The world’s leading demagogue
The coveted title of world’s leading demagogue has just gone to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan may look like an ageing, disappointed post office clerk but he can take an ignorant remark from halfway around the planet and inflate it into an existential threat to Turkey’s future. He’s desperately trying to rally support for his AK party in local elections due at the end of the month, so what better theme than the threat of an invasion by New Zealand?
‘‘Your grandparents came here,’’ he warned the savage New Zealand hordes, ‘‘and they returned in caskets. Have no doubt that we will send you back like your grandfathers.’’ Erdogan had already warmed the crowd up by showing them footage of the massacre of New Zealand Muslims, so they cheered that line.
He was speaking at a rally commemorating the Ottoman empire’s victory over British and Allied troops who landed at Gallipoli, 200 kilometres southwest of Istanbul, in 1915. Anzac troops played a big part in that World War I battle, which is one of the founding myths of modern Turkish nationalism.
So Erdogan’s audience would not necessarily have giggled when he defiantly warned the evil New Zealanders: ‘‘We have been here for 1000 years and will be here until the apocalypse, God willing.
‘‘You will not turn Istanbul into Constantinople.’’ There he stood, turning back the New Zealand neo-crusaders single-handed and the world heavyweight title for demagoguery was his.
First, a couple of niggling details. Istanbul is Constantinople. The name hasn’t changed.
Istanbul is just the Turkish pronunciation of the old Greek popular name for the city, ‘‘Stamboul’’.
Second, the Turks have not been there for 1000 years. They conquered the city in 1453. Before that it was Christian for rather more than 1000 years.
And third, I have never met anybody in Europe who wants it ‘‘back’’. It would be as ridiculous as somebody in the Muslim world wanting Granada or Seville back.
Oh, wait. I have met Muslims who want Granada and Seville back. They tend to be of the Islamist persuasion but there is a quite widespread conviction in the Arab world that the 7th century conquests that gave Muslims control of half of the then-christian world were legitimate, whereas the 12th-century European counter-offensive, the Crusades, was illegitimate aggression.
It was really just the ebb and flow of empires, with religion mostly as cover. The Muslims, or at least the Ottoman Turks, were on the offensive again by the 15th century, almost reaching Vienna by 1688. Then the tide turned again and the British empire was almost at the gates of Istanbul in 1915. Legally, it has not been permissible to change borders by force since the UN Charter was written in 1945, and in fact few have changed.
But the old tribal buttons are still there to be pushed and there are plenty of populist demagogues willing to push them.
US President Donald Trump has his border wall and his anti-muslim immigration controls.
Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban has the Jews and Muslim refugees. Narendra Modi, now in election mode, has Muslims both within India’s borders and beyond them.
And Erdogan just has New Zealanders. Must try harder.