For many on the right—and I'm one of them—the Turks can't do anything right.
There is something that is just so unlikable about them. Indeed, their present president, Recep Erdogan, is the perfect front man for a country that so many of us can't help thinking of as a "bit of a cunt."
Maybe it's a vast portmanteau of bad historical baggage and iffy karma that creates that particularly Turkish toxicity, or it might just be the awkward position they occupy in an increasingly Huntingtonian World in which the main civilisation centres are fated to clash.
Being half Europeanised but still inextricably part of the Muslim world must cause some rather severe psychic tensions that can explain some of the acting out that we see.
But, while it's easy to hate the Turks and the Erdogan regime in particular, we should never be lazy like the idiots in the Alt-Right, who react to geopolitical stuff like this through a few extremely narrow stereotype bottlenecks.
Instead we should be more flexible, wide-ranging, and high-information, while also trying to see things from the side of others. This is how you not only improve your tactics and avoid being manipulated by those who would use you (hands up all the Putin-bots in the house), but you also acquire moral power.
So, do the Turks actually have a point in the midst of actions that appear to most of us to be brutal, antagonistic, and even somewhat insane? In case anyone needs reminding, the actions I am referring to are (1) propping up the Salafists and Jihadis in the North Western corner of Syria called Idlib, and (2) threatening to unleash millions of migrants against Europe if Europe and NATO won't support their policy in Syria. In recent days, dozens of Turkish soldiers have been killed as the Assad regime has pushed into rebel territory in Idlib in its quest to violently reunite the country.
I'm not going to bother looking up how many refugees from the Syrian Civil War are already in Turkey, but it is clearly several millions. No doubt there are also plenty of non-Syrians as well; people who have trickled in from a wide range of dysfunctional Third World states. Indeed this is the very "resource" that Erdogan is in the process of "weaponising" as a "bioweapon" against the West, so these millions are clearly there and then some.
But the second problem is that there are several million more potential refugees in the Idlib region itself.
Throughout the long Syrian Civil War, whenever a rebel pocket surrendered—usually under a Russian-brokered agreement—the rebels and their families were then put onto buses and driven straight to Idlib. Since around 2015, when the war started to turn in the favour of Assad, Idlib has become a massive dumping ground for the defeated and those who have no hope if Assad wins.
What this means is that if this pocket is finally crushed by Assad's Russian-and-Iranian-backed forces, then several million more refugees will flood into Turkey in order to escape the revenge/ harsh domination of the Assad forces.
Assad's desire to win the war and unify Syria is completely understandable, but let's not underestimate the deep hatreds felt on both sides, nor the flood of brutal score-settling that would inevitably follow a complete Assad victory. Such an event would start a row of dominoes falling that would lead to millions more heading towards a Europe already crumbling under the strain.
This might be good for the nationalist right, at least politically, but actually there are already enough migrants in Europe to keep things moving in a nationalist direction. Several million more would be surplus to requirements, and would be hard to get rid of once their feet were in the door.
Turkey's recent actions may seem rash and selfish, but it is true that it has borne the brunt of refugees from the Syrian Civil War, while also facing the threat of several millions more. Then there is the whole Kurdish problem, which we don't need to go into here. It's hard to be fair where Turkey is concerned but it clearly needs some help to (a) maintain the millions of refugees already in Turkey and (b) stop more coming in from a collapsing Idlib pocket.
What this means is that European patriots should pause and think more deeply. Do we really want to see Idlib collapse, or do we want to do the unthinkable and actually support Erdogan, at least partially?
Our top priority should be to stop the millions penned up in Idlib joining the migrant flows, and pushing the millions already in Turkey across the border into EU territories. This means our top priority should be to prevent Idlib collapsing. After that, what is needed is some kind of negotiated settlement to the Syrian conflict by which President Assad's ability to crush and punish his opponents is in some way curtailed, enabling them to stay in Syria while also encouraging others to return.
Only through measures like this can we eliminate the push factors that are threatening to further Islamify Europe and make it increasingly resemble the Global South.
There is something that is just so unlikable about them. Indeed, their present president, Recep Erdogan, is the perfect front man for a country that so many of us can't help thinking of as a "bit of a cunt."
Maybe it's a vast portmanteau of bad historical baggage and iffy karma that creates that particularly Turkish toxicity, or it might just be the awkward position they occupy in an increasingly Huntingtonian World in which the main civilisation centres are fated to clash.
Being half Europeanised but still inextricably part of the Muslim world must cause some rather severe psychic tensions that can explain some of the acting out that we see.
But, while it's easy to hate the Turks and the Erdogan regime in particular, we should never be lazy like the idiots in the Alt-Right, who react to geopolitical stuff like this through a few extremely narrow stereotype bottlenecks.
Instead we should be more flexible, wide-ranging, and high-information, while also trying to see things from the side of others. This is how you not only improve your tactics and avoid being manipulated by those who would use you (hands up all the Putin-bots in the house), but you also acquire moral power.
So, do the Turks actually have a point in the midst of actions that appear to most of us to be brutal, antagonistic, and even somewhat insane? In case anyone needs reminding, the actions I am referring to are (1) propping up the Salafists and Jihadis in the North Western corner of Syria called Idlib, and (2) threatening to unleash millions of migrants against Europe if Europe and NATO won't support their policy in Syria. In recent days, dozens of Turkish soldiers have been killed as the Assad regime has pushed into rebel territory in Idlib in its quest to violently reunite the country.
I'm not going to bother looking up how many refugees from the Syrian Civil War are already in Turkey, but it is clearly several millions. No doubt there are also plenty of non-Syrians as well; people who have trickled in from a wide range of dysfunctional Third World states. Indeed this is the very "resource" that Erdogan is in the process of "weaponising" as a "bioweapon" against the West, so these millions are clearly there and then some.
But the second problem is that there are several million more potential refugees in the Idlib region itself.
Throughout the long Syrian Civil War, whenever a rebel pocket surrendered—usually under a Russian-brokered agreement—the rebels and their families were then put onto buses and driven straight to Idlib. Since around 2015, when the war started to turn in the favour of Assad, Idlib has become a massive dumping ground for the defeated and those who have no hope if Assad wins.
What this means is that if this pocket is finally crushed by Assad's Russian-and-Iranian-backed forces, then several million more refugees will flood into Turkey in order to escape the revenge/ harsh domination of the Assad forces.
Assad's desire to win the war and unify Syria is completely understandable, but let's not underestimate the deep hatreds felt on both sides, nor the flood of brutal score-settling that would inevitably follow a complete Assad victory. Such an event would start a row of dominoes falling that would lead to millions more heading towards a Europe already crumbling under the strain.
This might be good for the nationalist right, at least politically, but actually there are already enough migrants in Europe to keep things moving in a nationalist direction. Several million more would be surplus to requirements, and would be hard to get rid of once their feet were in the door.
Turkey's recent actions may seem rash and selfish, but it is true that it has borne the brunt of refugees from the Syrian Civil War, while also facing the threat of several millions more. Then there is the whole Kurdish problem, which we don't need to go into here. It's hard to be fair where Turkey is concerned but it clearly needs some help to (a) maintain the millions of refugees already in Turkey and (b) stop more coming in from a collapsing Idlib pocket.
What this means is that European patriots should pause and think more deeply. Do we really want to see Idlib collapse, or do we want to do the unthinkable and actually support Erdogan, at least partially?
Our top priority should be to stop the millions penned up in Idlib joining the migrant flows, and pushing the millions already in Turkey across the border into EU territories. This means our top priority should be to prevent Idlib collapsing. After that, what is needed is some kind of negotiated settlement to the Syrian conflict by which President Assad's ability to crush and punish his opponents is in some way curtailed, enabling them to stay in Syria while also encouraging others to return.
Only through measures like this can we eliminate the push factors that are threatening to further Islamify Europe and make it increasingly resemble the Global South.
