The New Anatolian, Turkey
Jan 30 2007

Ultranationalism is the real threat
Ilnur Cevik

ilnurcevik@yahoo.com30 January 2007

We all love our country and we want the best for Turkey. Those of us
who live for long periods abroad especially in places of depravity
like northern Iraq appreciate the value of Turkey and its huge
potential more than some others.

So we are all patriots who want this country to prevail and emerge as
the giant of its region. We are proud to see our country is well on
its way of achieving this goal as an island of stability and
prosperity in a volatile region.

But it seems there are those who do not want this and are trying to
stall Turkey. They have used all kinds of tactics in the past and are
now using ultranationalist fervor to block us. It is really
unfortunate that they are effectively manipulating young people and
so-called nationalism to achieve this.

It was more than a year ago when we warned everyone that the
so-called ultranationalists were being armed in Turkey against Kurds.
At the time our warnings we were criticized by many colleagues as
being sensationalist. But developments in recent months have shown
how accurate we were…

It is very sad that young people are being armed in the name of a
"nationalist" cause and then let into the streets to kill people who
they perceive as "traitors."

This is how journalist Hirant Dink was murdered.

There are circles in Turkey who are "innocently" pointing the finger
at all of us, making us the targets of these extremists.

The situation is getting so out of hand that the extremists now are
regarding the conservative Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) of Devlet
Bahceli as too soft and are seeking to create a political force that
is more to the extreme right.

Many of our colleagues forcefully opposed the murder of Dink, who was
of Armenian origin, and just to underline their support for him said,
"We are all Armenians." The so-called nationalists used this as a
pretext to launch a new offensive, saying such statements amounted to
treason. A man calling himself a patriot hijacked a ferry to protest
our people calling themselves "We, too, are Armenians" and later on
it became apparent that this "patriot" was in fact a military draft
dodger…

A group of former politicians quit the MHP and joined the Grand Unity
Party (BBP), which they felt was farther to the extreme right. They
said the MHP had not shown enough sensitivity to back the killers of
Dink…

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently tried to win votes
for his party by courting nationalist ideals. We hope the recent
events are a wake-up call for the prime minister that he is playing
with fire…

Those who have displayed so much sensitivity in the past about
religious movements and so-called Muslim fundamentalist activities
should now show the same sensitivity about the rise in
ultranationalism, which is the real internal threat in Turkey.