BY HENRY D. ASTARJIAN, M. D.

Never for a moment, since its inception, has the so-called “Modern, Democratic, Secular” Turkey been any one of those terms. Never for a moment since its inception has Turkey veered towards tempering its Islamic fervor to become a secular state. Never since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk massacred tens of thousands of civilians to establish modern-day Turkey has the republic been for all its inhabitants; it has been for a select few of the Central Asian Turkic origin.

Ataturk, the Free Mason that he was, never ceased to affirm the dual identity of the republic that he established: “Turkishness” and Islamism. In every speech and in every action he emphasized these points to assert his authority and gain political advantage. He was never a true Muslim. He drank liquor and had lavish nightlife, his palace was full of immorality, and he did not observe the Five Tenets of Islam, yet he used Islam to rule with an iron fist. He beheaded thousands of Kurds, not because they were Muslims but because they were Kurds. He did the same to the non-Muslims, just because they were not Muslims.

He introduced his brand of Islam, separating it from the state—but that did not really happen. The country remained fanatically Muslim, the seat of the caliphate.

The country continued to believe in and practice chauvinism and fascism, yearning for the days of the caliphate when corrupt, murderous sultans ruled the Islamic world in the name of Allah and Islam.

In all this he had the support of the army, which he had created and which had, in return, helped him conquer the land and establish modern Turkey.

What he had tailored for Turkey, like a two-sizes-too-big orphan’s jacket, did not fit Turkish society. The Turks remained deeply fanatic, wielding clout and oppressing minorities, mainly the big Kurdish minority, the Alevis, and the Christians.

To them Mohamed was the messenger of God, while Ataturk was the messenger of evil. This reactionary attitude of the Turks generated enmity between them and the army, which was the protector of Kemalism. Since 1960, the army has overthrown the country’s civilian government four times, and now was preparing for the fifth.

Prime ministers and presidents of the country—like Celal Bayar (sentenced to death, later spared), Adnan Menderes (hanged), Bulent Ecevit, Suleyman Demirel, Tansu Ciller, Mesut Yilmaz, and many others—became the direct or indirect victims of such military interventions. Kemalists, with skeletons in their closets, were true to their ancestral Ottoman traditions. Ciller, Turkey’s first and only female prime minister, had spent $5 million for an undisclosed purpose, which she would not divulge even to the Turkish Parliament. Finally she whispered it in the ear of Demirel, the president, who assured the parliament that she had spent the money in lieu of the government; she had financed the assassination of journalists, Kurdish leaders, and “enemies of the republic.” It is not clear if she pocketed some of that money to finance the purchase of a Holiday Inn in New Hampshire, a few miles from where I live. The Turkish media said she did.

The beat goes on and on, and on. The stories of official and unofficial behaviors and misconducts are endless.

The Islamists utilizing the ills of Kemalism and invoking the righteousness of Islam established themselves as the heirs to the Ottoman Caliphate. Necmettin Erbakan a devout Naqshbandi Muslim Turk, established the Refah Party with a clear Islamic platform. The threat of its popularity and growth led the military to arrange for its dissolution. Erbakan was barred from running for office. Turkish newspapers exposed his corruption, especially his theft of 140 kg. of gold that belonged to the Refah Party.

The high court’s decision to dissolve the party did not deter the Islamist from forming a new one under a new name—the Adalet ve Kalkinma Party (AK) Justice and Development Party, now led by Erbakan’s protégés, current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul.
Turkey was and is divided in three ways: The military, the Islamists, and the Kurds are each driving their own donkey to the finishing line. The military, by plotting to overthrow the government through Ergenekon and through the newly cooked plot. The Islamist government, by driving another nail in the coffin of Kemalism when—taking an unprecedented step of civilian government—arresting 50 of the retired and active duty generals. And the Kurds, by continuing their struggle for autonomy veiled in pseudo claims of a struggle for human rights.

Turkey, according to reports in the Arab news media, is a fertile ground for the ultra-fanatic, Islamic terrorist group Al-Qaeda to establish itself; the on-the-ground circumstances of Islamic fervor are right for Osama’s move into Turkey. An estimated 180 of them are already on the ground. I’ll leave the consequences of this to your imagination and deliberations.

It is this degenerating country that the United States is relying on to contain Iran, at a time when Turkey is in a love fest with Iran. It is this government that the United States fears alienating if it accepts the Turkish genocide of the Armenians.

It is with these realities at play that the present, equally corrupt government of Armenia is trying to make peace with Turkey. Oh, what a farce, what a joke! Who was trying to steal from whom?

This is Turkey, a member of NATO, and an ally of the United States, which under false pretences markets itself as a “Modern, Democratic, Secular” state. The reality is far from the truth. Turkey is a chauvinist, fascist, reactionary country. It was not “Modern, Secular, Democratic” at its founding; it is not now; and with its ethnic makeup, religious fanaticism, Central Asian tribal culture, feelings of uber alles, it will never be.

Reprinted from The Armenian Weekly