Norway in political maturity, tolerance and culture but it is dangerously coming closer to being like one of its neighbors to the south or to the east.
Turkey Calls For Global Crackdown Against “Anti-Islam” Attacks From The “Far Right”
Turkey’s Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gül “has reiterated Turkey’s stance against terrorism and urged Western politicians to take action against rising anti-Islam attack.” Such so-called terror attacks against Muslims are infrequent and uncoordinated with any larger group, but Muslim attacks against infidels are organized, calculated and ubiquitous. How many countries are calling for stronger action against jihad terror on infidels by Muslims globally? This should be a focus of all democracies.
Turkey is a leader in jihad terror. The country held special “conquest” prayers in all of Turkey’s 90,000 mosques last year “for the victory of the country’s military, which launched a cross border operation in Syria’s northwestern Afrin region on January 20th against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units.” Erdogan then dispatched soldiers to “decimate” the Kurds. This news was not featured prominently in the Western media, but had it been Israel or any other Western nation calling for such “conquest prayers” in places of worship and then dispatching soldiers to “decimate” a population, it most certainly would have been front page news everywhere and still widely discussed today.
Erdogan has also called for an army of Islam to wage war against Israel, and pronounced that “Europe will be Muslim.” Meanwhile, Turkey is advocating for a Western crackdown on so-called anti-Islam attacks, specifically from the “far right.” It is “populists” that stands in the way of Turkey’s goal of a renewed Ottoman Empire, but Turkey’s biggest support base along with fellow jihadists are Western globalists. For example, Brussels has been trying to facilitate Turkey’s long-sought full membership in the EU. And Turkey has offered to help Canada — ruled by a globalist government — repatriate Islamic State fighters, while Canada continues to crack down on “Islamophobia” and so-called “online hate.”
Ankara is calling on Western administrations to embrace a more solid stance against rising anti-Islam attacks worldwide.
“It is obvious that these attacks will increase as long as Western politicians and media do not have strong reactions,” Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gül said during his visit to New Haven Diyanet Mosque in Connecticut, which was attacked last month.
Stressing that Turkey condemns the attack on the highest level, Gül said Ankara will closely monitor the investigation process. An anti-Muslim attack took place in New Haven against a Turkish mosque on May 12th, the seventh day of Ramadan, a holy month during which Muslims fast and pray. After the attack, the Religious Services Attaché of the Turkish Consulate General in New York said an investigation was underway into the fire at Diyanet Mosque and that efforts are being made to catch the perpetrators. While a reward of up to $2,500 has been offered by local officials for any information that leads to the arrest or conviction of the perpetrators, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also set a $10,000 reward for information on the crime. The justice minister thanked local authorities for their support, emphasizing that the mosque will be renovated. Following the attack, religious authorities in the U.S. and the administration of the Diyanet Mosque in New Haven have enhanced efforts to repair the mosque as soon as possible in solidarity with the local community.
A funding campaign was launched on a website called Launchgood for the renovation expenditures: $200,000 has been collected so far. While the damage to the mosque totaled more than $500,000, the priority was to collect $100,000 during the first phase of the donation campaign until the official investigation is completed.
Noting that an anti-Islam worldview has been encouraged in recent years, Gül said the attacks against Muslims, including the one occurred in New Zealand, and clearly shows the rising anti-Islam sentiment.
“We are witnessing an increasing number of attacks against mosques and rising fascism in Europe in recent years. Politicians and media should raise their voice against this hate rhetoric. Otherwise, these attacks will continue,” Gül said.
Accompanying Gül on the visit, Deputy Foreign Minister Yavuz Selim Kıran also emphasized rising anti-Islam acts and indifference of administrations of Western countries against these attacks.
Anti-Islam attacks soared, especially in European countries, in recent years. For example, Germany has witnessed growing Islamophobia and hatred of migrants triggered by far-right parties, which have exploited fears over the refugee crisis and terrorism. Police recorded 813 hate crimes against Muslims last year. At least 54 Muslims were injured in the attacks, which were carried out mostly by far-right extremists.
Turkey’s New Violent Political Culture
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Last Updated: 05/2022
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