413) One Reason Why the West Dislikes the Turks

There is a number of reasons why the Turks are frowned upon in the West that has little to do with historical fact... a phenomenon that was well explained by Andrew Wheatcroft in his "Lustful Turk" and "Terrible Turk" chapters from The Ottomans. Of course, much has to do with the "Muslim" thing, a good reason why Turkey is not accepted as part of Europe; the Ottoman Turks were also feared in their day, as a world superpower, an enemy of the Christian West since the Crusades; this role of bogeyman still lives. This resentment of Turks made it especially easy for the Armenians to snowball the West with their "genocide" stories, as have other groups when their purpose was suited — from Greeks to Assyrians to Kurds. The Serbs tried to justify their actions to the West (during the Yugoslavian break-up) as referring to the Bosnians as "Turks." (Translation: the Turks deserve whatever they get, since everyone knows they are less-than-human.)

Here We Go: . . .

The above was illustrated by Euro-centric historian Hendrik Willem van Loon, in his "The Story of Mankind" (1921)... a book where the Turks get the typical short shrift, with their main talent being for bloodletting. Only European civilization matters, and note how the Dutch-American bragged about it. In 1421, European influence was contained only within European borders. By 1921, Europe took over the world.

Let's examine the white spaces that remained free of European conquest. To the right, China had been mostly "conquered" as well at one time, before the Boxer Rebellion. Japan would be conquered a quarter-century later. There are parts of Southeast Asia that remain unconquered, like Vietnam.

The only nation (aside from Iran, also looked upon as a Western nogoodnik) that was a world power still free of Europe's clutches is the nation of the Turks. Beaten by Europeans, the Turks managed to kick them all out after WWI, when European imperialists were set to divide all of Turkey between themselves. It is this impertinence of the Turks that contribute to the significant prejudice and racism felt against them, to this day.

Another examination of the Turks' unpopularity may be found in this Wall Street Journal Europe report:

How Turkey Can Make the Western Media Happy

In this insightful report from The Wall Street Journal Europe, one is reminded of how no matter what Turkey does, the deeply-ingrained bias of the Western media will somehow manage to bring up ways to criticize the nation.

Turkey's Triumph
The best thing Turkey could do for its image is allow the Islamists to take power, reinstitute the oppression of women, and call for the destruction of Israel. At least that's what an observer from Mars would be likely to conclude after comparing the press treatment of Turkey and the rest of the Muslim world. Indeed, what ought to be a relatively uncontroversial process—the trial and punishment of a confessed terrorist—has become an occasion for the Western media to highlight all the supposed shortcomings of the Turkish judicial and democratic system.

Turkish prosecutors requested the death penalty yesterday as they wrapped up their case against Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan. On Monday the Turkish military's general staff rejected Ocalan's calls for a "peace process," saying they would not accept his "terrorist organization" as an interlocutor. Predictably, the press leapt to attack. Britain's Guardian, for example, carried a sympathetic interview with the brainwashed little girl who set herself on fire in London following Ocalan's capture. A commentary in the same paper took it for granted that capital punishment is an injustice, and referred (without apparent irony) to the "civil conflict" being exacerbated by the trial.

But why does the left hate Turkey? Because Turkey flouts the rules. Not international law, to be sure—last time we looked countries still had a right to defend themselves against attack, and to try people responsible for murdering thousands of their citizens. Rather, Turkey flouts the kind of politically correct principles the left would like to establish as the norms of international behavior: Force is never the solution; terrorists and dictators are always to be negotiated with; groups (not individuals) are bearers of rights; and cultural expression is always a good thing.

Citizenship is not about race

In the Ocalan case, then, Turkey's affronts began with the very act that sent the terrorist on the run. Instead of pleading with Syrian dictator Hafez Assad to be nice, or worse yet offering him "land for peace" (as the new Israeli government, at U.S. urging, proposes to do), the Turks simply told him to shut down the PKK or else. Knowing that the Turks aren't in the habit of making threats (much less empty ones), Mr. Assad took them seriously. Force (or at least the threat of it) was the solution, as it was again when, after unsuccessfully lobbying its NATO allies to turn over its public enemy No. 1 for trial, Turkey had the audacity to simply seize him in a foreign country.

And now that the accused, who knows his forces are being decimated by the Turkish military and that his own life is in danger, makes an offer of "peace," the left is upset that the Turks have decided not to legitimize him a la Arafat. Presumably they think the Kurds would be better off in a backward and poor independent state (bordering Iraq and Iran) led by outdated Marxist revolutionaries and learning only a useless language. In fact, there is no "Kurdish" language, but a bunch of different dialects, which might explain why Ocalan ran the PKK in Turkish.

What principles is Turkey asserting instead? Actually, principles that used to be considered liberal: That citizenship is not about race (and that the world should not be divided into a multitude of ethnically and linguistically pure statelets); that individuals, not groups, are entitled to rights; that people ought to be punished for violating those rights (even if they have "political" reasons for doing so); and that democracies work better when there is a common language of public discourse, something with which many minorities, as shown by the backlash against bilingual education in the United States, agree.

None of this is meant to suggest Turkey is an ideal state. But in their attacks on Turkey its Western critics often attack the very ideals to which it should, and usually does, aspire.

--From The Wall Street Journal Europe
International Commentary

June 10, 1999

Holdwater: Naturally, the left hardly has a monopoly in the practice of hating Turkey.


"...[W]hy does the left hate Turkey? Because Turkey flouts the rules. Not international law, to be sure—last time we looked countries still had a right to defend themselves against attack, and to try people responsible for murdering thousands of their citizens. Rather, Turkey flouts the kind of politically correct principles the left would like to establish as the norms of international behavior."

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