RIGHTIST ‘VIGILANTES’ STATE PEACEFUL INTENT
Andrew Finkel Ýstanbul
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Feb 14 2007
"Mohammed was a Turk. It was obvious from his white complexion."
"Everyone wants a piece of us, and that is Turkey’s most pressing
problem."
Ataturk is everywhere inside the building – on the walls and even in
the motif on the tie around Col. Karadað’s neck "Imperialism remains
a clear and present danger," although the most important leap forward
for Turkey in the last 20 years was former President Turgut Ozal’s
decision to open up the economy to the world.
These are some of the unconventional views of retired Col. Fikri
Karadað, head of the Kuvay-ý Milliye (National Forces) Association,
which has been accused in the press of organizing a network of
ultra-rightist vigilantes under a patriotic banner.
But Col. Karadað also insisted that "the right to life is sacred," that
"racism is a form of stupidity" and that everything his association
does is open and above board. To make the point, the Kuvay-ý Milliye
has a huge banner advertising its existence in the heart of Kadýkoy,
off the main road in one of Istanbul’s most prosperous shopping
districts.
Inside everything is run with military precision with Col. Karadað
attended by a staff dressed in smart blue flight attendant-style
uniforms. It is the hub, the colonel says, of an organization that
has branches from Montevideo to London and which is fast growing
inside Turkey itself.
Huseyin Kerim Bayraktar, who oversees the association’s numerous
branches, is positively reveling in the publicity after a national
newspaper reported a swearing-in ceremony in the southern port
of Antalya. On that occasion Col. Karadað was quoted as having
identified13,500 individuals and organizations from which Kuvay-ý
Milliye would demand "a reckoning." Banners at the meeting said that
this "reckoning for the oppressed would not wait for the hereafter."
According to Bayraktar, Turkey is engaged in a life-and-death struggle
with both imperialism and Zionism. Members of the Kuvay-ý Milliye
were themselves devout but didn’t go about with beards "like these
zealot hooligans." He himself sports a droopy moustache of the sort
that once upon a time used to be associated with the ultra-right
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). A copy of Ortadoðu, the paper close
to that party, is by his desk, but he denies having relations with
any political party.
"I have never voted in all my 45 years," Bayraktar said. He said
there is nothing Turkey can be proud of since 1938 when Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk died.
Ataturk is everywhere inside the building — on the walls and even
in the motif on the tie around Col. Karadað’s neck. It seems Ataturk
even spent time inside the premises, something they learned after
the lease was signed. The name of the organization stems from the
irregular forces that were organized from the grassroots when, at
the end of World War I, the Ottoman central authority had broken down.
While the Kuvay-ý Milliye Association will not openly criticize the
current government, the association’s manifesto asserts it has lost
its authority as well.
"The state is being run by the D team of politicians. ["D" stand in
Turkish for religious zealots and for the Jewish apostate followers
of the 17th century messianic leader Sabbatai Zvi.] Politicians and
the Turkish people long to be united with administrators who are like
themselves of the Turkish race," it writes. It adds that "under the
umbrella of democracy and human rights, that state is seeing its
authority dissipated, the nation is being divided and the soil of
the fatherland sold off."
Col. Karadað saves his real wrath for America and its conduct of the
war in Iraq. "They think they can solve problems on the other side of
the globe when they can’t even help their own people in New Orleans."
He said he knows America well, having been assigned to the NATO
command in Brussels and trained with US forces in desert combat in
the early 1980s.
Though he saw the Turkish people as having been betrayed by their
leaders in league with forces from abroad, his definition of what
it means to be a Turk is not forged with great precision. A belief
in Islam is a pre-condition, but he admitted that there were Turks
5,000 years ago and that the Prophet himself, though brought up in
Arab culture, was a member of a Turkic tribe.
At the same time, he was happy to see Hrant Dink, the slain Armenian
editor, as a Turk. "He said he was a Turk, so he was one." He
unequivocally condemned the "bandits" responsible for the murder but
accused Dink of bringing misfortune on his own head. "He lived here
very comfortably. Then he had to go around insulting Turks." He said
that Dink was ultimately the victim of his own racism.
Karadað denied his association had any intentions other than to publish
and discuss issues among its members. He promised to make those
publications available as soon as they were produced. He described
most of his members as being from poor or humble backgrounds. His
deputy, Bayraktar, drives a taxi.
About the much-commented presence of the pistol upon which, alongside
the Koran, new members swear an oath of allegiance: "It was just
an air gun. It symbolized not violence but "greatness and unity"
— like the sword in some heraldic ceremony. "We are not a secret
organization," he said.
–Boundary_(ID_yWQ/hYIWFKNsEoKFjmUn7g)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
