The Real motives behind pope bashing in 'Islamist' Turkey.

The Real motives behind pope bashing in 'Islamist' Turkey. (FOT).BY Abdullah Bozkurt.

The fingerprints of a vitriolic and hateful narrative increasingly being adopted by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the firebrand political Islamist, and his brethren in the government are all over the strong reaction Turkey has displayed against Pope Francis, who described the 1915 mass killings of Armenians as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Instead of toning down the rhetoric and setting the record straight with a well-articulated response over what happened in World War I, Islamists in the government deliberately chose to go overboard, risking an unnecessary confrontation with a leader who represents the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. Let’s refresh our memory. The pope had already invoked the G-word before, which did not elicit such an angry response from Turkey. Perhaps this time the description went beyond the pope’s personal feelings on the 1915 events and has become an official line of the Vatican. That still does not explain the vulgarity used in the official Turkish statements and remarks.

My sense is that the strong reaction is mostly related to the growing anti-Christian sentiment among political Islamists in Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) that is bent on inflaming religious fervor to consolidate conservative votes and mobilize core supporters ahead of the elections.

This also fits perfectly into the pattern of stigmatizing behavior the AKP government has been displaying towards Christians, Jews and moderate Muslim communities in the country over the last few years.

This controversy exposed the real face of political Islamists in Turkey, which are nothing but a fanatic bunch of religious zealots. They use and abuse religion simply to advance their political goals while lining their pockets in the meantime.

They do not believe in diversity, pluralism, religious freedom or tolerance among faiths. Hmmmm......A must read post! Read the full story here.

@miskelayla @etabori Anyway after the papal visit to #Turkey : "It is not possible to have interfaith dialogue" http://t.co/uv6372laUB
— MFS - The Other News (@MFS001) April 12, 2015