Juan Cole: Is its Syria Adventure destabilizing Turkey?

Nadir Firat asks Is its Syria Adventure destabilizing Turkey?.

In the instance of the shooting down of the Russian plane, this multi-layered government propaganda apparatus started fabricating a reality that appeals to the nationalistic sensitivities of the majority in Turkey. In this particular case the job was not necessarily hard as the Turkish state, partly as a component of its nation-building project following the establishment of Turkey; partly, like any other colonialist power, to differentiate and subjugate its colonized population (Kurds in this case) and finally partly to strengthen the position of Kemalist elites in power, applied a comprehensive program of indoctrination of nationalism on its citizens. This was further strengthened in the 80’s and beyond when the Generals of 1980 military coup decided to fight against the threat of communism by using nationalism and religion. No means were spared. The education system, compulsory military service, government controlled mosques and media are all used as tools to indoctrinate people with the nationalistic fervor. In short, Sunni-Turk identity attached to a glorious past (a past rewritten to fulfill the contemporary needs) became a common belief and words like “Turk” or “Ottoman” started to carry a semi-sacred aura. The clearest indicator to the success of this indoctrination is the research done on the voting preferences of Turkish citizens. Although the majority vote for different parties for a variety of reasons, 65% of the voters say that they have the ultra nationalist MHP as their second choice.

Emphasis Mine

This places Turkey as a settler-colonialist society with an imperial past. The trajectory is reflected in other settler-colonialist societies:

• England focussing on English language and culture along with Anglican Christainity
• France focussing on French language and culture along with atheism
• Australia focussing on English language and culture along with Anglican Christainity
• USA focussing on English language and culture along with fundamentalist Christainity
• Israel focussing on Hebraic language and culture along Judaism

Other nations are following this pattern of enforcing a single language, culture, and religion: Sri Lanka with Buddhism; India with Hinduism; Japan with Shintoism; Kenya with Christainity; etc. Uniformity makes control easier, and uniformity become self-policing as detractors are easily identified and shamed.