A QUANDARY OF THE INEXPLICABLE KIND
\nTHE STRANGE BEHAVIOR OF TURKEY’S DETRACTORS
\nMahmut Esat Ozan<\/p>\n
The Turkish Times<\/p>\n
It’s been ages now that I’ve been trying to find a way, in my mind, for
\nthe solution of a long-standing personal dilemma. I’ve been wrecking my brain
\nattempting to formulate a logical explanation to satisfy myself. This
\nexhaustive
\ncranial exploration of mine concerns the existence of a phenomenon involving
\nTurkey and her many detractors. I’ve been searching and researching clues to
\nunearth any acceptable reason for the justification and rationalization of the
\nhostile actions of many, such as the members of the European Union community
\nand of the neighbors of Turkey. They all seem to have a synchromeshed sense
\nof belligerence towards Turks.
\nI’ve been asking myself the following question over and over again,
\n“‘wHAT IS THEIR PROBLEM?” Additional questions pop up in my mind, such as,
\n“WHY DO THEY BEHAVE THE WAY THEY DO?” The recent events involving ABDULLAH
\nOCALAN come to mind and revive old recollections. There he stands as a
\nnotorious terrorist, whose bloody organization, responsible for thousands of
\nmurders, is outlawed not only by the Turkish government, but also by Germany,
\nFrance, and the United States of America. And he is set free! This is a very
\ndisturbing situation. Upon his illegal entry into Italy, we had hoped and
\nexpected some repercussions, some popular movement leading to an indictment
\nfor his dastardly actions of the past 15 years. This wishful thinking of many
\nhas not materialized. Furthermore, when the world-famous, and universally-
\nrespected international police agency, INTERPOL, was rendered impotent even
\nthough it had a long-standing warrant for Ocalan’s arrest, but was not allowed
\nto incarcerate him in a jail and keep him under 24-hour surveillance,
\neveryone, with the exception of the Italian Communists, was saddened. To top
\nit off, he was rewarded by a life of leisure in a luxurious Renaissance villa.
\nThis is part of my quandary.
\nSince, as a writer, I’m not in a position to figure out the answers to
\nthose inquiries, the more I ask questions, the more I become frustrated. It
\nis the erratic and unexplainable behavior of many countries such as Italy and
\nthe ones surrounding the Turkish Republic that discourages many Turks.
\nEveryone seems to be out to get Turkey. This priceless piece of Anatolian
\nreal estate must be an irresistible magical attraction for them. And in real
\nestate terms the most desirable notion for success is location, location, and
\nlocation.
\nThe country has just finished celebrating the 75th anniversary of the
\nfoundation of that republic, and its occupants, the Turks, do not have an inch
\nof their soil to give away to anyone. The land area comprising Turkey may not
\nbe huge, but if we are allowed to brag a bit, we could say easily that Turkey
\nis larger than TEXAS, with a population three times as much. The city of
\nIstanbul alone has more people living within its boundaries than the entire
\npopulation of Greece.
\nA variety of countries share this geographical area with Turkey. They
\nare Greece, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Armenia, as Turkey’s ages-old neighbors.
\nMost of them have been coveting a portion of this valuable Anatolian
\ntopography, and hoping to get a part of it some day. Ordinarily, Bulgaria and
\nRussia would be included in this rapacious, hostile group. However, after the
\ndissolution of the old Soviet Empire, Turkey’s prominent construction
\nconglomerates played their cards right and underbid all European construction
\nfirms, and found themselves in a position to assist the tottering Russian
\neconomy, by default. They have been, ever since, constructing impressive
\nshopping centers, hotels and governmental buildings and public housing in many
\nparts of Russia. These firms have now an established reputation for good and
\nhonest work, and tens of millions of dollars in the banks. Some Turkish
\ncontractors have recently signed contracts to build a four-lane highway from
\nEdirne to Sophia and around Bulgaria. This is the only reason why neither one
\nof these two traditional enemies of Turkey wish to find their names on the
\nroster of trouble-causing adversaries of the Turks.
\nUnfortunately, on some other fronts things do not look as well. Time and
\nagain Iran claims that it has no desire to foment trouble for its neighbor,
\nTurkey, by helping the infamous PKK terrorists. Nevertheless, every
\ninvestigative probe shows they are not telling the truth, and that they are
\nclandestinely subsidising the PKK and arming the Kurdish guerillas to the
\nteeth.
\nWhen it comes to Armenia, we see that the bankrupt republic of Yerevan is
\nstill suffering from the Turkish embargo, still adamantly anti-Turkish and
\nanti-Azeri in its over-all foreign policy and is still being advised by the
\nDashnak factions of the Kotcharian government. It looks like they are going
\nto miss the “Caucassus Oil Express” by a mile.
\nYes, instead of patching up its long-existing differences with its
\nneighbor, Turkey, the Armenian government supports blatantly Ocalan and his
\nPKK terrorists. By the same token, it is not about to iron out its grievances
\nwith the Azeri people, 20% of whose land they still occupy in the NAGORNO-
\nKARABAKH, causing the continuation of unheard of misery for over a million
\nrefugees.
\nIn the meantime, the Armenian and Greek propaganda machines in the United
\nStates are cranking out unfavorable misinformation without batting an eye. A
\nHarut Sassounian writes in the CALIFORNIA COURIER that there was no doubt in
\nhis mind that the Turkish government had forced four different religious
\nleaders to make statements against their will. Previously, the newly elected
\nArmenian Patriarch of Turkey, Archbishop Mesrob Mutafyan, the Greek Ecumenical
\nPatriarch Bartolomeos, Israel’s Chief Rabbi Arus Ratson, and Turkey’s
\nreligious chief, Mehmet Muri Yilmaz had all criticized the actions of the
\nItalian Communist government of Prime Minister, Massimo D’Alema, for refusing
\nto extradite Ocalan to Turkey, his birth place. One even pleaded with Pope
\nJohn Paul II, asking him to intervene on behalf of the Turkish people, and
\nsaid the terrorist Ocalan did not even know Kurdish, emphasizing his
\ndisconnect with the people of his own kind.
\nIn another ridiculous letter written to the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR,
\nthe Executive Director of the American Hellenic Media Project, Mr. P.D.
\nSpyropoulos, referred to Turkey as a “militant Mideast backwater,” called the
\nreactions of the mothers of the Turkish martyrs “hysteria” and unabashedly
\ndescribed the Turkish people as “a mob.” By the way, both “ethnic chetnicks”
\ndisowned their religious leaders, who sided with Turkey, as being ‘”traitors.”
\nP.D. Spyropoulos is the same individual who had replied in one of his so-
\ncalled rebuttals concerning the article, “Who Burned Izmir?” Following a slue
\nof insults against Turks, he claimed that the liberating Turkish forces not
\nonly burned their own city, but that they had also butchered 200.000 Greeks
\nand Armenians in the process, not knowing that the total Greek and Armenian
\npopulation of Izmir at that time did not even reach one half of that
\nridiculous figure, proving him the champion PREVARICATOR of the century.
\nNow back to the main problem Turkey has been afflicted with for almost
\ntwo long decades.<\/p>\n
THE OCALAN SYNDROME.<\/p>\n
With the inauguration of the Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization in
\nMoscow in the late Seventies a new element was added to the list of sinister,
\nvulture-like characters waiting in ambush, in the wings. They are now
\neverywhere. They are present at all points of the compass: NORTH, EAST, WEST,
\nand SOUTH. The first letter of the names of their geographical locations
\ncreates the word N.E.W.S., and the news they create remains associated with
\nthe belligerent behavior displayed vis-a-vis the Turks. The favorable
\nattitude of the detractors of Turkey towards this terrorist organization has
\nnever been explained in a convincing fashion, even by the most astute
\npolitical science experts alive today. As for myself, not being a schooled
\npsychoanalyst, nor a trained behavioral psychologist, find myself completely
\nhelpless in passing judgement on this bizarre demeanor. Curiously, most
\nobservers I reviewed so far on this subject, be they Turkish or otherwise,
\nseem to be as baffled about this phenomenon as I am. I have to admit I’m lost
\nfor words confronting this abnormality of conduct. I call it,
\n“A QUANDARY OF THE INEXPLICABLE KIND.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A QUANDARY OF THE INEXPLICABLE KIND THE STRANGE BEHAVIOR OF TURKEY’S DETRACTORS Mahmut Esat Ozan The Turkish Times It’s been ages now that I’ve been trying to find a way, in my mind, for the solution of a long-standing personal dilemma. I’ve been wrecking my brain attempting to formulate a logical explanation to satisfy myself. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":782329,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[794],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prof-mahmut-esat-ozan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}