More pining for the days of Empire:
Turkey
- Thread starter Neutral
- Start date
Sabre-rattling or is he going to do a land grab?
He reminds a bit of Mussolini and his obsession with the Roman empire
Just for domestic consumption I think. Not that he doesn't have real ambitions in Syria and Iraq, but his hands are tied by Russia and Iran.
I'm not sure about Iraq but I suspect he'll keep the land he's planning on grabbing in Syria. Russia wants a stooge in place to help them keep their naval base open - if he's no threat to that, I don't think the Russians will care too much.
The Ottoman empire carried out three genocides. The Armenian Genocide, the Assyrian Christian genocide and the Greek genocide.
The Ottomans killed 1.5 million Armenians, 300,000 Assyrian Christians and 750,000 Greeks. Horrific atrocities. How anyone would want that empire to return is just unfathomable.
Some funny things Erdogan said about The Netherlands in the last year:
- The Netherlands are a facist remainder of Hitler's third reich
- The Netherlands are a banana republic
- We all know the Netherlands from the Bosnian genocide
- There's more Turkish people in The Netherlands than there are soldiers, watch out what you say about us
Silly goose.
- The Netherlands are a facist remainder of Hitler's third reich
- The Netherlands are a banana republic
- We all know the Netherlands from the Bosnian genocide
- There's more Turkish people in The Netherlands than there are soldiers, watch out what you say about us
Silly goose.
Yeah I think the best he can hope for in Syria is to establish a 'security' buffer like they had in Iraq in the 90s or like Israel used to have in southern Lebanon. It'll probably be a major headache for him.
There's a good bit of nostalgia for the Ottoman days obviously among Turkish Islamists but also with South Asian Muslims who were never under Ottoman rule but developed strong ties and affections for the Ottomans in the late 1800s.
Honestly if I blank out the last 100-150 disastrous years or so of Ottoman history, I can share in that nostalgia a little bit; not in terms of wanting the empire to actually return, which is an impossibility in modern times, but I think leaders in the region could learn a lot by looking at how the Ottomans' generally tolerant hands-off approach to religious minorities and to its citizens in general made for more peaceful times. Unfortunately Erdogan seems to be enthralled by the more problematic aspects of the Ottoman legacy.
I do hope you are joking. The Ottomans' tolerant approach to religious minorities? They killed 3 million Christians! They killed 1.5 million Armenians, 300,000 Assyrian Christians and 750,000 Greeks. It was one of the worst genocides of all time. Second only to the Holocaust.
The Ottoman rule also resulted in large scale population transfers. Most of the Greeks in Turkey left to Greece and the Armenians went to Armenia. That is why there are no Greeks and Armenians in Turkey at present.
The Ottomans were communal. They persecuted the Armenians, Assyrians and the Pontic Greeks.
Read again - I said discounting the final 100-150 years or so of Ottoman history.
If he's so obsessed with land, maybe he should go and knock the Greeks on the head and tell them to stop pissing about on Turkey's islands.
My Turkish deputy told me aboit that mental theory about hidden oil fields which will be revealed on whatever anniversary of Attaturk's death when some treaty supposedly expires. Real flat earth stuff.
Guess he's still pissed they blocked his campaigning at the elections?
Yep, that was what initiated the fued.
Where are these oil fields supposed to be?
Not sure. You're Turkish? Was some conspiracy around Brits, Saudis, oil etc...Will try and dig out the link she sent.
EDIT: https://www.google.com/amp/foreignpolicy.com/2014/10/02/notes-on-a-turkish-conspiracy/amp/
Not Turkish, no. Thanks for the link. Didn't really get anything from the article about oil other than an obvious joke.
That said, spend a long enough time paying attention to Turkey's history and the position it finds itself in today, and it's hard not to be paranoid about the likes of the UK and USA.
No I understand and my colleague's family were involved in politics there.
This myth is odd though as is the way emigres in Germany voted for him. I've learnt so much over the last year or two of sitting next to her and it's both fascinating and disturbing.
Yes, discounting the final 7-8 years or so of Nazi rule in Germany, I'd say they were great as well. The Nazis' generally tolerant hands-off approach to religious minorities and to its citizens in general made for more peaceful times. When they were not rounding up and killing Jews, Poles, Roma and others, that is.
There's a good bit of nostalgia for the Nazi days amongst white supremacists. Honestly if I blank out the last 7-8 disastrous years or so of Nazi history, I can share in that nostalgia a little bit; not in terms of wanting the empire to actually return, which is an impossibility in modern times but I think leaders in the region could learn a lot by looking at how the Nazis were very tolerant towards religious and ethnic minorities.
That's not what he's saying and the comparison isn't valid either. Rulers of last years of the Ottoman Empire were a lot different in terms of ideology and politics than their predecessors. Look up the Young Turks who carried out the massacres and compare them to the older rulers or even the founders of the Empire.
Dumbest post of 2018 so far.
Makes sense to compare the Nazis' reign of 12-13 years and the Ottoman Empire of over 600 years.
Top comparison that! Well done.
If we accept as premise that sombody is 'great' when (all things done)-(all bad things) = N, then I guess his conclusion isn't wrong. It's just that the premise is hopelessly flawed because it would consider somebody 'great' even if (all things done) is 101 and (all bad things) is 100 which frankly is a ridiculous notion. More aptly the premise would look like this: positive territory is (good things)-(bad things) = N.
*that's ofc only true if we - for argument's sake - maintain the fiction that 'things' are quantifiable.
*that's ofc only true if we - for argument's sake - maintain the fiction that 'things' are quantifiable.
1945-8 = 1937
So we have from 1933- 1936, just 3 years.
THis is all just from fecking wiki and the 1st page of google.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/genocide/nazi_genocide_timeline_noflash.shtml
My post was a tongue in cheek response to 2cent's ridiculous post that the Ottomans were secular and the paragons of tolerance. Oh, if you only ignore 150 years of their rule of course!
They were barbarians. They killed 3 million Christians and non Muslims. It was systematic ethnic cleansing to rid modern day Turkey of Armenians, Assyrian Christians and Greeks. They killed 1.5 million Armenians, 300,000 Assyrian Christians and 750,000 Greeks. The massacres took place deep into present Armenia and other places. And modern Turkey is doing the same thing to the Kurds.
Turkey needs to be chucked out of the NATO. They should never ever be allowed into the EU. Erdogan is a war criminal and a despot. I wouldn't be surprised if the civil war in Syria overflows into Turkey in a massive way, removing him and his cronies from power once and for all. It is inevitable.
But yes, Islamists in India have historically identified with the ottomans. The people who wanted to divide India and create Pakistan and Bangladesh (East Pakistan at that time) felt very close to the Ottoman empire. Wahhabis in the Middle East must feel affinity to the Ottoman empire as well. Wonder why? Maybe they supported and agree with the genocide of 3 million people?
Hitler gone, Saddam Hussein gone, Gaddafi gone, bin Laden gone, Erdogan and Omar Bashir remain.
Now you're just imagining things.
The Wahhabi movement first rose as an anti-Ottoman movement.
Was about to post this. He really doesn't know what he's talking about.
The fight between Wahhabis and Ottomans was in Arabia and Egypt, not in Turkey. You can't say that hardline Islamists don't think fondly of the Ottomans now?
Depends what type of Islamists you're talking about. Wahhabis/Salafis regard the Ottomans as mushrikin - for them the only legitimate models are Muhammad and his companions. Muslim Brotherhood type Islamists have a greater regard for the Ottomans.
You're not making any sense.
The Wahhabists openly rebelled against the Ottomans with the British and were one of the reasons they were defeated in WW1.
Not to mention the ideology, the extreme Wahabis would not consider Ottoman's as Muslims as they were Sufis. So no they don't get on at all.
Proof.
You can admit that you had no idea about how bad hitler's 1st 3 years were when you made the post....but your last sentence, comparing a standard-issue religious nationalist like erdogan to Hitler makes me think you meant that comparison.
The movement in India re the ottomans was called the Khilafat movement. Its name, and the context of British rule in India and British victory in WW1, gives a clue as to why that might have been felt. Since I don't think Gandhi was an Islamist (or Muslim, for that matter), and helped lead the movement, I am going to say that Indians other than Islamists also felt some (misguided) affinity for the Ottomans. Even as turks themselves got rid of the monarchy and theocracy.
Finally, most of us posting in the CE forum are charlatans with some school history and some popular knowledge of history and some with a college course or two; 2cents is one of the few posters who actually knows his stuff. Given your Erdogan-Hitler comparison, I'm going to assume that you don't, and will tend to believe what he wrote about the early Ottoman empire.
Yesterday was 100 years since the death of this man, Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the last Sultan to wield any real power before the Young Turk revolution of 1908:
There is a growing cult of Abdul Hamid II in Turkey and among many Islamists, centred around his promotion of Pan-Islamism and supposedly robust defence of Ottoman interests internationally, especially in Palestine, at a time when the European powers were beginning to plan for a post-Ottoman Middle East. However, this is also the man who suspended the first Ottoman Constitution after only a year in 1878, launched an authoritarian campaign to exile, imprison or execute all opponents, and initiated the first wave of massacres of the Armenians in 1894-96. I think it's obvious that Erdogan regards him as a kind of model for governance whose downfall - allegedly at the hands of an international conspiracy (with the usual suspects involved) - holds many lessons for modern-day Turkey:
"In remarks made during a commemoration ceremony to mark the centenary of the death of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II at the Yildiz Palace in Istanbul, Erdogan said: “The Republic of Turkey, just like our previous states that are a continuation of one another, is also a continuation of the Ottomans.
"Of course, the borders have changed. Forms of government have changed... But the essence is the same, soul is the same, even many institutions are the same."
Erdogan added this is why Sultan Abdulhamid is one of the "most important, most visionary and most strategic minded" individual that made his mark in recent 150 years."
http://aa.com.tr/en/todays-headlines/turkish-republic-continuation-of-ottoman-empire/1059924
https://eurasianet.org/s/royal-role-models-historical-revisionism-in-russia-and-turkey-part-ii
There is a growing cult of Abdul Hamid II in Turkey and among many Islamists, centred around his promotion of Pan-Islamism and supposedly robust defence of Ottoman interests internationally, especially in Palestine, at a time when the European powers were beginning to plan for a post-Ottoman Middle East. However, this is also the man who suspended the first Ottoman Constitution after only a year in 1878, launched an authoritarian campaign to exile, imprison or execute all opponents, and initiated the first wave of massacres of the Armenians in 1894-96. I think it's obvious that Erdogan regards him as a kind of model for governance whose downfall - allegedly at the hands of an international conspiracy (with the usual suspects involved) - holds many lessons for modern-day Turkey:
"In remarks made during a commemoration ceremony to mark the centenary of the death of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II at the Yildiz Palace in Istanbul, Erdogan said: “The Republic of Turkey, just like our previous states that are a continuation of one another, is also a continuation of the Ottomans.
"Of course, the borders have changed. Forms of government have changed... But the essence is the same, soul is the same, even many institutions are the same."
Erdogan added this is why Sultan Abdulhamid is one of the "most important, most visionary and most strategic minded" individual that made his mark in recent 150 years."
http://aa.com.tr/en/todays-headlines/turkish-republic-continuation-of-ottoman-empire/1059924
"In September 2016, speaking at a symposium commemorating Abdulhamid II's birth, Ismail Kahraman, a ranking member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and speaker of the Turkish parliament, described the sultan's reign "as a mariner’s compass [for Turkey] to give us direction and enlighten our future.”"
https://eurasianet.org/s/royal-role-models-historical-revisionism-in-russia-and-turkey-part-ii
He did a great job all those years of hiding the fact that he's a complete looper:
What on Earth is his problem? Seriously, I just don't get his endgoal anymore.
Tapping into peoples fears and nationalism is a good way of making people let you do what you want. For example jailing critical journalists without due process turns from political persecution into protecting Turkey against its enemies.
Also makes it easier to sell international backlash to the public.
Yes, but why? He already has absolute power in Turkey. Now is all about legacy, and what is he planning to leave behind?
He's doing exactly the same Trump is doing, as is Wilders, De Wever, Le Pen.
I'm starting to think that, beyond the obviously cynical motive of energizing his base, this is just who he actually is and the way he genuinely thinks.