Our Congratulations to the People of Turkey
from Israel Shamir
Our
congratulations to the people of Turkey on the election
victory of the Islamic Party! This is a fateful event: the
East returns to God, and finds its own way. Istanbul has
followed Gaza: the AKP-ruled Turkey will be a friend to
Hamas-ruled Palestine, to Islamic Iran, to Orthodox Greece
and Russia, to the religious anti-occupation forces of
nearby Iraq. She will again take her place of pride as the
centerpiece of the Eastern mosaic, while its pro-American
and God-hating generals, the Turkish Dahlans, will creep
back to their barracks. Faith in God unites us, while the
nationalists had divided us.
The legacy of Ataturk, this overlong infatuation with
nationalist doctrines, overstayed its welcome. This founder
of rump-Turkey came to power in a country decimated by the
results of the WWI. Turkey suffered the fate of Austria:
both countries were dismembered by the victorious
Anglo-Americans. Both gave birth to ferociously nationalist
leaders: Adolf Hitler was as anti-religious and as
nationalist as Kemal Ataturk. They were not alone: equally
anti-religious regimes came to power in Russia and Mexico.
Ataturk was prone to drink his fiery raki at Ramadan
in the public places to show his disdain of the faith, while
Lenin spoke scornfully of ‘bozhenka’, goddie (almost
doggie). At the other end of the world, Japanese and Chinese
revolted against Buddha.
Today, it is easy to blame Ataturk and his predecessors, the
Young Turks. They liaised with the dark forces, with
Zionists, with Western imperialists, even with the
then-strong Masons. They destroyed the centuries-long base
of the Turkish Empire. They destroyed the language and the
culture of Turkey. Instead of historic Arab graphics, they
enforced the use of Latin letters and made millions of Turks
illiterate. Their new way of spelling created a chasm with
the old literature and with neighboring Islamic cultures.
They privatized the lands and created a new landless class.
But this account-taking is not needed now.
Moreover, one can understand them. The old regimes failed to
protect the East from the Western onslaught, and in a way,
people punished their God for this failure, even coming to
prefer the more effective Western God of cash-and-carry.
There was an urgent need to modernize the administration and
the army, and to find a new language more suited to Western
ideas. The faith was considered a pillar of the old regime,
so it had to go. Still, let us be fair: by withstanding the
Armenian, Greek and British offensives, Ataturk saved some
of what could be saved, though he lost much of what needed
to be preserved.
This development was a tragic but mercifully a short-lived
one. The people of the East had a run of unbridled freedom,
like schoolchildren when the teacher leaves the classroom.
Very soon they discovered that the place of the strict
teacher was taken by the strongest ruffian, and their
freedom was just a temporary illusion. Under the followers
of Ataturk, Turkey was colonized by the US; NATO bases
sprung up on its shore and the Sixth Fleet found a home away
from home in its harbors. Turkey became a close friend of
the Zionist state, even though Zionists contributed greatly
to the destruction of the Ottoman Empire. This part of
history was forgotten, while the story of ‘the Arab
betrayal’ was artificially promoted and spread.
Persecution of the faithful in Turkey lasted longer than
anywhere on earth. The Russians repaired their churches, and
the Japanese went back to their jinjas, but the Turks still
could not grow a beard or wear national dress. Chomsky’s
translator (and mine, too), our friend Fatima, could wear
her chador only on a visit in the US, if not in the privacy
of her home. Now hopefully this remnant of the old
repression will disappear, and the Turks will be able to
grow beards like Che Guevara.
The bigger problem of the nationalist regime was its lack of
solidarity. The national elites did not care enough for the
people, whether in Turkey or in Palestine – they were more
interested in securing free access to Europe’s playground
than in promoting the ordinary people’s wellbeing. The
believers, the ordinary people of Turkey and Palestine, had
to form their own grass-roots associations to protect their
vital interests. Out of these associations, the Islamic
parties spread forth. They are the true expression of the
people’s will, and hopefully they will remain uncorrupted.
This victory is very important for Palestine, where the
freely elected government of Hamas was made impotent by
Israel and by docile Americans and Europeans. Now there is a
chance of breaking the Zionist blockade. This is an
important victory for the whole world, for an Islamic Turkey
won’t help the US in its impending attack on Iran. Hopefully
the Turks will forbid the US to use its bases and harbors,
thereby squashing the invasion plans.
The nationalist parties failed in a big way: they blocked
the legally elected Islamic party from rightfully nominating
a new President, and went complaining to Europe, thus
severely undermining the main achievement of Kemal Ataturk.
Before causing more harm, they should look at the example of
their brethren, the FLN generals in Algeria and the Fatah
warlords in Palestine, who denied rightfully won electoral
victory to godly parties, caused civil wars and earned much
hate from the people by totally embezzling the their moral
assets. There are Western forces that are ready to support
any bloodthirsty general on condition that he will not allow
people’s will to be realized, but a wise man won’t take this
bait.
The Islamic Party AKP is not homogeneous – there are
pro-American and pro-Eastern elements, so its victory is
just a beginning, rather than the end. Our friends in the
Party may be certain of mass support, if they stick to their
independent line: warm friendship with Palestine, Iran and
Russia, full cooperation with neighbouring Greece and Syria,
firm protection of Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan,
wholehearted rejection of the occupation regime in Iraq
including its Kurdish proxy, generous support of friendly
Islamic movements in the ex-Ottoman Empire, including
Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood. They will belie the
Judaeo-American claim of “tyrannical Islam” by creating a
solidarist, just, human and tolerant society.
There will be many changes in the East. If our enemies win,
the East will disintegrate into a jigsaw puzzle of warlords
and ganglands. This is what they did with the Ottoman
Empire, this is what they did with Iraq, this is what they
do in Palestine and plan to do in Iran. But today, after
these elections, this development is not the only possible
one. The AKP victory is a turning point, away from
West-forced disintegration towards a new integration of the
East.