Anti-Turkish sentiment
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Anti-Turkism (Turkish: Turk Dusmanligi) is hostility toward the Turkish people, Turkish culture and the Republic of Turkey.
General Information
When compared with apparently similar phenomena, it turns out to be, at least in its recent form, more of a deliberate misconstruction than an actual hate. However, some hold that the negative Turkish imagery which has been brought forth by legislators in various European parliaments during the European Union accession process, is evidence of Anti-Turkism.
Anti-Turkism apparently lacks a racial and cultural basis, and appears to be mostly based on geopolitics and religion in addition to diplomatic and strategic interests involving the modern state of Turkey. The Cyprus Dispute and the Bosnian War are two examples of possible Anti-Turkism. These facts themselves don't necessarily imply a direct hate towards Turks as a nation, but reflect the various diplomatic tensions of the moment.
Detractors
Anti-Turkism's detractors (most of them Turks) claim on the other hand that Anti-Turkism is merely a handy excuse which has been used to label and demonize all actual or imaginary enemies of the Turkish nation and that Anti-Turkism has been used excessively to justify personal and national failures. They believe that the Turkish state and the Turkish people are no worse than any other democratic country and citizens. The detractors also feel that some facts are exaggerated by the mass media and by some politicians for their own purposes.
Anti-Turkish quotes
Cardinal Newman once described the Turks as
- the "great anti-Christ among the races of men." [1]
He also said,
- “The barbarian power, which has been for centuries seated in the very heart of the Old World, which has in its brute clutch the most famous countries of classical and religious antiquity and many of the most fruitful and beautiful regions of the earth; and, which, having no history itself, is heir to the historical names of Constantinople and Nicaea, Nicomedia and Caesarea, Jerusalem and Damascus, Nineva and Babylon, Mecca and Bagdad, Antioch and Alexandria, ignorantly holding in its possession one half of the history of the whole world.”[2]
William Ewart Gladstone former British Prime Minister once said;
- “Let me endeavor, very briefly to sketch, in the rudest outline what the Turkish race was and what it is. It is not a question of Mohammedanism simply, but of Mohammedanism compounded with the peculiar character of a race. They are not the mild Mohammedans of India, nor the chivalrous Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of Spain. They were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went a broad line of blood marked the track behind them, and, as far as their dominion reached, civilization disappeared from view. They represented everywhere government by force as opposed to government by law.—Yet a government by force can not be maintained without the aid of an intellectual element.— Hence there grew up, what has been rare in the history of the world, a kind of tolerance in the midst of cruelty, tyranny and rapine. Much of Christian life was contemptuously left alone and a race of Greeks was attracted to Constantinople which has all along made up, in some degree, the deficiencies of Turkish Islam in the element of mind!”[3]
David Lloyd George former British Prime Minister once said;
- The Turks are a human cancer, a creeping agony in the flesh of the lands which they misgovern, rotting every fibre of life ... I am glad that the Turk is to be called to a final account for his long record of infamy against humanity. [4]
What is Anti-Turkish?
Although there is no clear definition of what makes something or someone "Anti-Turkish", there are possible clues:
- Territorial claims and disputes connected with the modern state of Turkey: This is perhaps the most realistic of all fears, since there are actually middle eastern extremist groups (such as the PKK) which claim part or all of Turkey's land and sea.
- Publications and articles which criticize Turkey and Turkish people to various extents. These include:
- Traveller guides, especially if they conjure the existence of terrorism or contain too many negative warnings and stereotypes.
- Newspaper articles, if making undocumented connections between international terrorism and the Cyprus dispute or the PKK.
References
- ^ Chapter 2 in George Hortons book The Blight of Asia
- ^ ibid
- ^ ibid
- ^ Quoted from a speech by the British Prime Minister, D. Lloyd George, 10 November 1914, cited in H.W.V. Temperley (ed.), A History of the Peace Conference of Paris, Oxford 1969, VI, 24.