Posted on 05/30/2011 3:10:09 AM PDT by 1010RD
SNIP “The normalization of history,” proclaims the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, whose government has tried to reintegrate the region by lifting visa requirements and promoting a Middle Eastern trade zone, as it deploys its businessmen along the old routes and exports Turkey’s pop culture to an eager audience.
“None of the borders of Turkey are natural,” he went on. “Almost all of them are artificial. Of course we have to respect them as nation-states, but at the same time we have to understand that there are natural continuities. That’s the way it’s been for centuries.”
SNIP
“A RECREATION OF THE HISTORIC AND NATURAL ENVIRONMENT” is how Mr. Davutoglu describes his vision for the region. And indeed, that vision, which is effectively government policy, has touched in a nerve in Turkey, a country with its own unresolved questions of identity.
Just as Arab nationalism still runs run deep, with the fate of Palestine its axis, so does Turkish nationalism, which includes a sense that the country deserves a role in the region, and beyond that at least echoes of its Ottoman age... “It’s been almost 100 years that we’ve been separated by superficial borders, superficial cultural and religious borders, and now with the lifting of visas to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, we’re lifting national boundaries... Turkey is challenging the traditional understanding of policy in the Middle East in place since the 20th century.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"There is admittedly a hint of romanticism in it all... And in seeking to be a more prominent, and steadying, influence, Turkey’s ambitions may well be greater than its means. Still, economic realities are already restoring old trajectories that joined the Kurdish regions of Turkey and Iraq, tied Batumi in Georgia to Trabzon in Turkey, and knit Aleppo into an axis of cities — Mosul, Diyarbakir, Gaziantep and Iskenderun — in which Damascus, the leading but distant Arab metropole, was an afterthought."
I’m sure that the Arabs would be thrilled with an Ottoman Empire II. Yeah, run that one up the flagpole and see who salutes.
How about a Persian one? What happened the last time Muslim nations pined for a reunited empire?
The Arabian love of Persia is well-known, and reciprocated.
Who knows...can Canada unify the Latinos?
To me, that’s about how much sense the headline makes.
The Turks are great at nurturing multicultural, pluralistic societies. Just ask the Greeks, Armenians, Kurds... /s
That’s why this headline is so dangerous. This is the next bad idea. Watch Obama and Co. work hard to implement it. The State Dept is brimming with idiots thinking this is the next big thing.
The sarcasm tag isn’t necessary.
I was reading an author and I cannot recall who it was, but he made the case for ethnic cleansing as a ‘good’. That is not as something morally or objectively good, but that people want to live with people like them. This is natural.
Ethnic cleansing creates peace in the sense that like peoples want to live together. There is violence, upheaval and loss, but ideally he argued that we should allow as peaceful a transition of people by identity (ethnic or otherwise) to avoid even more bloodshed in the future.
If you look at religious or ethnic violence throughout the world and across history you’ll see this idea bearing out. His view is that peace comes post cleansing (mass migrations/expulsions included not just murder/violence).
I’m not endorsing that view or even rationalizing it, but at some point there are people you just don’t want to live around. Is the Pax Americana extant simply because our enemies are war weary?
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Yet Turkey is obviously having imperial dreams and I think will see this as confirmation and encouragement.
It’s no accident that certain forces want Turkey to be part of the EU. It is the perfect bridge for the Islamic invasion and the conquest of Europe in a smooth and fully legal maneuver.
While the Arabs are dreaming about and fighting to establish the Caliphate, Turkey is working methodically to establish something like that to be in Turkey.
No, but pork can.
You’re right, but I think the EU ship has sailed and it won’t stop in Turkey. Fifty years from now we may look at it as fateful that Turkey didn’t make it into the EU. It could have been a positive turning point solidifying Ataturk’s revolution and normalizing Turkey.
Instead the Islamists moved into the vacuum and it appears Turkey is rapidly turning East and to its past. That means war.
If Turkey enters the EU in the face of Europe’s sudden awareness of the Muslim & Socialist threat (they’ve moved right and sharply in recent elections), there really is a global conspiracy controlling world events.
A peaceful transition...that would be like when the Turks invaded the Pelopennesian Peninsula, right? I think the other name for “ethnic cleansing” is invasion, lebensraum, genocide, etc.
There’s no case whatsoever to be made for “ethnic cleansing.” The only time space sharing among groups becomes impossible is when one of them decides it wants the whole pie. This is something that is built into Islam, unfortunately.
And it is something that other groups do when they have a nutty leader such as Hitler.
Most groups react by keeping more to themselves if they don’t wish to associate with anyone different. Jews, for example, have often lived in self-enclosed communities, such as parts of Brooklyn, not only because of persecution, but because this enables them to live under their particular law and customs.
Sometimes the group that is the victim (remember the Balkans!) will then try to expel the aggressive invader, but that’s more self-defense than “cleansing.”
I think that's a good point, and I don't think we're paying enough attention to the situation in Turkey. There was some examination of it a few years ago, as Islamism started to gain there, but I think it's now in its Trojan horse phase and looking normal while everything is really just going ahead quietly and in stealth.
I also think that the glories of the Arab Spring (such as Al Qaeda taking over Yemen) are going to give Turkey, which is viciously aggressive, a chance to present itself as a peaceful, stabilizing force. It never has been and it never will be; it is the most dangerous army of Islam, IMHO, and we seem to have forgotten its arrival at the gates of Vienna.
That's a lot of people for a religion of peace. Just think how bad it would be if they were violent and sadistic?
The Turkish Islamists who are Shafi’i IIRC (which is broadly practiced in most Muslim countries) are well on their way to ending Ataturk’s Dream. Given that their ambitions know no bounds they’ll move quickly to reunite Islam.
We live in interesting times, FRiend.
That’s the historical manifestation of it. I wish I could find the article. His point was that the defense/offense responses of distinct human groups is normal and to be expected. That’s the default behavior.
Better, the author argues, to allow a Balkanization to occur as peacefully as possible than the slaughters. I think that’s a valid point. As Americans we reject the Balkans model, but that’s historically naive.
We have very little of that in America, despite our liberals working feverishly to excite it. My hope is that black Americans realize that liberalism has trapped them in a vicious cycle and that they are just Americans.
I’m particularly excited by the number of black Republicans running for office with Herman Cain and Allen West in particular. I don’t understand why there isn’t a greater push for vouchers by the GOP targeting urban areas.
Friends of mine indicate that this isn’t forgotten or lost knowledge even at Foggy Bottom, it’s being suppressed and purposefully. When American foreign policy ignores or denies reality Americans die. That’s the direction Obama’s pointed us in.
They will salute well enough as long as their conquerors are muslims.
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