History repeating ... 90 years later

Just about everyone has heard the famous quote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

There is a case of what looks like history repeating itself coming into focus in Turkey right now.

What is going on there has many similarities to what happened in Germany in the 1930s.

Germany officially became a nation in 1871. It grew to be a powerful nation in Europe and was the leading nation on the losing side of World War I.

After Germany lost that war, about 10 percent of land that was part of Germany was taken away and given to other countries.

When Adolph Hitler came to power, many Germans were still bitter about the land that had been taken from Germany.

Hitler played on this bitterness as well as bitterness that Germany had lost that war.

Many thought the Jews had sold Germany out and surrendered. That played a major role in Hitler’s final solution of the “Jewish problem.”

Hitler promised to get that land back for Germany. He not only did that, he also got neighboring lands where Germanic peoples lived in large numbers.

This was so popular, Hitler ended up conquering most of

Europe. It took World

War II to stop him.

Last year, my wife and I took a tour that followed the footsteps of the Apostle Paul on his mission trip to Rome.

Part of our trip involved going to

Turkey. We had a guide who was of Turkish decent and a Muslim.

He told us of how in ancient times, the empires of Venice,

Greece and Rome had invaded what is now

Turkey.

He, like many of his fellow countrymen, is still bitter about these invasions that took place centuries ago. He was also bitter about more recent invasions and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.

He strongly believes the nation of Turkey had been wronged many times by outside military forces. His feelings were much like the Germans of the 1930s Hitler appealed to regarding getting back stolen land.

Our guide even talked of Turkey getting back land stolen from the nation he loves so dearly.

Turkey has been in the news recently because it is invading neighboring Syria. There is a ceasefire, but expansion ambitions are still there.

The Kurds are a race of people thought to have descended from the Medes. They live in southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria.

The Kurds and the Turks have been enemies for centuries. Turkey has attempted many times of have an ethnic cleansing of the Kurds.

There is little doubt the Turks will attempt to eradicate as many Kurds as they can if they conquer Syria.

Last week, Turkish Minister of

Defense Hulusi Akar tweeted a map and a message in Turkish and Arabic.

He said with the invasion of Syria, that Turkey is not looking to take over other peoples’ lands, but will take what is “their right.”

That would be lands taken by foreign invaders over the centuries. Akar sounds very much like Hitler did.

“We have no eyes on anyone’s land. We’re just going to get back what’s ours,” reads the message which is accompanied by a map which includes within Turkey half of Syria, northern Greece and the Greek islands of the Aegean, south western Georgia, southern parts of Bulgaria, part of western Iran, and all of Cyprus. It also includes all of northern Iraq.

Understand, these lands have changed hands many times over the centuries. There have been wars, political divisions such as the breaking up of the Ottoman Empire — the original Islamic State — and other reasons for land that has occasionally been part of Turkey and other countries.

The Turkish minister is saying Turkey is going to get back the land it sees as rightfully Turkey’s even though there are many claims to their same property.

While I was in Turkey, I talked with many Turks who believe that all Muslim lands should be under the leadership of one nation and Turkey should be that nation.

This has all the looks of history from the 1930s repeating itself 90 years later.