Turkey’s Conquest Fetish

^{Excerpt of the originally published article.}

On June 4, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told university students, “Just like our [Turkish] arrival into Anatolia, just like the conquest of Istanbul ... I know you will be behaving with the same consciousness ... A new Turkey will rise on your shoulders.”

1071 is a very special year for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- and his Islamist ideologues. Erdogan often speaks about his “2071 targets,” a reference to his vision of “Great Turkey,” on the 1000^th anniversary of a battle that paved the Turks’ way into where they still live.

In 1071, the Seljuk Turks did not arrive in Anatolia from their native Central Asian steppes with flowers in their hands. Instead they were in full combat gear, fighting a series of wars against the Christian Byzantine [Eastern Roman] Empire and featuring a newfound Islamic zeal. The Battle of Manzikert in 1071 is widely seen as the moment when the Byzantines lost the war against the Turks: before the end of the century, the Turks were in control of the entire Anatolian peninsula.

Another divine date for Erdogan is May 29, 1453. That day saw the fall of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, after an Ottoman army invaded what is today Istanbul, modern Turkey’s biggest city. The conquest of Constantinople was not a peaceful event either. The city’s siege lasted for 53 days and cost thousands of lives. The Byzantine defeat left the Ottoman armies unchecked, clearing the way for their advance into Christian Europe in the centuries to come. The long and violent Ottoman march into Europe came to a halt in 1683, when the Ottomans were defeated during the siege of Vienna. By then the Ottomans were in control of north Africa, most parts of the Middle East and central and eastern Europe, totaling 5.2 million square kilometers of land.

On every May 29, the Turks, proud of being -- possibly -- the world’s only nation that celebrates the capture by the sword of their biggest city from another civilization, take to the streets for grand ceremonies. The 563th anniversary of the conquest was celebrated with a major event created by a team of 1,200 people. It saw a 563-man Mehter concert [an Ottoman military band], a show by the Turkish Air Force aerobatics team, special conquest celebrations, a fireworks display, live broadcasts in six different languages and the world’s largest 3D mapping stage used to reenact the conquest.

There is more than enough evidence about the Turkish Islamists’ “conquest-fetish.” Turkey’s leaders have too often spoken of “liberating Jerusalem and making the city the capital of an independent Palestine.”

In September, then prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, another Islamist, said:

Erdogan and his fellow Islamists are keen admirers of the idea that Muslim Turks capture lands belonging to other civilizations because, in this mindset, “conquest” means the spread of Islam. That is hardly surprising: political Islam typically features a tendency to spread to non-Islamist or non-Muslim parts of the world. But the way Erdogan defends “conquest,” even in the year 2016, looks just too ridiculous.

On June 4 Erdogan was addressing students at a theology faculty. In his speech he said:

Then he advised the students: It is amazing that Erdogan still has the power to shock -- in absurdity -- even the most seasoned Erdogan observers. In his narrative, Muslim Turks have never invaded foreign lands by the force of the sword. What they did was just conquering hearts. This is not even funny.

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