“LET ERDOĞAN ORGANIZE HIS PRE-ELECTION MEETING IN BELGRADE?”

(Original text: Published in May 19, 2018)

Once he was prohibited to hold pre-election meetings in European countries, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (RTE) by-passed this problem with a meeting in Sarajevo. When this clever idea appeared in newspapers almost a month ago, neither MoFA of Republic of Turkey, nor Embassy of Turkey in Sarajevo, nor Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina made a statement about the issue. Later on when the posters of the meeting were published in social media, we became aware that it was officially not a pre-election meeting, but RTE was just to participate in the general assembly of Union of European Turkish Democrats. It was a clever act for official legitimization of the meeting but disputes continued in Bosnia since then, becoming fiercer everyday.

RTE, who is a professional in polarizing a society showed his talent in Bosnia as well.

While the disputes are going on, AKP supporters flowed in Sarajevo. Some Bosnians are fine with it. Tens of thousands of Turks will make shop keepers happy. But those who are thinking more about the long term outcomes of this rally in Sarajevo are more cautious.

Bosnian public is almost divided into two camps regarding RTE’s rally in Sarajevo. The disputes are going on. In the meantime RTE’s manipulative tactics are in duty in Bosnia as well. (See:

Discourse of hatred became dominant on the discussions about RTE’s rally in Sarajevo. People began to insult each other heavily in social media. Seems that what we call “vindictive generation” in Turkey, signifying the new typology of youngsters of post-truth society have well thought strategies of manipulation to their Bosnian comrades.

İzetbegoviç seems to have learnt a lot from his master as well. Last week, during the youth meeting of SDA in Sarajevo/Ilidza, the member of presidency of the country which is stuck in corruption and poverty, where hundreds of thousands of people escaped from country since the war, who has nothing to offer to his citizens more than a discourse of being a member of EU claimed: “West does not like our friend. A lot of Bosnians with complexes do not like him as well”.

According to Izetbegoviç, those who oppose RTE’s pre-election rally in Bosnia are people with complexes.

Bosnia was under Ottoman domination for 425 years and even those viziers, who were assigned by the Ottoman Empire to Bosnian Vilayet were not that much devoted to sultan. The viziers would stay not more than a day in Sarajevo on their way to Travnik or Banja Luka paying attention not to disturb locals. Member of presidency of the independent and sovereign state of Bosnia and Hercegovina seems to be more loyal to sultan than the viziers of old times!

Surely, RTE’s Sarajevo rally will have effects in internal and foreign politics of Bosnia. The most important internal effect will be on right-wing SDA and the leader Bakir İzetbegoviç. For some time RTE have overt support for SDA despite the objection of other parties on involvement of Turkey in the internal politics of Bosnia. In SDA congress on May 26, it is expected that Bakir İzetbegoviç will announce his wife Sebija İzetbegoviç’s candidacy for presidency and surely RTE’s visit will be a valuable support for Izetbegoviç.

Probably, most serious impact of Erdoğan’s rally will be on EU-Bosnia relations. There will certainly be some implications since Bosnia has accepted the political action of a leader that is not allowed in European countries.

Most probably, RTE’s Sarajevo rally will have the most serious negative impact on post-Dayton politics of Bosnia, which is already in crisis. RTE’s political involvement in Bosnia is very much in favour for the Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik. Recently, Dodik by-passes Belgrade and have direct contact with Putin, which was highly criticised by Bosnian presidency. Now thanks to RTE he has legitimate reasons for that. If Izetbegoviç allows RTE to have rally in Sarajevo, Dodik may invite Putin to Banja Luka for his own pre-election campaign. It is RTE’s pre-election rally which serves basis for Milorad Dodik’s irresponsible political actions as well.

As it is known, Putin’s reply to NATO’s enlargement in Balkans is destabilization of Balkans. His message is clear: If NATO enlargement in Balkans continue, the region will be destabilized. A strategy which opens path for armed conflicts in the region, respectively in Bosnia. A strategy similar to how Putin implied in Ukraine and what RTE -Putin’s buddy- does is an act supporting this strategy.

Another issue is that, something which would never be expected happens in Bosnia: A will against Turkey is rising in Bosnia as well, despite the cultural and historical ties between Bosnia and Turkey. In social media, it is quite often to read comments like; “In fact Turkey is not that much close friend of us”. It is very often expressed that for Turkey Bosnia is taken for granted, while political and economic relations of Turkey with Serbia is more densed. It is also expressed widely that Turkish investments in Bosnia are more “procurement” than new investments in order to create more jobs and support production.

It is also taken attention by many that TİKA’s (Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency) often uttered 300 million USD investment in Bosnia is mostly spent for the renovation of historical Ottoman sites, but not for projects aiming to reduce poverty or unemployment.

In addition to all of those, after Vuçiç’s visit to Turkey two weeks ago when he was welcome with flashy ceremonies in Ankara, that İzetbegoviç was never welcome like that, some Bosnians ask: “If Erdoğan gives so much importance to his relations with Vuçiç and Serbia, why does not he organize his pre-election rally in Belgrade?”

BOSNIAN POLITICIANS: COME TO YOUR PLACE, TURKEY!

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.

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.