Original text: September 29, 2012
Turkish conservatism have always had a special
concern on Bosnia and Herzegovina. This concern is usually recognized as an
uninformed concern. A Muslim land in the middle of Europe does mean a lot for a
romantic conservatist. However, on the other side, for example, when they see
Bosnian citizens vote for Serbia or Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest,
they never understand the reason since they have no idea that only less than
half of Bosnia is Muslim, and being Muslim is a national identity more than
subject of religious practices.
Turkish conservatists very often visit
Bosnia and they have got a pseudo image of Bosnia that the whole country is
just a totality of mosques, Ottoman architectural structures, that Bosnia is
only Başçarşija or just limited to a few more Ottoman islands like Travnik or
Mostar. Apart from the fact that Socialist Yugoslavia was more successful than
Republic of Turkey in protecting and conserving Ottoman artifacts, the average
Turkish conservatist in Bosnia has got a prejudice that those very historical
artifacts do reflect actual reality.
What is reflected on TV screens is not very
much different. Those TV producers who have concerns about Bosnia, but who do
not have any idea about what really Bosnia is, have similar visions of Bosnia. In
fact, this is also preferred by the Bosnian conservatist politicians as well.
Whether if he is a Bosnian Serb or Croat, or a Bosnian Muslim, the politicians
have a wish to see Bosnia as a totality of religious identities. In this
respect, we witness a very successful manipulation of media, not only in
Bosnia, but also in countries like Croatia, Serbia or Turkey, which enforces
Bosnian citizens to vote for one of the three nationalist parties representing their
national identity.
Since the end of the war, the game continues
like that, that eventuates with empowerment of nationalist-conservatist
parties. Only in the last elections in Bosnia, the game was spoilt by Bosnian
Muslims, who were sick and tired of their politicians and voted for Zeljko Komşiç,
the candidate for Bosnian Croat member of presidency from SDP. Bakir
İzzetbegoviç, son of Alija İzzetbegoviç still represents Bosnian Muslims in
tri-presidential system but not the whole Bosnian Muslims. Many Bosnian Muslims
voted for a Bosnian Croat, but a 100% Bosnian politician. Nationalist Croats
are angry for this as well since the Bosnian Croats are not represented by a
nationalist Croat in the presidency.
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| Erdogan with Izzetbegovic (Photo: haberbosnak.com) |
Turkey stands for the greatest ally for the
Bosnian Muslim politicians, who are ironically the cause of Bosnian Muslims to
vote for Bosnian Croat candidate. Not only the recent serials like “Valley of
the Wolves” or the “Magnificient Century” which praises the honor of Muslims,
but also recent international diplomacy of Turkey, which can simply be defined
as “bullying” but nothing more, somehow creates an illusion of a strong state
of Turkey. Moreover, this illusive state backs Bosnian conservatism under any
terms. Of course, this support is not unrequited.
We cannot underestimate the support of Bosnian
politicians to their Turkish brothers. The latest reflection of this support
was visible during the visit of Erdoğan to Bosnia. Turkey’s international politics was praised in
Bosnia.
Turkey’s recent performance in
international politics especially in Middle East is recently very much clear. Despite
the blindness of main stream media, Turkey’s direct support to terrorists and
indirect responsibility in massacres in Syria is recently recognized. Turkey
succeeds to have lousy relations with both Iraqi Kurdish Administration and
central Iraqi government at the same time. Turkey not only has problems with
her neighbors, but even with those further countries miles away.
However, the conservatist point of view
allocates his mind with bullying of Tayyip Erdoğan in Davos three years ago
against Yitzhak Rubin and his support to Gaza Fleet, which ended by aggression
of Israeli Army. Simply, in the Islamic world, Turkey is recognized as a
country stands against Zionist policies in Middle East. Unfortunately, that
blind point of view ignores the fact Turkey did not hesitate to locate the
anti-missile radar system in favor of Israel, against Iran. The same point of
view ignores the fact that Turkey acts like a pioneer of the imperialist
policies against Iran.
Paradoxically, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was praised
with the “Isa Beg Ishakovic Peace and Stability Reward”.
This is solely like a joke!
Even that joke was not enough. Erdogan’s
speech, advising each Bosnian family to have at least five children was
applauded by the audience during the ceremony held in National Theater of
Sarajevo. Previously, Erdoğan advised Turkish families to have at least three
children, and he even did not find it enough for Bosnian families. It has to be
noted that Bosnia has an unemployment rate around 40% and younger population
seek to escape from the country to find better living standards in other
countries.
We have an advice to those Bosnian
conservatist politicians who praises Erdogan: Come and involve in politics in
Turkey. Turkey has the potential to nurture unconscious politicians like that
of in Bosnia. If they will take active role in Turkish politics, they can even
earn more money than they do in Bosnia now, and their relatives can benefit
more which is the standard practice in Turkey.
Probably Bosnia may have better political
scene with the absence of those conservatist politicians.
