BOMBS IN ADVENT IN THE HOLY LAND

 ENGLISH

I haven't posted anything here since 2021, missing two new years. It's not that nothing significant happened; rather, I have given more time to other interests and family affairs.

The last post was in on Dec 19th, 2021, and started with our new year illustration for that year, that is, 2021, which I ought to have shared a full year earlier, when we were about to enter that year and not ending it! (See: "Pandemonium", 19 Aralık-December 2021). By then our new year illustration for 2022 was ready, but I didn't share it on this blog until today. (See below, two paragraphs down.)

2021 had gone on quite badly, and for me it was a life lesson on how propaganda could change people you think you know! It was hard enough to see people willingly submit in droves to lockdowns and a crazy sounding new "vaccine" technologies, it was a blow to see them turn against me when I expressed doubt and suspicion. For my said article of Dec. 2021 I simply copied and pasted two Facebook discussions in their entirety, changing only the names. Their insistence on trying to persuade me said a lot. 

 

By Newyear 2022 I had heard about the Metaverse and the Matrix-like implications of a virtual reality lifestyle, and thought it right to invite people back to "real reality". (See: "2022-Newyear" on "Esin Desen", 25 Aralık-December 2021.) When we reached 2023, on Lâle's suggestion, we expressed our wish to "fly away from all the excessive technology". (See: "2023-Newyear" on "Esin Desen", 26 Aralık- December 2022.) 

 

Our newyear messages for 2022 and 2023.

One major event I never wrote about was the war Russo-Ukranian war, which apparently broke out on February 24th, 2022 but had really been going on since February 2014, when a US-supported coup ousted Ukraine's Russia-friendly president Viktor Yanukovych. The eastern expansion of NATO with Ukraine as a prospective NATO membership was clearly an existential threat to Russia and that led to the conflagration. The war was horrific, and the western media clearly took an anti-Russian position- which spilled over to our media, so that for almost two years we have been under the impression that Russia is collapsing and Ukraine's final victory is imminent! For us, as a NATO country sitting asitride the Straits (Bosphorus and the Dardanelles) that are protected by the Montreux convention, the situation was especially critical. I never shared my thoughts about it here but I did make my views clear elsewhere: that we should stay neutral, no matter what NATO says, stick to the conditions of the Montreaux accords (which limits the access of NATO warships into the Black Sea), maintain normal relations with both Russia and Ukraine, and do what we can for a peaceful solution. Happily, President Erdoğan has done just that, even brokering peace talks in Istanbul. (March 2022) That process was reportedly shot down by no less a figure than Boris Johnson, who flew to Kyiv to persuade President Zelensky not to compromise!

 

 How I saw the Montreux accord as safeguard against involvement in the war.

The social media quickly filled up with blue-and yellow Ukranian flags with the motto "I stand with Ukraine". It is nice to see the world public opinion so sensitive about a land being attacked by another, though it might have been wiser, more useful, and more humane to call for diplomacy rather than more war and more weapons! For me, selfishly, I wanted my country to be spared the horrors that our involvement might entail- the experience of the First World War was a hard one, and that started with our fleet bombing Sebastopol- Crimea. I was  glad we chose not to poke that hornet's nest this time around.

Then on October 7th, a group of Hamas militants from Gaza crossed the closely watched high-security demarcation into Israel proper and went on a kind of rampage, taking hostages and- according to the Israelis- randomly slaughtering, raping and beheading Jews. As the truth unfolded, we learned the beheading bit was probably untrue, the rapes not really proven, and as for the deaths (Israel first claimed about 1400, then revised to 1200), it is not clear how many died from "friendly fire".

 

Then Israel attacked with full military force. The last count is about 18000 in Gaza alone, and Israel is also taking on the Palestinians in the West Bank as well as Lebanon and even Syria while hurling accusations at Iran! The Western powers have pledged full support to Israel- is it because they are eternal victims whatever they do? Of all the people who adorned their social media posts with Ukranian flags and anti-Putin slogans few if any dared dared raise a voice for Palestine or criticising Israel, demonstrating how two-faced they are! To be fair, others have filled the breach, in spite of peer-pressure and sensure, and these include many, many Jews which proves justice and fairness do not have a race, religion or nationality.

I drew this to remind people Jasmin was also an Arab girl!

For the rest, I am pasting a texted correspondence I had with an European friend while taking intercity buses:

Hello ..., 

Here I am on the bus to Istanbul, for my weekly visit to my mum! As I promised, I am using my time to write to you! I see the events in Israel had a great effect on you. Same here. Though we too are a middle-eastern nation, I must confess I have been very insensitive towards the Palestinians. Because the Kemalist portion of the population (to which I belong) adulates the West and seeks to distance itself from the Arab world, we have not made the effort to learn much about the condition of the Palestinians. Moreover, Jewish propaganda, poured over us mostly through US media (but also German, if you live there) has persuaded us that: 1) The Jews are the eternally oppressed race, even though they are always so kind and humane, 2) Israel is a civilized nation, on par with Europe, "the only democracy in the Middle East", surrounded by a sea of dirty Arabs, uncivilized Muslims. I was not free of this kind of thinking, even though I thought it a bit of a stretch that Israel is admitted to the Eurovision Song Contest.

My dislike for the Erdoğan regime made me distance myself from the Arab world still further. (Ironically, Erdoğan was hand-picked by the US to Islamize and de-nationalize this country!) In 2012 my wife and I went to the Civil Registry Office and had the word "Islam" erased from our records. A year later the "Gezi" uprising shook the country, almost toppling Erdoğan. Seeing their protégé was losing control, the US tried to flush him down the drain. Erdoğan fought back, broke off with his partner Gülen, and started fishing out and arresting the Gülen "moles" who had infiltrated the government and key institutions with his help. In 2016 the US attempted to remove him with a coup, which failed because Erdoğan managed to whip up a huge resistance over cell phone.

Since then the Islamist and anti-nationalist Erdoğan has become the less radically religious but also nationalist Erdoğan. Because now he covers all bases (which was NOT what the US wanted) there is social truce, and the opposition just can't whip up the frenzied resistance of before. With the new stability, and the truce between the various elements of our society, I am less inclined to turn my back on the Arabs. From day to day I am learning more and more not only about the conditions in Palestine, but also about the social and political structure of that "only democracy in the Middle East"! And I can't believe how much and how brazenly they have been lying to us! I am not referring to the Holocaust; I am assuming that is all true, or mostly true, or whatever. But that they are oh so humane, yet are still discriminated against...! That so-called "only democracy in the Middle East" has been a theocratic apartheid state since it's inception! Jews enjoy full equal citizenship in every country they live in, but don't recognize those rights to the natives of their own country. In spite of this glaring hypocrisy, they have been able to pull the wool over our eyes for decades! I for one have certainly been seeing films and reading books about the ever-maligned Jewish race all my life, so that's already over half a century! I always took it for granted that a people who had so much to say about the evils of discrimination would themselves avoid behaving that way. The more I learn of what is happening, the more I am schocked. Then there is the violent posts of some Jews that call for the ANNIHLATION of the Palestinians! Where did I hear that kind of talk before?

Today I have no objections to Erdoğan siding with Palestine. Since he suspended (I hope completely abandoned) his dream of an Islamic state, I am less critical of him, and actually enjoyed his blunt speech delivered in Berlin in the presence of Kanzler Scholz. "We owe no debt to the Jews, we did not go through the trauma of the Holocaust. You cannot speak freely because you owe them a debt." I never thought I would see the day I liked an Erdoğan speech!

The demographic group I belong to, the Kemalists who support a secular nation-state, have apparently been selected by the US as the alternative to Erdoğan. My wife and I try to persuade everyone we see that the real enemy is the US deep state, but they choose the simplistic view, believing getting rid of Erdoğan personally will remedy everything. I'm afraid that if the US-backed opposition ever wins, it will pull the country to a pro-US, pro-Ukraine, pro-Israel, forget-the-Palestinians position. Fortunately, for all their talk of "Ataturk", many are so shallow, so clumsy, and the Yankees supporting them so ignorant of this society,  that they fall flat on their faces at each election! I am angry at my fellow-Kemalists for trying to divide the country ("us and them") for the sake of political gain at a time when unity is so important.

Arrived in Istanbul. More on the way back!

Sunday, on the bus again, returning... I am giving you such a long reply because it also helps me do some soul-searching and arrange my thoughts. I might also publish this on my blog!

On Oct. 29th, about three weeks after that fateful Oct. 7th, we celebrated the centennial of our Republic. It was a big deal, of course. Our conservative President Erdoğan held a massive rally for Palestine on the day before, attended by a sea of Erdoğan supporters- they speak of 1,5 million and it looks it. Trolls of the Kemalist opposition tried to belittle it, playing on anti-Arab sentiments of the secular Kemalists. Erdoğan had a celebrity guest, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), who delivered a speech to a raving crowd very different from his erstwhile fans- who ignored his arrival totally. In fact there was hardly any mention of his arrival and attendance in the media. I only learned of it from a YouTube clip, which I shared on Facebook, and was likewise ignored! The Vatan party, which we used to vote for (and my wife even joined it for a while), held another rally for Palestine on the 29th, the day of the celebrations. It was also largely ignored by the media-except for the party's own newspaper, which you can hardly find, and their own TV channel, for which they can hardly find advertisers! The party itself is also largely ignored.

There is a very real danger, in Turkish society, in the Middle East and in the world, that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be interpreted as a religious conflict, both sides (and their supporters) seeing it as the believers of "the only true faith" struggling against "the infidels". The comments on social media demonstrates that this is the case. Since it is impossible for any religion of Man to explain the mysteries of life and creation- because they are unfathomable for us- no outcome can prove the validity of one faith rather than another, but that's the way it will be seen. And an independent, free Palestine will probably also end up a theocracy! No, indeed, this should be seen as a WAR BETWEEN SECULARISM and THEOCRACY! 

Which brings me back to our 100 year old Republic. It was founded a quarter of a century before Israel, in what used to be a theocratic, multi-ethnic empire with a Sultan that was also the Caliph of Islam, and a largely illiterate population that believed whatever their Imam said. In that backward country, depleted by wars, Mustafa Kemal managed to fashion a secular republic based on equal citizenship, extending full equal rights- including the right to vote- to our women. He shook off the burden of Islamic law- he even shook off the Caliphate- and brought in a system where every native is a citizen and equal before law.

Witnessing Israel alone should be cause alone to celebrate the centennial. Coming a quarter of a century later, with a population that had a lot of educated Europeans who should have known better, Israel created an apartheid theocracy, wherein religion IS the law- just as the Sharia used to be with us. Belatedly studying this phenomenon called Israel, I read up on the Israeli marriage laws. I was amazed they were still applying Ottoman laws, which the British hadn't changed when they had the mandate for Palestine and the Israelis simply took them over. Accordingly, the population is divided into "millets", i.e. religious communities, each with its own laws. Marriages may only be performed by the clergy of the "millet" in quesion; an imam for the "millet" of Muslims, a priest for the "millet" of Christians, and a rabbi for the "millet" of Jews. In the case of cross-denominational marriages, one of the pair must convert. Applying this to Israel means it must be near impossible for anyone, even Jews, to marry outside their community. (Consider Jewish views on conversion, even to their own religion!) Furthermore, the sacrament of marriage is only available to "the faiths of the Book". You can't get married there if you are a Buddhist! I read that there are no civil marriages in Israel!

My drawing for the 100th year of the Turkish Republic. We did that right!

These are rights and privileges Jews enjoy everywhere else- including in this country of ours, the Turkish Republic, where the only legally binding marriage is the civil marriage. (Families may add an extra religious ceremony if they so wish!) I have only now learned that the Jews are and have been depriving the natives of their country of rights and privileges they enjoy elsewhere, all the while complaining of "anti-semitism"!

Our newyear message for 2024.