Turkey: nationalism and denialism, the tradition continues

The chronicle of the announced disaster of Covid-19, obliges to widen the view on the different theaters, because what is emerging will direct the next future and because it is the pandemic itself that is governing the bar of international relations. So pay attention to East Med and Turkey, e let's play with present and future, based on real data and power projections.

Born from the Ottoman ashes, the new Turkey attempted European integration, but was first held back by a marked lack of education, and then conditioned by an education system based on a nationalist matrix aimed at conditioning the national identity of the younger generations.

Lately the Anatolian media outlets, supported by scientists locals, reassured the population about the pandemic in progress, appealing to the existence of a gene Turkish able to prevent contagion; amazed? You don't have to; as early as the 20s the Kemalist regime supported the Turkish Historical Thesis, scientifically inconsistent, so the Turks would be the oldest people in the world, with what follows in terms of the genesis of the main civilizations, in contrast to the Turkish - Islamic Synthesis, the basis of a political ideology with strong religious veins, supported by the military after the 1980 coup.

It is from this pseudo-scientific and religious cultural humus, and from a history that unfolds since 1920, that Erdoğan's AKP sprouts, which sees theIslam as aggregator of the Turkish nation and not of the hoping Arab, in the exaltation of a Ottomanism that is still perceived imperial, but with a territory amputated by peace treaties.

Samuel Huntington, claiming that Turkey should deny the secular Atatürk just as the Russians have denied Lenin, offers a assists to Erdoğan who, for the Republican centenary, would like Mustafa Kemal to finally take a seat in the grave to give him the proscenium allowing him to dominate the Deep state, il Derin Devlet, characterized by Kemalist veins and long animated by the opposition fomented by its old ally, now dangerous antagonist, Fetullah Gülen, sheltered in the USA, the deep Throat who gave notoriety to the documents attesting the illegal activities of the son of the Reis, as well as alleged inspirer of controversial coup d'état of 2016, preceded by the alleged coup Ergenekon, Balyoz and Poyrazköy of 2008, three events which, founded on false grounds, allowed the assault on the lay structure of the FFAA, accused of wanting to overthrow the Erdoğan government.

First conclusion: in Turkey, as everywhere, there is neither political sanctification nor scruples in sending others to slaughter. For Erdoğan the 2016 coup (photo) becomes a gift of God, is transformed into counter-kick, purges begin Stalin which still today weaken the state apparatus and annihilate the Kemalist spirit of the FFAA. Erdoğan becomes the patron of the Muslim Brotherhood, does not follow Minister Davutoğlu's more prudent foreign policy line, recalls the Misak-ı Millî, the National Pact of Atatürk, aims to several Greek minor islands in the Aegean, to Balkan Thrace, to Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan by joining Aleppo, Mosul and Kirkuk, in the awareness of being able to dismember two states (Iraq and Syria) in fact agonizing, reviving imperial rivalries with Tehran , whose corridor she fears that, passing through Baghdad and Damascus, may lead her to Beirut. The political vacuum created by the Soviet end and the withdrawal of Washington, usually in difficulty in managing the balance of power, leads Ankara to adventurisms aimed at exploiting the uncertainties of the United States, which in turn are interested in use the Turkish ram.

An aspect not valued in the West concerns the relevance of religious brotherhoods; Gülen has a cultural interest in Said Nursi and his Only¹, which competes with i Naksibendi² that after the war, with Imam Kotku, they became a socio-political school, and included President Özal, Erdoğan himself and Douri among their followers, vice by Saddam Hussein, architect of the alliance between ISIS, Iraqi Baathists and former Saddamians. Gülen focuses on organization, founds a structure that recalls memory Opus Dei; Erdoğan is inspired by a spiritual order that advocates aversion for the West and above all the creation of a national productive apparatus. The roads diverge, the frictions increase hand in hand with the distortion of the State structure and with a capacitive impoverishment of the FFAA such as to make NATO reflect on the reliability of the Turkish country system.

The fronts on which Erdoğan is engaged are many, internal and external.

The interior, no less treacherous than those across the border, concerns economic governance, which has led the country from neoliberalism to a developmental state foreclosed to non-Erdoğanomics, an alternative market capable of supporting the crisis of the 90s, where the state became the customer of itself; however the macroeconomic and financial situation of Turkey remains volatile, with the money that, after having fed easy credit, has returned to safer markets and made profitable by a rate hike opposed by the AKP which aims, with a competitive devaluation, to a piloted depreciation capable of controlling exports and inflation.

Still on the inside, Erdoğan must both bear the challenge of the old party companions Davutoglu, babacan, Gul, now transfuged by the AKP and accompanied by strong defections by the members, both the branch of the secularist nucleus of the FFAA, which has forced both to refine the strategy of Divide and conquer with ethnic minorities, both to consolidate power by resorting to a paramilitary structure on different levels and to a company of contractors, the SADAT Inc., specialized in procurement, analyzes, enlistments in the FFAA and conventional and non-conventional training, directed by the ex general Tanriverdi, dismissed at the time by the army because it was too close to Islamist positions. According to Israeli services, Sadat allegedly provided military and financial assistance to Hamas, and is active in the Gulf, Qatar, Libya, Sudan, Egypt, Pakistan. The large number of operators trained and trained in the various companies (around 900K) allows private security to position itself as the second force in the country after the FFAA.

Further political support is provided by the training of the Gray Wolves MHP³, to guard against the danger of the country shattering by hostile foreign forces, and to defend the Islamic religion as a cornerstone of national identity and a useful lever to undermine institutional secularism.

Across the border Turkey has raised the lawsuit of the agreement for the Libyan EEZ of the GNA, which stigmatizes the further problem of energy supply in the East Med with Egypt and Israel; the exacerbation of the North Cyprus problem; the presence in Syria of Idlib with the unprecedented joint venture with Iran and Russia, whose head of state seemed the only one, at least formally, capable of imposing a irritated Erdoğan times and rules; the renewed asymmetric pressures exerted on Greece; the contrast to the Kurdish forces of the YPG⁴ aimed at preventing the creation of an autonomous area in Rojava.

Last but not the least the COVID-19, which recalls the War (Asymmetric) without limits by Qiao Ling and Wang Xiangsui, ed it is subject to a clumsy epidemiological denial functional to avoiding economic collapse.

As seen, Turkey has many open fronts, perhaps too many, and inevitable questions about its future; if it is true that internal control remains rigid, it is equally true that black swans, economic difficulties and political evolutions could put in difficulty an establishment hopefully replaceable through a slow and progressive democratic transition. A sudden change of leadership, also considering the inconsistency of a Europe already now seduced and abandoned by Erdoğan, would favor the rise of elements aimed at determining an uncontrollable regional instability, agitated by nationalist instances framed under the supervision of the parallel security apparatus now in action.

The fact that Gülen is loser, given his cultural background and the not always far-sighted American analyzes, he does not make him the ideal candidate for Erdogan's replacement; i remain Kemalists, small group of soldiers who survived purges but weakened by the beheading of their leaders.

An acceleration of events could be induced by the combined action of inflation, an unacceptable number of victims in Syria, an implosion of the state apparatus caused by the expansion of the virus; context assessment does not advocate quick solutions, and looks with fear at the possible rise of a Manchurian Candidate heterodirect, given the impossibility of containing subsequent political-religious drifts.