Turkey's role in the Balkans

[admin 31]

In a different topic we discussed about the role Turkey should be playing in the area (Balkans). Seems that even though from the outside Turkey seems like a pretty "stable" country, the reality is far from this.

There have been many incidents over the past few years which point to the direction of intense internal strife.

 

My prediction is that we'll eventually see Turkey breaking up in 2-3 pieces. People in Istanbul and the Aegean coast already feel disconnected, on the most part, with their Turkishness. In the past we've seen a few people from Turkey visiting this forum and writing about this feeling they have that they, as part of the "pro-European" part of Turkey are different than the rest of their compatriots. Add to this that many Turks who live in Istanbul and the coast are now re-discovering their Greek ancestors and start feeling a connection to their Greek side (we've seen this too by a few people who have posted in this forum in the past).

 

I think that Turkey today is ready for a change. There are a few strong minorities (like the Kurds) who have already started questioning the status quo. Also, the "pro-European" Turks of the western side of Turkey are asking for changes in the government and the army. 

 

The latest incident in Ankara points to this direction: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/world/europe/ankara-turkey-explosion-deaths.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

 

There's trouble and changes brewing. 

[Guest eyoismos]

You can fool all the people some of the time,

and some of the people all the time,

but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Abraham Lincoln

 a lesson the turks and its various leaderships have yet to comprehend, let alone understand

 

having said that, many other nations leaders, including greece, are starting to get the picture

[Επισκέπτης]

Some ISIS thugs set off a bomb killing close to hundred people in Turkey and you dumb asses celebrate the fall of Turkey! Do you realize that the same could happen at any time in Athens or Thessaloniki as well?

 

Tsipras declared there is no such thing as sea borders, or any borders for that matter, as a result 120.000 Syrians crossed in to Greece in August alone. Any idea what that means in terms of recruitment potential for radical Ismamist groups? So go on and celebrate. The rude awakening will come soon enough.

 

That said, Erdocans scheming is indeed to blame to some degree. On the one hand he pretends to fight ISIS with the American led coalition of the "Pretenders" on the other hand he trains and supplies radical Islamists like Al Nusra also in unison with America. And then he tries to play a third hand against the Kurds in Syria and Iraq. Hoping they'll remain boged down in a war of attrition against Isis. You can't pretend to fight radical islamists and at the same time treat them as strategic allies against Kurdish ambitions. All that mess blew up in his face now. But that doesn't change the dynamics of the game at the end the Turks and the Kurds will have to come together. There is no other option for either of them. And most people in Turkey do see that.

[admin 31]

You seem to forget the riots in Istanbul and Ankara just a while back. Turkey is a boiling pot ready to explode for quite some time now. It's just a matter of an important ground breaking event happening at some place in Turkey, at the right place and time, to get things rolling,

 

Turks and Kurds will never come together, where did you get this idea from? It's obviously hard to predict how soon things will explode in Turkey and the country will break into pieces, but anyone who's seen how things evolved in Europe over the past 20-25 years will be able to draw parallels. We live in a time where small groups want to break away from the old world "large countries" which were created mostly in the late 1800's - early 1900's and brought together several different groups of people under their umbrellas. This may made sense 100 plus years ago. It doesn't seem to make sense anymore to many people out there.

 

Ask the Catalans, the Serbians/Croats/Bosnians, the Moldovans, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Checks, Slovaks etc. who all decided (or are trying...) to break away from the "co-op" countries they were forced to be made part of. This is a new era. The era of small communities realizing their real cultural backgrounds and wanting to go back and explore and celebrate their roots. 

 

I can guarantee you that Turkey will fall apart sooner or later. I can certainly see the western, more European part of Turkey, breaking away sooner rather than later, then the Kurds will carve a piece of their own in the north east, then who knows who else will ask for independence. You have to remember that what is now Turkey was for centuries a multiethnic mosaic. The young Turks managed to glue all those pieces together for the past 100 years but those times are gone. Erdogan has been pushing things to the edge. The pot is boiling and can only take so much pressure before it explodes. I just hope that when it explodes some of the fragments won't hit Greece too, because the explosion is going to be pretty big and it will upset the balance in the whole area, the Balkans and the middle east.

 

It goes without saying that this is just my non-expert opinion. I'm not an historian or a clairvoyant to be able to predict the future. It's just an "educated" guess based on what we've seen in the past in other places of the world, and what we see developing in Turkey in the past 4-5 years or maybe more.

[Επισκέπτης]

Let me guess how many times you've been to Turkey?

 

Everyone who has visited there can tell you that Turkish reality is different from what many in Europe think. For one, your distinction between eastern and western Turkey is not exactly up to date. Did you know that Istanbul is the largest Kurdish city in the world? About 5 mil of Istanbuls 15 mil people are Kurds. The rest are in their majority also from the Eastern provinces. The majority of Turkish Kurds are against independence. They do demand the recognition of their language and culture as part of the tapestry that is Turkey and the Turkish government has done much to acomodate them in that respect. As far as Europe is concerned, the Turks don't think highly of it. Who in his right mind does?

 

Many of the Ethnic sovereignity movements in Europe are in fact a reaction to European centralism. The EU architects have almost "criminalized" the very notion of Ethnicity and people are fed up with it. When it comes to Bosnia/Moldavia/Ukraine, you can thank the EU for that. It is curious how the EU is against ethnic self determination in her own juristiction but promotes it abroad. The EU didn't vaste any time to recognize a Bosnian state for example and didn't care if the Serbs in Bosnia wanted to live in a Bosnian state. That's what led to bloodshed. The game the EU was playing is of course clear. They wanted to prove that peacefull coexistence can only take place within the bossom of the Multiethnic EU of the Multinational Corporations. Steamrolling ethnicity wont work for the EU just as it didn't work in Communist Russia.

 

Turkey on the other hand started to recognice her ethnicities. And it was about time. Ataturks forced Turkisation had run its course. Erdocans departure from Kemalism did change Turkey and unleash a dynamic that has been so far beneficial for the country.

There are problems but the country is overflowing with energy.

 

You can feel and see it. On my way to Istanbull this August I stoped by Komotini where a friend of mine runs a factory that produces PVC products for buildings. Guess where 80% of his revenue comes from Turkey and thats the thing that keeps his company alive. Greek sales are down to ZERO since the construction in Greece ceased almost completely. For him and most Northern Greek manufacturers Turkey is the only light on the horizon. Since the extension of the Conainer Port in Istanbul a growing number Northern Greek wholesale and retails anchor their supply chains in Istanbul instead of Pireus. It is cheaper and more reliable as well. And there is no shortage of investors in Turkey. There are American hotel chains all over the place and the expansion is still going on, even though it cooled down a bit lately.

 

And in case you are wondering yes, I know Turkisch Pontians, who call themselves RUM btw, never Yunan or Greek, those who haven't been to Greece or didn't get to meet many Greeks are of course curious. Those who do know Greeks well or have been to Greece are dismayed by Greek attitudes though. At some point they will run across some Grecoman idiot who's gonna ask them at what point they are gonna start their uprising. But you can go and experience Turkey first hand and then you will understand that the people there make a clear distinction between Nationality and ethnic/cultural affiliation. The ones who don't understand the finer points of the distinction are unfortunately the folks on the western shores of the Aegean.

 

No Turkey is not falling apart. The last one who made the mistake to think so was Venizelos who marched in a Turkey that was caught up in internal strive expecting it to collapse. You know how that ended. What you probably don't know is that Ataturk drew his reserves which were so instrumental for his success from the Kurdisch populated east.

[admin 31]

Are you in your right mind comparing Kemal's to Erdogan's Turkey? There are 2 different political philosophies there. The fact that Turkey's economy still seems to be doing ok, when someone is looking from the outside doesn't mean much. There's trouble brewing in many fronts. The Erdogan government has been heavily involved in the turnaround Turkey saw in the 2000's (if you remember IMF came in to bail out Turkey in 2001: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/3269669/IMF-may-need-to-print-money-as-crisis-spreads.html),but in the process their economy has become more and more dependand to old world Ottoman practices. Check with your friends again, they'll probably tell you that in order to do business in Turkey you need to have contacts in the government or protection by powerful politicians. This was not the case 15 or so years ago.

 

Also, Turkey is part of the "fragile five" (Google it for more info...) because of her weak growth, high inflation and high account deficits. They're a massive economy because of their huge population, and they can certainly still keep their heads above the water because of the low interest rates in the world markets today, but the writings of craziness and megalomania are on the wall (see Erdogan's palace). Turkey's secular democracy has been slowly changing under Erdogan and many people in Turkey don't like this.

 

You see that things will continue being rosey for Turkey, I see trouble brewing in many fronts (political, financial, social). I guess we'll have to wait and see who's right.

[Επισκέπτης]

Are you in your right mind comparing Kemal's to Erdogan's Turkey? There are 2 different political philosophies there. The fact that Turkey's economy still seems to be doing ok, when someone is looking from the outside doesn't mean much. There's trouble brewing in many fronts. The Erdogan government has been heavily involved in the turnaround Turkey saw in the 2000's (if you remember IMF came in to bail out Turkey in 2001: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/3269669/IMF-may-need-to-print-money-as-crisis-spreads.html),but in the process their economy has become more and more dependand to old world Ottoman practices. Check with your friends again, they'll probably tell you that in order to do business in Turkey you need to have contacts in the government or protection by powerful politicians. This was not the case 15 or so years ago.

 

Also, Turkey is part of the "fragile five" (Google it for more info...) because of her weak growth, high inflation and high account deficits. They're a massive economy because of their huge population, and they can certainly still keep their heads above the water because of the low interest rates in the world markets today, but the writings of craziness and megalomania are on the wall (see Erdogan's palace). Turkey's secular democracy has been slowly changing under Erdogan and many people in Turkey don't like this.

 

You see that things will continue being rosey for Turkey, I see trouble brewing in many fronts (political, financial, social). I guess we'll have to wait and see who's right.

I said that Erdocans policy marks a departure from Kemalism. This is a fact. Turkey experienced a silent regime change which many in the west seem to overlook and there are of course huge differences in philosophy between Kemalism and Erdocan's sort of Neo Ottoman approach.

 

As far as the analysis and all those catch phrases such as the "Fragile Five" is concerned, don't give a rats ass about that. If anything, that only proves that Bloomberg and the NYT haven't caught up to the real world. They are still dreaming about a Eurocentric US dominated globe and overlook that the center of Gravity has shifted. Europe and the US are not the center of the world anymore.

 

Yes the Turkish economy has slowed down and the main cause for that is the drop in Oil prices. The times when the Central Asian Petro republics were spending money like crazy are for the time being gone. And this did of course hit the Turkish economy. Most of those ambitious building projects in Astana for example were build by Turkish companies. The chinese slow down had an effect on Turkey too just as it affects the whole world economy.

 

Nevertheless domestic demand is still rising in Turkey and the weak Lira keeps external demand for Turkish goods alive. Just last week you had a Greek paper mill by Volos shut down cause it could not supply with paper imports from Turkey anymore. The week lira proves a blessing for Turkey just as the strong Euro proves a curse for our economy. And the Asian economy is set to rebound while the long term outlook for Europe is rather bleak. The main resons for that being Demographics and saturation.

 

No doubt. Erdocan is in trouble and his time may be soon over. But the end of Erdocan does not mean the end of Turkey.

[admin 31]

The end of Erdogan will be the end of the neo-Ottoman Turkey and possibly the beginning of a different - possibly fragmented - and more democratic Turkey.

 

In the meantime, people have taken to the streets yet again: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/11/turkey-bomb-blasts-ankara-mourning-scores-killed

Next month's elections in Turkey will show what direction the country will take in the future. 

[Επισκέπτης]

Have you been reading the "Prophecies of the Elder Paisios" lately? It sure sounds like it.

 

So how are things supposed to play out in this wet dream of yours? The newly elected Turkish National Assembly convenes and votes to dismantle Turkey? After that the western regions of Turkey join Greece and Tsipras and Kamenos accompany the Patriarch on his triumphal return to the Agia Sophia. All are crying and singing "Ti Ypermaxo Stratigo Ta Nikitiria"?

 

Dream on.

[admin 31]

Did I say anything about any part of present day Turkey joining Greece?

 

I only talked about the possibility of Turkey changing drastically in the next few years. There's the more secular west and the less secular east. And then there's the Kurds and some other smaller ethnic groups which may start seeing opportunities for independence within a different Turkey.

[Επισκέπτης]

Did I say anything about any part of present day Turkey joining Greece?

 

I only talked about the possibility of Turkey changing drastically in the next few years. There's the more secular west and the less secular east. And then there's the Kurds and some other smaller ethnic groups which may start seeing opportunities for independence within a different Turkey.

Of course not. I'm just asking how the fragmentation scenario would play out in your opinion. The rest was just example scenarios that seem to be quite popular in Greece. Hence the question marks.

 

But seriously now,

Turkey has experience an average Growth rate of 5.2% for the first decade of the century. Current growth is at 3.8% and OECD forecasts suggest an increased growth for the next 2 years. Compare that with the rather anemic growth rates in the strong European economies and you'll see that the Turkish economy is quite resilient.

 

As far as the fragmentation scenario is concerned: Turkey has no concept of Federalism. This makes a break of the country per parliamentary procedure impossible. So what remains? Armed conflict?

 

The largest minority in Turkey are the Kurds and they are overwhelmingly against a fragmentation of the country. As I mentioned before, 5 mil Kurds live in Istanbul alone. Don't expect them to push for an independend Kurdish state and move collectively to Diyabakir. That wont happen.

 

Of course there is the potential of a minority Kurdish Insurgency, which has been going on for decades, recieving support from Western DEMOCRAZIES, under the right circumstances of course, but what chances are there for them to succeed against the strongest national military force in Europe? And how could such a force even operate against the Turkish army while their backs are open to the ISIS crazies in Iraq and Syria. It is not coincidental that the Kurds offered a truce. Their current position is very weak.

 

So what other options are on the table? The color revolution or Arab spring approach? Look at the stunning successes that yielded in Egypt and else where. Those pigs wont fly either.

 

Sure Erdocan has reached his limits and things are bound to change towards a even more "Managed Democracy" this is the concept that seems to be on the march right now. See Egypt for reference.

[Guest eyoismos]

history has taught us that "nations" perpetually based on force and intimidation on its populace, are condemned to face their destiny

[admin 31]

Don't underestimate the people's internal thoughts and motives which we, as outsiders, know very little about.

 

I've met quite a few "Turks" in my professional life, all over Canada and the US. Most of them professionals and immigrants to the US or Canada like myself. I was very surprised to find out that most of them were not introducing themselves as "Turks" but as something else. Other than the obvious Kurds and Armenians (and a few who claimed Greek ancestry when they found out I'm Greek) I heard some pretty weird backgrounds, such as Assyrians (at least a couple), and Dagestani (when someone told me he was a Dagestani I had to Google that one to find out where these people were from as I had never heard this before).

 

In any case, seems that Turkey is not as homogenous as many people think. According to Wikipedia at least 30% of Turkey's population belongs to some minority (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minorities_in_Turkey) even though from talking to some of the Turks I've met their estimate is that this percentage is much higher.

 

In a society like this it may take just a spark to start a fire. This spark could be a bombing in a demonstration, or some killing of an important person, or who knows what.

 

On your question around how would I see Turkey splitting up. I'm not sure. I'm not an expert in the area and I don't know much about all this people's histories, background and struggles, to know how they'd react in certain situations and what they'd request.

 

An obvious division would be between the "European" side of Turkey (Istanbul area and the Aegean coast) and central Turkey, while the far east may become Kurdistan or part of a Kurdish territory which will include lands from Iraq too after they clean up ISIS. Who knows how things will play out.

 

It goes without saying that Russia wouldn't want a strong Turkey in the area and they'd be more than happy to see them losing some of their lands and power. I don't really know what the US or the Europeans would want to see in the area. I'd assume that a large and strong Turkey scares all of them so they too would be more than happy to see a division of power in that area.

 

Again, I'm not an expert in these things, I'm just an observer of historical events, and history, more often than not, repeats itself.

[Guest FriendofGreece]

This article explains about some of the problems in Turkey. The situation seems to be near explosion.

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/turkey-isis-russia-pkk/408988/

 

 

[admin 31]

Interesting and timely article about the Turkish "deep state": http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-turkish-deep-state-what-life-is-like-when-the-conspiracy-is-real

[Guest FriendofGreece]

What a mess.

 

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/trouble-turkey-erdogan-isis-and-kurds