Lepanto yesterday and today: Turkey moves

(To Giampiero Venturi)
10/04/15

On 7 October 1571 in Lepanto the Christians defeat the Turks, postponing the end of Western civilization for a few centuries. A lot of water has passed. So much so that in Milan Lepanto is a street. In Rome, even a metro stop. People go, time as well. The turkey of turbans and scimitars is gone. History changes a lot of things: in the 900s the Turks ceded Libya to the Italy of the Libro Cuore and the Middle East to the English of Lawrence of Arabia. The Ottoman Empire collapsed in 22 and with Mustafà Kemal, for all Ataturk, the present Turkey was born. If Ataturk means "the father of the Turks", there is a reason. It is no coincidence that today it is more risky to insult his memory in Istanbul than that of Maradona in Naples.

Things change, we said. They change so much that Turkey is immune from clichés. "Mama them Turks, Turkish things, swearing like a Turk ...". Judging by the cafes of Istanbul, in our time alone "Smoking like a turkish" it still looks relevant. For a hundred years Turkey has only looked to the West. A cultural, historical, generational change shared by all.

Moderate Islam prevails, Western clothes and fashions spread, fezzes disappear and skirts arrived. The army, the second NATO force after the United States, guarantees secularism and stability. Things are progressing so fast that for a while there is even talk of joining the EU. Then everything falls back, with the Turks themselves marking time. Turkey is a country without pockets of excessive poverty, with a status of regional power recognized by all: in fact, making common with Brussels these days is worthwhile up to a certain point.

Turkey in thirty years stands as a fundamental cornerstone for the world's equilibrium. While the evolution of customs has weighed on one side, strong friendships have also been very strong. Two out of all: the one with Israel; that with the USA.

Let's just say that Turks and Arabs are like Pisa and Livorno: they have flown several times. If Islam unites Arabs and Turks, much more divides them, beginning with the Turkish expansionism that the Arabs have always badly digested over the centuries. Another story, another language, another culture.

Vice versa, intelligence, defense, hydraulic engineering, agronomy have often combined Mezzaluna and Star of David. Walking together has always been useful to both.

The catalyst of the whole was friendship with the USA. A friendship so intimate that it even managed to make Ankara and Athens sit together at the NATO table. For Greeks and Turks, we remind you, the speech of Pisans and Leghorns applies. To tell the reasons for the resentment, apart from the Cypriot question and the Aegean islands, it would take three days. Let's just say that the Greeks, from Thermopylae onwards (when Islam was not there, but the Persians of Xerxes thought about it from the East), things are not going very well ...

Greeks permitting, the Turkey-US friendship has always been an oiled mechanism: the Turks, historically opposed to Russia for Armenia (opposed by the Turks, pampered by Russia) and for the influence on the Black Sea since the times of the Tsars, have made a stopper for 70 years for the Soviet Union on the Bosphorus, the frontier of an endemic anti-communism. With today's new Russian tsarism, the flags change but not the music. Same strategic knots and conflicting aspirations.

Modern Turkey, secular Turkey, friendly Turkey. A sentinel in the East that has always been useful to many, including Turks.

Things in history, however, change every now and then. From the assault in the 2010 of the Israeli forces to the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara that aimed the blockade of Gaza, the relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv fall.

Whether the chicken or the egg is born first is difficult to say, the fact is that the Turks for the first time are starting to spin with the Arabs and turn their backs on Israel. It is no coincidence that Turkey, without waiting for Washington, recognized Palestine.

Pushed by the AKP (the Islamic conservative party), Prime Minister Erdogan eliminates the ban on the Islamic headscarf at school, a symbol of the secular state. With the excuse of not helping the Kurds, caught in the military grip of eastern Cappadocia, Ankara fights with Isis despite American pressure and some suspect there is something rotten. That Turkey supports Islamists in Libya is well known; that it is the bridge for ISIS recruits as well ...

This is the rise of communist terrorism (from the time of the PKK Ochalan that did not end on the front page) with a consequent crackdown of the security apparatus, including the computer. Strategy of tension or real brigatism, difficult to understand ... That Turkey is changing, however, is a fact.

In summary, established friendships are lost and balances are born from uncertain developments that lead to a future yet to be read.

None of those who were in Lepanto in the 1571 could have imagined a secular and friendly Western Turkey a few centuries later. In the same way, no one today can imagine the Turkey of tomorrow driven by other winds, perhaps again from that Islam of scimitars and turbans that it has abandoned in its time.

Among the metro stations we will remember Lepanto for a long time, that is certain, but on which platform we will walk, it is all to see.

(photo: Turkish Military Academy / web)