Islamist in Turkey preparing for Civil war? ‘partisan armament’ in Turkey is worrying. (
yavuzbaydar).
Today’s Turkey is without a doubt
a powder keg, reminiscent of Yugoslavia, which because of Milosevic’s
divisive nationalist drive, disintegrated after a blood bath.
One of the most worrisome aspects
of Turkey today is the concrete signals of armament of individuals, as
an element of fierce partisanship.
As Erdoğan raised the decibel level of
his speeches again lately, questioning Turkey’s current borders, and the
validity of Lausanne Treaty, which as a foundational document
established modern Turkey, signed and sealed in 1923, new (or old) maps
were visible in Turkish TV channels and newspapers, showing Mosul and
northeastern part of Greece, beyond Thessaloniki, as the ‘Greater
Turkey’.
Irredentism, and revanchism that comes
along with it, is on the table. No matter what the intentions behind
claims of ‘revenge of history’, whipping up the Turkish masses is a
fearsome fact.
The ostrich-like European leaders and the
EU Commission may refuse to admit it, many of them mesmerized by the
illusion of the realpolitik, but the reality in Turkish ground is filled
with similar, worrisome signs, piling up by every day that passes.
Irredentism may be a slowly brewing fact,
but another most recent development should be paid the outmost
attention: the announcement and preparations for the armament of the the
AKP members en masse.
Turning the ruling party into an armed
force had already landed on Turkish agenda, some days after the botched
coup, which took place July 15.
Under the slogan ‘never again!’ some AKP
officials said, that ‘civilian preparedness’ was necessary to resist new
coup attempts. One of them was Şeref Malkoç, a Chief Advisor of
President Erdoğan who announced that ‘licenced firearms should be
distributed to the people.’
Ever since then, such calls echoed
strongly. A swift support came from the militia-like organisation,
‘Ottoman Units 1453’ (Osmanlı Ocakları 1453) – whose date refers to the
conquest of Istanbul – that launched the hashtag ‘AKArmament’
(#AKSilahlanma) on social media.
Its leader, Emin Canpolat, wrote, first:
‘This one is a call for all the brothers.
Arm yourselves for the motherland, for the flag and for Erdoğan.’ At a
later call, he added: ‘Erdoğan is the motherland; he means the flag for
us. We will die, and kill, for Erdoğan’.
Soon after, the hashtag topped the social media traffic.
Messages like ‘AKYouth and AKMilitia is
getting ready. We stand ready to fight till the last drop of our blood.
Matryrdom is our holy goal!’ or ‘We are ready REIS, tell us to hit, and
we shall. Tell us to die and we shall. We shall enter Aleppo and Mosul!’
were in intense circulation.
(The term ‘REIS’, could be translated as ‘the Chief’, falling slighly short, or not, of ‘Führer’.)
Abdullah Şanlıdağ, a columnist with the fiercely anti-semitic, anti-west daily, Yeni Akit, wrote:
‘Don’t be afraid this nation of ours. Don’t. They know exactly who to kill.’
But, these public rants have not remained
as outbursts, symbolizing a new trend of political hooliganism. Some
days ago, it was transferred to the official rhetoric, and developed
into an AKP pledge.
It was the newly appointed Minister of
Interior, Süleyman Soylu, who broke the news. At a large meeting of the
ruling party, in the Anatolian city of Afyon, he said:
‘We shall deliver each and every official
of our party. We shall also equip them with security guards. We will
also see to it that they are protected by long-range weapons.’
In a recent local TV appearance, the
governor of the northeastern Black Sea town, Rize, said that licensed
weapons were delivered in large numbers to those who ‘donate money’.
Comparing his time as governor in an Aegean city of Manisa, Erdoğan Bektaş said:
‘I delivered five times more weapons in three months that I had in Manisa in two years.’
He added that he would personally provide firearms to people, ‘should the coup attempt happen again’.
In a more spectacular development,
Turkey’s most powerful state institution – which seems top have taken
over the role as the chief tutelary body, from the military – the
Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), declared that it had
launched a project to establish ‘Youth Units’ in the mosques across
Turkey.
It was a high-level representative of Diyanet, Yaşar Yiğit, who broke the news.
‘At the first stage we are now done with the infrastructure in 1.500 mosques’ he said, adding:
‘We have a total of 85.000 mosques and we
intend to establish youth units in 45.000 of them. God willing, we will
have it in more than 20.000 of them by 2021.’
From every vantage point, it is clear how the pattern is set. Hmmm......And the 'Erdogan Jugend' is a fact!
The data speaks for itself. A
parliamentary commission last year issued information that, as of the
end of 2013, there were a total of roughly 20 million firearms, of which
85 % were unlicensed.
Turkey ranks 14th among 178 countries in individual armament, and in the past years it has noted an increase of more than 50 %. Read the full story
here.
