Just my imagination
June 6th 2010 07:00
"From now on, Turkish-Israeli ties will never be the same. This incident has left an irreparable and deep scar."
-- Abdullah Gul, President of Turkey
"Now everyone knows what you are."
-- Flavor text of Boldwyr Intimidator, from the Magic: the Gathering expansion Morningtide
It is important, we’ve been told, to support “moderate” political parties in countries like Turkey and Indonesia, because if we don’t, the “extreme” politicians will come to power and tilt the country away from the West. There are supposed to be deep and profound distinctions and disputes between the two camps in such nations which make the former a suitable partner for Western interests and the latter not.
Reality check time. Who was in power in Turkey during the Armenian Genocide? Mustafa Kemal, known as “Ataturk,” the supposed first progressive leader of a Muslim country. Who was in power during the 1974 war with Greece, the blockade of Armenia in the 1990s, and the confrontation that almost led to a second war with Greece a few years ago? The descendants of Ataturk’s party.
You could argue that the European Union’s rejection of the latter-day Kemalists led to the rise of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his more pro-Islamic worldview. You could make that argument, if you assumed the Kemalists wanted to join the EU for the same reasons that, say, Poland and the Czech Republic wanted to. Given that their record regarding relations with their non-Muslim neighbors is barely better than the Islamic parties (or, for that matter, than Suleyman the Magnificent’s), I do not think that is a safe assumption to make. If, as looks increasingly likely, the first incident of a U.S.-made F-16 shooting down another plane of the same model comes in the context of Israel vs. Turkey and is on Erdogan or his party’s watch, you would do yourself and everyone else a service by asking: would someone else really have done any different?
-- Abdullah Gul, President of Turkey
"Now everyone knows what you are."
-- Flavor text of Boldwyr Intimidator, from the Magic: the Gathering expansion Morningtide
It is important, we’ve been told, to support “moderate” political parties in countries like Turkey and Indonesia, because if we don’t, the “extreme” politicians will come to power and tilt the country away from the West. There are supposed to be deep and profound distinctions and disputes between the two camps in such nations which make the former a suitable partner for Western interests and the latter not.
Reality check time. Who was in power in Turkey during the Armenian Genocide? Mustafa Kemal, known as “Ataturk,” the supposed first progressive leader of a Muslim country. Who was in power during the 1974 war with Greece, the blockade of Armenia in the 1990s, and the confrontation that almost led to a second war with Greece a few years ago? The descendants of Ataturk’s party.
You could argue that the European Union’s rejection of the latter-day Kemalists led to the rise of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his more pro-Islamic worldview. You could make that argument, if you assumed the Kemalists wanted to join the EU for the same reasons that, say, Poland and the Czech Republic wanted to. Given that their record regarding relations with their non-Muslim neighbors is barely better than the Islamic parties (or, for that matter, than Suleyman the Magnificent’s), I do not think that is a safe assumption to make. If, as looks increasingly likely, the first incident of a U.S.-made F-16 shooting down another plane of the same model comes in the context of Israel vs. Turkey and is on Erdogan or his party’s watch, you would do yourself and everyone else a service by asking: would someone else really have done any different?
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