How Bush/Murdoch/Gulen forcibly Islamicized the Secular Republic of Turkey

[Ramocles]

Read this carefully as it is a story most Mainstream Western Media outlets will not touch or report on in any detail.

After the Sept 11th attacks, Bush's Neocons came up with the crackpot idea of fusing American Style Freemarket Capitalism with Islamic Conservatism in - previously staunchly secular and Western oriented - Turkey. The idea was to create a model "Islamo-Capitalist" society that is ruled by pious, teetotal "Compassionate Conservatives", that voluntary dismantles its welfare state and social protection nets, that embraces a hardcore model of "winner takes all" capitalism and - surprise surpise - gives Western multinationals and investors unfettered access to its 70 million strong domestic consumer market.

This bizarre "Ayn Rand meets Mohammed" concoction was supposed to serve as a model that the rest of the Arab/Islamic countries would eventually want to - or if necessarily be forced to - emulate. Bush was trying to clone America's "Conservative DNA" into the Middle East and create a ruling conservative middle/business/managerial class in these countries that follows the "Protestant Work Ethic" and worships American style consumerism and capitalism (+ hates the godless Left, trade unions, liberal academics, environmentalists and so on...).

To accomplish this in Turkey, the country's secular center left and right parties had to be weakened and a brand new "IslamoCapitalist" media block that brainwashes voters with conservative ideals had to be created.

The secular, Western oriented parties were (deliberately) politically isolated by both the U.S. and the EU, and (again deliberately) pounded with harsh criticism in Western conservative outlets like the Economist. The formula was always "Turkey's secular parties are corrupt/backward/anti-democratic/militarist/generally bad" while the Islamists are "honest/hard working/true democrats/reformers/friendly to the West" and so on and so forth.

This lie was partly engineered because Bush/Blair were afraid that the Turkish Armed Forces would get involved in Iraq.

Rupert Murdoch bought the religious conservative TGRT news channel in Turkey and converted it into (basically) "Fox News Turkey". A mouthpiece for Turkey's Islamocapitalist conservatives. He also set up Fox entertainment channels in Turkish and got into the outdoor advertising market in Turkey, where ClearChannel (of Right Wing Radio fame) was already very active.

Millions of Turkish Islamic conservatives started watching "Fox News Turkey" (TGRT) without realizing that Fox News America across the Atlantic was trashing and fear mongering against muslims. Similarly, Fox News America watchers didn't realize that Murdoch is quite chummy with Islamic conservatives elsewhere.

Fetullah Gulen - a powerful Islamist preacher who has 5 million devout followers in Turkey and lives in exile in Pennsylvania with 100 elder "brothers" of his movement - created a battle formation of Newspapers and Television channels that indoctrinate Turkey's poor with IslamoCapitalist conservative values and promote hatred against the "secularists", "old elites" and "Kemalists" (Turks who follow the Western secular-progressive values of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey).

His flagship Zaman newspaper sells 880,000 copies a day, more than any other newspaper in Turkey.

A (scary) analysis of Gulen's movement can be found here.

http://www.meforum.org/2045/fethullah-gulens-grand-ambition

At one point, Gulen and Murdoch appeared to the collaborating. Gulen's "Sunday's Zaman" had a small "Sunday Times" (Murdoch) logo on its website. This was later removed (Murdoch probably didn't want to be seen as being in bed with an Islamist preacher the Turkish state has charged with "plotting to overthrow the Secular Republic").

To cut a long story short, the Bush/Blair/Neocon "Great Middle East Project" has failed miserably.

But Ataturk's once Western-oriented secular Republic is under (supposedly "moderate") Islamist control, has been so since 2003, and is more hostile to Western liberal values and lifestyles than ever before in its history. A recent survey shows:

62% of Turks say that "Faith" is the most important thing in their lives ("Secularism" and "Democracy" only score 16% and 13% respectively).
72% of Turks would not want "someone who drinks alcohol" as their neighbour.
75% of Turks would not want an "Atheist" as their neighbour.
67% of Turks would not want an "unmarried couple" as their neighbour.
64% of Turks would not want a "Jew" as their neighbour.
52% of Turks would not want a "Christian" as their neighbour.
43% of Turks would not want an "American Family" as their neighbour.

The country is miserably politically divided between "Islamic conservative" and "secular" voters. There is a lot of polarization and anger in Turkish society. People following different political/religious values literally cannot talk to each other anymore.

Turkey has been "divided and conquered". Many Turks fear that the once stable Secular Republic cannot be restored again.

That the country has shifted "too far East" to shift back to Ataturk's Western oriented ideals.

Perhaps its time Western media starts to report on Turkey properly. Their reporting in the period 2000 - 2008 was mostly wishywashy formulaic crap that left Western audiences completely blind to just how far Turkey - an important NATO ally - has shifted away from the West.

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. This is a very important story -

thank you for bringing it to us.