Editorial, 30 July 2014
It’s natural for Arabs to feel nostalgic for the glories of the Omayyad’s short rule in Iberia, but it takes a lunatic fringes like the ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) to declare “Spain is the land of our ancestors and we will conquer it with the power of Allah.” Violent political gangs tend to be profligate with their verbiage: it’s
sui generis. But what can one say when similar
fantasies are emoted by the ruler of a “modern democracy”?
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has bigger ambitions than the murderous maniacs of ISIS. Simply put Erdogan would like the Ottoman Empire restored in some shape or form (details to follow). In the spring of 2012, the irascible, cantankerous, and thuggish head of Turkey described his country’s mission thusly: “On the historic march of our holy nation, the AK Party signals the birth of a global power and the mission for a new world order. This is the centenary of our exit from the Middle East [following the Ottoman defeat in the WWI]. What we lost between 1911 and 1923, whatever lands we withdrew from, we shall once again meet our brothers in those lands.” Translation: We are coming back…to Mosul, Kirkuk, Basra, Damascus… to a time when authoritarian Ottoman sultans were called “Ruler of the Black Sea and the White, ruler of Rumelia and Mingrelia, lord of Anatolia and Ionia, Romania and Macedonia, Protector of the Holy Cities, Steely rider through the realms of bliss, sultan and “padishah”, Commander of the Faithful, Chief of the Ottoman armed forces…”
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