Happy New Year toward the millennium
Another year has passed and there are only 58 years left! Alas, some segments, elements, provocateurs and conspirators are working to hinder the millennial march of Turkey. Nonetheless, we should all be aware of this fact and work for more unity and harmony against all the odds. Now, we know the meaning of our lives: to successfully reach the millennium in 2071; even if most of us will be dead by then, this must be our goal! This is what our Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan keeps telling us. Since he knows the best for us, we should follow him as his deputy Bülent Arınç does. In fact, Arınç talked of himself recently, saying he feels like obeying Erdoğan rather than disagreeing with him on certain matters. If a top politician uses the term “obeying the prime minister,” who are we to not do the same?
Who disagrees with our prime minister and his political goals? First of all, the main opposition party must be damned forever for its historical background in the single-party period, and as they work only to prepare the ground for another military coup. As a matter of fact, all criticisms, demonstrations and forms of opposition do nothing but play into the hands of coup conspirators. Moreover, despite all the achievements in the way of eliminating “the deep state,” it continues to survive – and will do so, as the prime minister’s adviser, Yalçın Akdoğan, stated in an interview last week. Moreover, the prime minister pointed out that no state could possibly eliminate the deep state in its entirety. Since it is the deep state which is the master conspirator behind all provocations against the government, meaning that it is evil against good, we should all be behind our government and its leader at all times.
As for the Kurds, we are all brothers and sisters; there were some problems as a result of the wrongs committed before the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power, but we have solved them. The good Kurds are aware of this fact and that is why they support the government; the rest are provocateurs who have managed to deceive some Kurds. Yet, it is more a matter of “terrorism” and we will defeat the “terrorists” eventually, God willing. Kurds “should either behave themselves and accommodate themselves to the nation or should look for another country to live in,” the prime minister stated in one of his recent speeches.
2071 will be the millennium of the Battle of Manzikert in which Seljuk sultan Alpaslan defeated the Byzantines. The Seljuk victory is considered a watershed in the “rise of the Turkish-Islamic world” in Anatolia. In the words of famous conservative historian İbrahim Kafesoğlu, “the presentation of Seljuk history in all its glory is a patriotic duty, and fulfilling this sacred task falls on us, the Turks.”
A Happy New Year, then, for anyone who thinks like this. If not, don’t expect any happiness in the new year – just try to get yourself out of trouble.
See Carole Hillenbrand’s brilliant work on the historiography of Manzikert: ‘Turkish Myth and Muslim Symbol: The Battle of Manzikert,’ Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
