Alik Bakhshi
Turkey - Turk direction
or is it a terrible word - Pan-Turkism
Perhaps the First World War had the greatest impact on two
states: the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist, and the Russian Empire lost all its
colonies in Europe, including Ukraine, albeit briefly. In both empires,
monarchical rule fell. The peoples of both empires faced years of difficult
trials until 1923.
Thus, the end of the First World War turned into a war of independence for the Turkish people; the nation was forced to make desperate efforts to defend its own territory from the plans of the Franco-Italian-Greek coalition and Armenian nationalists to dismember the country into sectors. It should be noted that, despite the dire military situation, Turkey found the strength to help the Azerbaijani Turks suppress the Armenian rebellion that had massacred the unarmed local population in Baku and other cities of Azerbaijan. As often happens in history, at a tragic moment for a country, the nation would emerge with an outstanding figure, a leader who rallied the people around him and led them to victory. For the Turks, such a leader was Mustafa Kamal. As a sign of their deep gratitude, the people gave him the name Atatürk. His greatness in world history is so significant that he was recognized as "Man of the 20th Century." Mustafa Kamal proved himself a talented military leader in the bloodiest battle of World War I, when 610,000 Anglo-French troops landed at Gallipoli with the goal of capturing Istanbul—a city at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, whose strategic location is invaluable, a city that, unlike the capitals of other countries, had never been captured by anyone since the Turks captured Constantinople. They were confronted by 450,000 Turks, who displayed desperate heroism and courage, forming a human wall on a narrow strip of the peninsula. Mustafa Kemal, who led the defense, famously declared, "I do not command you to win, I command you to die," and 74,635 Turkish soldiers obeyed, winning the battle. Perhaps there is no more mournful place on earth; more than half a million soldiers died here. The British Empire lost 490,000 killed, wounded, and missing at Gallipoli, and France 80,000. The Turks honor all those who perished by establishing a memorial park at the site of the brutal battle, commemorating their military courage and bravery, and, I would say, as a warning to future generations about the great human foll.
Bullets colliding during the Battle of Gallipoli
Ataturk's greatness was also demonstrated by the fact that he
saw no difference in the nationality of the soldiers buried here. At the
unveiling of a monument to British soldiers, he said:
Thanks to his high standing among the people and their
boundless faith in him as the nation's savior, Mustafa Kemal succeeded in
laying the social foundations of the Turkey we know today. The Turkish people
embraced all the progressive reforms conceived by Atatürk. The country
transitioned to a democratic form of government and took a rather bold step for
the Muslim East: legislatively separating religion from the state and
equalizing civil rights for men and women. Since then, Turkey has been the only
truly democratic country in the Middle East, surpassing Israel, whose claims to
this status are unfounded because, firstly, in Israel, religion is not
separated from the state, and the laws of Halacha are part of Israeli law.
Secondly, Israel is an apartheid state, which is in no way consistent with the
principles of democracy.
After a bloody civil war, a totalitarian regime of Bolshevik
commissars was established in Russia, characterized by the aggressive nature
characteristic of totalitarianism, with the cudgel of World Socialist
Revolution raised over the world. The very first attempt, as part of the
overall strategic plan to restore the empire's pre-war borders by force, to
return Poland to Russia's fold ended in the complete defeat of Tukhachevsky's
Red Army near Warsaw. Until World War II, Russia licked its wounds, intensively
preparing for revenge.
I anticipate legitimate confusion about what Russia has to do
with Turkey. The fact is that the history of these two countries is a history
of centuries-long military confrontation; Russia has fought so much war with no
other country as it has with Turkey. Russia's goal was to capture Istanbul, to
seize this important geostrategic hub, opening the way for further imperial
expansion. There's a well-known Turkish proverb: "If water can sometimes
stand still, Russia will never stop." At times, England and France
intervened in the confrontation (Crimean War 1853-1856) to stop Russia.
By the late 1930s, Germany, like Russia, was preparing for
revenge, and had accumulated sufficient military potential to begin active
hostilities. In an attempt to reverse the results of World War I, Russia and
Germany entered into a sinister non-aggression pact, dividing Europe between
them in advance. The Russians, remembering the lesson taught them by the Poles,
hesitated to attack Poland first, leaving the initiative to the Germans. They
also did so for political reasons, lest they prematurely anger England and
France, who, by declaring war on Germany, were unaware that, under the
Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Russia, in addition to part of Poland, received
Germany's tacit consent to the annexation of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and
Lithuania. England and France, outraged by Moscow's aggressive actions, were
unable to take any action, as they were preoccupied with the war with Germany,
which acted as a kind of shield for Russia's reprisals against its former
colonies, which had decided to rebel. True, there was an affront with Finland.
The Finns defended their homeland; the entire nation (3,650,000 in all),
including women, rose to defend it from the Russian invaders. The Red Army,
despite its colossal superiority in every respect, failed to fulfill its
assigned task, leaving 2,300 tanks, 1,000 aircraft, and 1 million Red Army
soldiers buried in the deep snow of the Karelian Isthmus. And today, thanks to
the heroism of the Finnish people in those distant 1940s, we know Finland as
the most prosperous country.
Turkey was also supposed to be among the countries subjected
to Russian aggression. Moscow, in a similar, carbon-copy of its message to the
Finns, tried to impose a mutual assistance treaty on Turkey, including the
requirement to establish a naval base on the Bosphorus. Turkey, like Finland,
rejected such an impudent proposal, which provoked sharp displeasure in Moscow
(http://www.oldgazette.ru/lib/propagit/21/01.html) and would inevitably have
been attacked. However, Moscow's plans were not destined to come to fruition;
unexpectedly for Stalin, Hitler unleashed the full might of Germany on the
Soviet Union. The predators locked in mortal combat, and Russia no longer had
time for war with Turkey. The Russians' cherished dream of seizing the
Bosphorus remained just that. If Germany and Russia had remained true to the
non-aggression pact, it is quite possible the world map would be different
today.
Due to the American political naivety, as pointed out by
Winston Churchill, after the war the Soviet Union secured all its former
colonies except Finland and Poland (parts of Finnish and Polish lands were
annexed by Moscow), and even acquired Prussia, South Sakhalin, and the Kuril
Islands, while America entered into the Cold War.
After World War II, Turkey hastily concluded a mutual
assistance treaty with America in the event of a third-country attack and
became a member of NATO, thus protecting itself from any possible future
aggressive Russian encroachments. Later, the CENTO bloc was created, comprising
Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, which was as impenetrable to Russia as NATO was due
to Turkey's membership. The bloc collapsed after religious obscurantists came
to power in Iran. Turkey currently maintains the largest army among the bloc's
European members and protects NATO's southeastern flank.
Long years of the grueling Cold War led to the collapse of
communist ideology. As a result of the partial collapse of the Russian Empire,
the global geopolitical situation changed, with new states emerging in Europe,
the Caucasus, and Central Asia. One important aspect of this geopolitics is the
fact that five of these newly independent countries are Turkic.
Here I would like to clarify some confusion in the Russian
language regarding the inaccurate use of the words "Turkish" and
"Turkic." These words sound identical phonetically in the Turkic
(Turkish) language. Saying that Azerbaijani is spoken in Azerbaijan, and
Turkmen in Turkmenistan, for example, is like saying that Australians speak
Australian in Australia, and American in America. When the Russians arrived in
the Caucasus, they called the local population in Azerbaijan "Caucasian
Tatars" precisely because both Azerbaijan and Tatarstan speak a Turkic
(Turkish) language. Of course, due to the vast territory of the Turkic peoples
and their political disunity, the language has several dialects, which is
inevitable. However, there is an example of a language with several dialects
even within a relatively small territory, for example, in England.
The Soviet Empire made every effort to divide the Turkic
peoples by creating artificial divisions. For example, in Central Asia, the
Russians created several states out of Turkestan, which never existed. It
should be noted that part of Turkestan (East Turkestan) is located in China,
with its center in Kashgar, which was equal in cultural and administrative
significance to Bukhara. Recently, with the growth of Turkic national
consciousness, the Chinese have faced a serious ethnic problem. As a result of the
Russian conquests in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan—most of which is in Iran—was also
divided, with the Russians seizing the territory of the Derbent Khanate from
Azerbaijan, as well as Dagestan (meaning "Mountain Country" in
Turkic), incorporating it into the Russian Federation.
The Russians inflicted serious cultural damage on the Turkic
peoples by changing their alphabet to the Cyrillic alphabet, which instantly
rendered them illiterate and deprived of their cultural heritage. Imagine if
Russia banned the Cyrillic alphabet and introduced Chinese characters. This is
precisely what happened to the Turks who fell under the Russian Empire's
control. School curricula didn't include the study of Eastern literature; only
Pushkin and other Russian poets and writers were required reading. The sublime
poetry of Nizami, Omar Khayyam, Saadi, and Emre was buried beneath the frozen
railway embankment of the "Soviet masterpiece" of literature,
"How the Steel Was Tempered," depriving several generations of Soviet
Turks of their poetry through cold, callous indifference. Indeed, university
textbooks were only in Russian. Now, freed from the Russian Empire, the new
Turkic countries must not only reclaim their cultural heritage but also
integrate into the global economy to ensure a prosperous existence.
Of all the Turkic countries, Turkey occupies the most
advanced position, and across the vast expanse from the Angara in Turkey to the
Angara in Siberia (the two rivers of the same name), history has placed Turkey
in a leading role in unifying the Turks. Whether you call this idea of unification pan-Turkism or the
creation of a union similar to the EU or the British Commonwealth of Nations,
this is precisely the direction in which Turkey's political and economic
activity lies, as the most promising, preferable to waiting for years in front
of the EU's closed door. Of course, Europe has the right to decide for itself
whether Turkey should join the EU, but there is no doubt that a Turkish
corridor would provide the EU with easier access to the markets and hydrocarbon
resources of the Caspian region and Central Asia, bypassing an overly
interested Russia.
Until recently, Turkey had only one strategic partner in the
Middle East: Israel. However, Israel's policies, which are increasingly
unpopular with the international community, have placed Turkey in a difficult
situation. This explains the various initiatives aimed at somehow facilitating
a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, in particular Turkey's offer to
mediate in Israel's negotiations with Syria. Turkey condemned Operation Cast
Lead, recognizing that Israel's aggressive policies also negatively impact
Turkey's position as a leading power in the region.
Against the backdrop of the growing struggle of humanitarian
organizations for Palestinian rights, and especially after the piratical attack
by Israeli commandos on the Free Gaza flotilla and the murder of nine Turkish
citizens, continuing military and strategic cooperation with such a
recalcitrant ally as Israel has become meaningless for Turkey. Remaining
politically inactive in today's dynamic times means condemning itself, along
with Israel, to political isolation. While Israel enjoys powerful political and
economic support from America thanks to its Jewish diaspora, Turkey lacks such
support. Moreover, the Armenian lobby is gaining increasing strength in
Congress. Following in the footsteps of the Jewish lobby and taking advantage
of America's well-known political naivety and America's might as a superpower,
it will make every effort to implement the extreme nationalist ideology of the
Dashnaktsutyun party, which envisions the creation of a "Greater
Armenia." "Armenia from sea to sea" is the slogan of Armenian
Nazis. The Nazis, because this ideology first requires ethnically cleansing the
territory for a "Greater Armenia," otherwise such a venture is
unfeasible. This idea has already been partially realized: the Turks have been
completely expelled from the captured Karabakh and from Armenia itself. All
that remains is to ethnically cleanse Azerbaijan, part of Georgia, part of
Iran, and eastern Turkey all the way to the Mediterranean. Further, part of
Lebanon, the North Caucasus, including Sochi, is possibly also planned for the
territory of "Greater Armenia"—that is, anywhere where Armenians have
established compact settlements. Incidentally, the first attempt to create an
ethnically pure territory was made in Turkey during World War I, when Armenians,
having received weapons from the Russians, began to slaughter the Turkic
population in anticipation of a planned Russian offensive. And now, the
Armenians are trying to portray the spontaneous Turkic resistance, which
resulted in the deaths of many Armenians, as a deliberately planned genocide by
the authorities. Unlike the genocide of Jews organized by the Nazis in Germany,
this never even occurred in Turkey. The propaganda of the absurd Dashnak
ideology drove Armenians into the line of fire at the height of the war between
two empires, in order to build a fictitious state there by exterminating the
local population. This resulted in a true tragedy for both the Turks and the
Armenians themselves. However, the Dashnaks, having failed, did not abandon
their criminal enterprise and are now, with the help of the Armenian diaspora
in America, attempting to impose yet another alien goal on the American people.
It appears that a trend is emerging in America, imposed on it by national
diasporas, to solve the problems of their countries of origin with the help of
American taxpayers and American soldiers. Thus, hypothetically, a situation
similar to the Palestinian one could very well happen to Turkey.
It should be noted that the break between Turkey and Israel
conveniently preceded the awakening of the Arab nation, which is precisely the
term used to describe the uprisings underway in Arab countries against
dictatorial and monarchical regimes. Their disappearance paves the way for Arab
unification, which will significantly complicate Israel's position, which has
failed to achieve peace with the Arabs in 60 years. It could be said that
Israel's policies have unwittingly helped Turkey secure its position in the
Arab world. Turkey is a leading regional power and is not indifferent to future
Arab attitudes toward it, especially given the unrest, I would say, of the Arab
nation—a significant nation, especially one with a rich historical past in both
science and culture.
The current geopolitical situation leaves Turkey with no
other acceptable option than to focus its efforts on integrating with the
Turkic countries liberated from Russia. The idea of pan-Turkism is not new, but it was
after the collapse of the USSR that it gained traction. However, the
consolidation of the Turks has serious opponents:
- first and foremost, Russia, where an indigenous Turkic
population lives across a vast territory from the Volga basin (Tatarstan) to
the Arctic Ocean (Yakutia-Sokha). Pan-Turkism was presented by Russians as a
harmful bourgeois-nationalist ideology, and the very word
"pan-Turkism" in the USSR was associated with something
incomprehensibly terrifying.
- China, East Turkestan (capital Kashgar), where the Uyghur
Turks long fought the Chinese for independence, and only with the help of the
Soviet Union in 1937 was the popular uprising suppressed. It should be noted
that it was only in 1943 that the Chinese finally formally established
themselves in Kashgar.
- Iran, Southern Azerbaijan, where more Azerbaijanis live
than in Northern Azerbaijan.
- Armenia, which occupied Karabakh
with Moscow's support and is Russia's only military ally in the Caucasus.
Opponents of Turkic consolidation are also united by purely
economic motives, namely the vast oil and gas reserves of the Caspian Basin and
Central Asia, the exploitation of which would compete with Russia and Iran.
Moscow and Tehran are encroaching on the Turkic rights to extract oil from the
seabed, periodically raising the issue of the Caspian Sea's status. Russia's
latest military aggression in Georgia was aimed at shutting down the
Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline, and Moscow perceives the Nabucco project as specifically
designed to undermine Russia's economy. Frankly speaking, the full
implementation of pan-Turkism ideology would spell the end of the Russian
Empire, and this would entail not only territorial losses but also economic
ones, as it would deprive Russia of its only source of income. Russians have
become so accustomed to living without creating anything, plundering the
mineral wealth of others, that, left without Siberia and the Urals, that is,
within the borders of Russia proper (Muscovy), they will inevitably have to
learn to work and produce something themselves, of course, under the guidance
of the Vikings; otherwise, nothing worthwhile will come of it.
However, the main obstacle to the consolidation of the Turks,
as always, lies within them: constant rivalry and internecine strife, combined
with a clan-based power structure. The Turks have never fought with anyone else
more than among themselves, if we recall the wars of Timur with Tokhtamysh,
Bayazet, and numerous minor khans, as well as the mutually destructive war
between the Ak Goyunlu and the Gara Goyunlu in Azerbaijan. Currently, due to
the presence of authoritarian regimes (clan-based) in all former Russian Turkic
countries without exception, whose dictators cling to power, sometimes
sacrificing the country's independence, as happened in Uzbekistan (2), full
unification is out of the question. But a commonwealth, similar to the
"British Commonwealth of Nations" in the first stage of
consolidation, is entirely possible. With the inevitable advent of democracy,
the commonwealth will develop into a union similar to the EU. The union is
closer because in this case it will consist of states of a single nation. The
repetition of the Swiss unification model is noteworthy. In short, it is
precisely in this direction that Turkey, as the leading Turkic country, must
take the initiative.
Of course, opponents of pan-Turkism will once again literally scream about the invasion of Islam and the revival of the Caliphate, which can be considered deliberate slander. But, firstly, in all Turkic countries, religion is separated from the state; secondly, the Caliphate is an Arab entity and has no connection to the Turks except that the Turks themselves fought against the Arab Caliphate, if we recall the national liberation uprising led by Babak, while the Seljuk Turks and Timur finally consigned the Baghdad Caliphate to history. And most importantly, for those interested in Islam as a religion has no connection whatsoever with today's terrorism. Modern international terrorism is a phenomenon of our time and does not originate in the mists of time. There is no connection between the development of Islam as a religious ideology and terrorism as a phenomenon. Yes, terrorism is associated with some countries whose people profess Islam, but its roots lie elsewhere. Furthermore, the deliberate or misguided search for the roots of terrorism in religion poses a grave danger to the global community and opens a Pandora's box from which religious fanaticism will spread throughout the world, which could actually lead to a clash of civilizations. (3)
https://alikbahshi.blogspot.com/2026/06/appeal-to-commission-under-president-of.html
2. A terrible price to the roof of pink revolution. http://alikbahshi.livejournal.com/#post-alikbahshi-3149
3. International terrorism and interested parties.
https://alikbahshi.blogspot.com/2024/07/international-terrorism-and-interested.html
12.03.2011
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