Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan long has declared his intention to restore the Ottoman Empire.
Time magazine notes Erdogan has been tightening "his grip on social media freedom" and even is considering pulling Turkey out of what "is known, now farcically, as the 2011 Istanbul Convention, a treaty of the Council of Europe that commits countries to protecting women from domestic violence."
There is truth in Erdogan's well-known attempts to "resurrect" the Ottoman Empire "or to style himself a sultan," Time said.
Now, the Middle East Media Research Institute says Erdogan has moved beyond his previous stance.
Erdogan has declared there is "no power" that can stand in his way.
"We will not hesitate to sacrifice martyrs in this fight – are the people of Greece, France, certain North African and Gulf countries prepared to make such sacrifices?"
Erdogan's remarks came in a recent speech in Ankara.
The Turkish leader said his country is not a society with an army, but a "nation that is an army within itself."
He warned his nation's "enemies" that he will "not hesitate to sacrifice martyrs."
He charged Greece, France, North Africa and the Gulf countries have "greedy and incompetent leaders," claiming that Turkey never colonized; it was "a civilization" that conquered.
"When we combine our technological superiority, our fully developed human resources, and our spiritual power ... with Allah's permission, there is no power that can stand in the way of this country," he said.
He told his enemies, "Bring it on."
"Everyone who would stand against us on land, at sea, and in the air has seen Turkey's legitimacy and its determination in protecting its rights, interests, and capabilities based on international law. Be sure that those who have not seen it will face this reality in the field, at the diplomatic table, and in international platforms. We do not run away from a fight. We will not hesitate to sacrifice martyrs and wounded people in this fight. For our independence and our future, we will not hold back from roaring all together as 83 million people, and running over the dams that get in our way, like a flood."
He said the people of North Africa and the Gulf region "are eyeing Turkey's democracy, constitutional state, and regional interests – do they realize that this process will turn around and harm them?
"Throughout its history, Turkey has never been an aggressive country. The Turkish nation is one of the rare peoples that does not have the stain of colonialism in its past. Certainly, our civilization is one of conquest, but our understanding of conquest is not based on taking control of underground and aboveground riches along with land. On the contrary, our understanding of conquest is first the conquest of hearts.
"Throughout the world, and particularly in Europe, we are in a period in which xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Turkishness, and discrimination are on the rise. Despite this, the fact that Turkey is being brought to the forefront of every negative subject is not a vulnerability of our nation. Rather, it is a sign of the fascism and animosity in the back of their minds."
Time reported Erdogan is modeling himself after the Ottoman Empire's ninth sultan, Selim I, who saw "during his lifetime that the Ottoman Empire grew from a strong regional power to a gargantuan global empire."
The article said: "We should be wary of Erdogan’s embrace of Selim’s exclusionary vision of Turkish political power. It represents a historical example of strongman politics that led to regional wars, the attempted annihilation of religious minorities, and the monopolization of global economic resources. In addition to his attempts to monopolize natural gas reserves around Turkey, today this takes the form of Erdogan’s foreign military ventures in Libya, Syria, and Yemen. At home, he has gone after Turkey’s Shiite community, Kurds, intellectuals, Christians, journalists, women, and leftists. Erdogan cultivates his own Sunni religiosity to position Islam at the center of Turkey’s domestic agenda, with the church conversions the most potent recent symbols of this. Erdogan’s represents a political logic of zero-sum competition that pits Turkey against Saudi Arabia and Iran for control of the region and over claims of global Islamic leadership."
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