Turkey's Critical Choices. Part III. Foe Identification

By: Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
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[ Posted On: 2007-06-16 ]

In two earlier articles, we pinpointed Turkey's need for self-criticism, and Identity Search. In both texts, we used the term Kemalism; it is essential to clarify at this point that the term is used as an all-encompassing catalogue of political practices and stimulating speeches. Kemalism is not an ideology, and Kemal Ataturk was not a systematic philosopher who through volumes of books set up an entire system of philosophy or political ideology. Kemal Ataturk was not the equivalent of Lenin in Russia; he was a man of ideas and systematized thoughts that he wished to implement in the area where it was feasible to do so. We could also use the term Ataturkism, but we believe the Western ears are more familiar with the term Kemalism, although wrongly interpreted most of the times.

We terminated the second article, stating that "today's intellectual, political and military elite of Turkey must 'think big.' The question of Turkey's Identity has to be pursued at the same time Turkey's enemies have to be identified".

As a matter of fact, History reveals very easily what the political practice and attitude would have some difficulty to admit. To answer the question whether Turkey has real, persistent and determined enemies, we should first address the issue of the enemies of the Ottoman Empire. Some may ask 'why'; we already explained in the previous article that the 'Ottoman Empire is Turkey.'

It would be essential here too to elucidate the subject; the Ottoman Empire and Turkey are by definition two different institutions that existed in different periods, the latter superseding the former. It is true that the Ottoman Empire and Turkey have nothing in common in terms of theoretical background (Islam vs. Humanism and the Enlightenment Philosophy), political organization (Islamic Caliphate vs. Secular Republic), economic environment (Islamic economy vs. centralized economy that was gradually transformed to liberal), educational and cultural practices (gradual decay and decomposition of the Islamic Sciences due to religious fanaticism's rise vs. adoption / adaptation of a Westernized educational system and culture), and social context (a traditional Islamic behavioural system vs. a modern liberal and democratic society).

Millennia of successive forms of state

Yet, historically viewed, through the standpoint of a diachronic observer, the Ottoman Empire 'is' Turkey in the same way the Eastern Roman Empire 'is' the Ottoman Empire. Despite the apparent differences, Istanbul 'was' Constantinople, and the relocation of the capital – as effectuated by Kemal Ataturk – did not change anything in this dimension. Turkey is the ultimate heir of a long series of Oriental empires that are – functionally, not ideologically – the same.

As such, Turkey may not be the genuine representative of today's Islam but certainly consists in the most authentic successor of the Roman Empire, Alexander's Empire, Achaeamenid Iran, Sargonid Assyria, and Imperial Hittite Anatolia, drawing therefore back to the Empire of Sargon of Akkad; a line of 4600 years of continuity.

When before 200 years Napoleon reminded his soldiers during in their lawless invasion of the Egyptian province of the Ottoman Empire: '4000 years of History watch you from atop the Pyramids'; he probably referred to another – lower and more recent – line of tradition.

Turkey and France: a millennia long rivalry

All this is, as the aggressive and perfidious attempt of France clearly indicates, an act of the utmost enmity that goes far beyond the differences of the two empires' leading ethnic groups, religions or ideologies.

Acting on the most ominous and antihuman plan of the World's History, France attempted to cover and disguise its real targets under the veil of ideological difference, namely the rejection of Catholicism in France and the refutation of Islam in the Ottoman Empire.

We know only too well that this is a lie; the disreputable and hypocritical delegation of scholars, who followed Napoleon in order to investigate any possible remains and natural findings in the invaded Egyptian province of the Ottoman Empire and publish the Description de l' Egypte, did their ingenious best to demonstrate that the target was academic.

Yet, the selection of an Ottoman renegade, who accepted – although Muslim and soldier of the Sultan – to make an oath to the Freemasonic Lodge founded by Napoleon in Egypt, and to accept the support of his country's enemies in order to detach that Ottoman province from the immediate administration of the Sultan, and make it a supposedly 'independent' state (which in reality was a feather blown in the sky according to the will of the Colonial powers), highlights very well the real intentions of the perfidious Franks.

The target was not academic, and was not military. In 1798, the perfidious French did not try to take revenge because of the death of their Christian king in the Delta and the expulsion of the Crusaders from Jerusalem that had occurred many centuries earlier. The famous anecdote according to which the Western colonial invasion of most of the Ottoman provinces is a mere revenge of the Crusaders' defeat reflects only the Colonial falsification and masquerading of their targets. They projected their lie over the Arabic speaking besotted masses, who believed it, engulfing themselves in an absolutely wrong direction.

If it were a revenge of the Crusaders' defeat, it would have ended up with the Christianization of several parts at least of the Middle East. This did not take place, because the target was completely different.

The inhuman character of the French Anti-Turkish hysteria

We can see and easily deduce that every development did not happen in order to complete a change that would create a new and stable environment. What the Crusaders did is easy to grasp; they invaded part of the Middle East that was important for them (they did not care about Baghdad, Mekka and Madina), and they insisted on staying permanently there. This is a usual case of war.

Yet, the French did not invade the Egyptian province in order to attach it to France; it would be impossible or simply it was indifferent?

If we carefully compare developments taken place during the 18th, the 19th and the 20th centuries, we realize that never a development involving the colonial powers in the entire area was similar to the aforementioned classical type of political – military target.

The invasion of the Egyptian province (1798) of the Ottoman Empire had the aim of simply shaking the Ottoman Empire, detaching a geo-strategically important province, and preparing the next developments. As Egypt lies in the middle of the southern provinces of Istanbul, its detachment would expose of the South – Western provinces (Libya, Tunisia, Algeria) due to poor means of communications and the great distance from Istanbul. Algeria and Tunisia are geographically closer to France than to Turkey.

No more than 32 years after Napoleon's invasion of the Egyptian province, French fleet appeared in Algiers, at a moment the Ottoman administration was mostly concerned with developments in the Balkans and in the Black Sea, and invaded the westernmost Ottoman province. The French occupation of Algeria did not target to Christianize that province; however, due to Algeria's propinquity, many had thought that Algeria would remain French territory forever. However, this was not part of the plan, and it was not truly attempted.

Similarly analyzing the Balkan Wars and the Italian occupation of Libya and several coastal islands of the Ottoman empire did not consist in a target 'per se'; even the colonial mandate was not used for annexation let alone Christianization of these provinces.

All that we can thus deduce is a permanent effort to weaken and decompose the Ottoman Empire, with no evident end in the process.

We have to admit that the target has nothing to do with educational and cultural improvement; illiteracy is rampant in these colonized realms of Barbarism. Yet, if the diffusion of the ideas of the Enlightenment was the main target, we can safely claim that the only thing the European colonials would have to do would be to let Kemal Ataturk educate all the peoples of the Ottoman periphery in the same way he did educate the citizens of the central provinces.

What we can attest through recent developments is that the French Anti-Turkish hysteria and rancor has not ended, and further developments are sought after, namely the secession of Kurdistan, the maintenance of the Cyprus dispute, the eternal rekindling of the myth of the Turkish responsibility for the massacres of the Armenians, and a series of similar topoi.

Many would say that the racist and inhuman attitude reflects the old rivalry between Nova Roma – Constantinople and Rome. As Turkey and France are not religious states, and Turkey is mostly Muslim, an aphorism like this would certainly reflect some historical parallels, but at the same time would shadow the deeper reasons. It is clear that no other state attempted so vicious anti-Turkish plots as France; Turkey's rivalry with Russia hinged mostly only the latter's needs for access to southern seas, whereas the Turkish – Iranian antagonism within Islam echoed the confrontations between the Roman (and Eastern Roman) Empire and the Sassanid Empire of Iran.

France's anti-Turkish fixation is the result of the ultimate targets of the sects that have long ruled France behind the political scene. These sects view themselves as the natural heirs of the Roman Empire; they do not see in Turkey a religious, Islamic, rival. Turkey does not remind them Poitiers but slightly.

They rather see in the Ottoman Empire and in Turkey the only country that can dispute their assumption of possibly representing the Roman Empire. It is a form of confrontation that reverberates the 1054 Schism, the Clash between a Vatican subdued to Franks and an Orthodox Constantinople. This Clash antedates the rise of Islam. It reminds us moments when Rome had collapsed, but Constantinople undertook the Reconquista under Justinian.

Even worse, with the forced and tyrannical imposition of the tyrannical Merovingian Franks on the Gaelic and Celtic peoples, the fear of the supposed heirs of the Western Roman Empire runs high.

Any theoretical refutation would destabilize terribly the Frankish grip on power; such a refutation would have tremendous result if emanating from the epicenter of the Eastern Roman Empire. If Istanbul/Nova Roma remains strong, the Frankish Freemasonic elite of Europe will never sleep easily, worrying that their murderous plan for Jerusalem run by a bogus-Messiah can be cancelled forever.

The Celtic – Roman allies of the Frankish elite have also good reasons to worry; their anti-Anatolian involvement antedates the Roman Empire; and if this polarization comes to surface, the masks will fall, and the true identity of the two poles of power that have long confronted one another will revealed.

This story is as old as the empires; it brings us back to the two Ladies of the Revelation by John. A mythical code and term inspired after the Ancient Hittite myth of Telipinus.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis - is Orientalist, Assyriologist, Egyptologist, Iranologist, Islamologist, Historian and Political Scientist. Dr. Megalommatis, 49, is the author of 12 books, dozens of scholarly articles, hundreds of encyclopedia entries, and thousands of articles. He speaks, reads and writes more than 15, modern and ancient, languages

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