Although the Turkish state’s interest in Turkish migrants and children born in foreign countries is a new thing, a noticeable approach has emerged since the late 2000s and the early 2010s. This new phase, which was qualified by the systematization of rapid institutionalization and soft power strategies, foresees the creation of new state institutions; open interest in mobilizing youth; the expiation of international influence in the educational, cultural and religious fields of various state and civil society actors; and finally (not the last one), a wider approach of diaspora framed with religious unity.
Since the early 2010s, Turkey has embarked on a political role-coaster* journey that surprised and horrified many internal and external observers. Under the rule of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his volatile political alliances and his commitment to making Turkey an effective player on a regional and global scale has overwhelmingly determined the political climate of the past decade. Nowhere else there has been no more apparent stubbornness like this disaster than substitution of religion in the field of foreign policy.
Recently, the academy and the public interest in the issue confirms this claim. So far, the debate has often focused on those viewed as “ordinary suspects”: NGOs with close ties with the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Religious) and its extension in the European Union, the DITIB, the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) and the AK Party officials. Of course, such a focus on state institutions and state institutions and related institutions that maintain this new religious-external policy bond is appropriate and important. However, Ankara’s new foreign policy perspective, in a wide range of soft power strategies, which is in accordance with public diplomacy, are overlooked.
We claim that these strategies, as the leader of the Islamic world for Turkey and the patron of Muslim masses around the world, put a systematic goal of obtaining a global recognition and approval. Since the early 2010s, the AK Party has been implementing various tactics, such as mobilizing both non-Turkish and non-Turkish diaspora communities, creating a network among Erdogan- supporters intellectuals living in different Muslim communities, and “hegemonic” (dominant” (dominant / dominant) information production. While a cunning discourse on the fight against Islamophobia constitutes the vocausal backbone of these multiple tactics, the de facto resolution of the Arab Spring and Saudi Arabia’s Muslim World Union (MWL / establishment 1962) initiative gave Turkey the opportunity to become dominant in the Islamic world.
PROVIDE IN THE KITLE SUPPORT: THE INCREASE OF A MUSLEMAN DISPOSEN
Although the interest of the Turkish state on Turkish migrants and children born in foreign countries is nothing new, a visible approach has emerged since the late 2000s and the beginning of the 2010s. This new phase, which was qualified by the systematization of rapid institutionalization and soft power strategies, foresees the creation of new state institutions; open interest in mobilizing youth; the expiation of international influence in the educational, cultural and religious fields of various state and civil society actors; and finally (not the last one), a wider approach of diaspora framed with religious unity.
The Presidency of Turks and Related Communities (YTB), which was established for the first time in the history of modern Turkish under the auspices of the Prime Ministry and became a separate state institution in 2010, has been operating under the presidential system since its inception to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2018. According to the job description, YTB aims primarily to encourage Turkish migrants to participate in the communities in which they live without losing their cultural heritage. Its main purpose is to develop Turkish language skills and to understand Sunni Muslim teachings and practices correctly. The distinctive aspect of existing policies, in particular, is to take a wider approach to improving well-being of family and education.
As the most important target group, young people stand out. In addition to other services, YTB provides scholarships and special quotas at universities in Turkey, internship opportunities in Turkish public institutions, youth camps and cultural heritage trips to Turkey. Ironically, these mass mobilization strategies have been carried out by Islamist – especially Gülen-like methods that have successfully artiganized young masses in Muslim organizations at home and abroad over the years. After the coup d’état on July 15, 2016, most of the Gülenists were confiscated from overseas education networks, which were transferred to the Turkish Maarif Foundation (TMF). Established in 2016, less than a month before July 15th, TMF serves as the only institution authorized to provide “traveling services abroad.”
However, current policies not only address migrants from Turkish and foreign countries, but also extend to structures that YTB indirectly describes through religious unity and describes as “relative communities”. The aim is to “increase dialogue and co-operation between the Turkish diaspora (Muslim) communities” and “support co-work to overcome the problems and discrimination they face in areas such as religion, culture and education.” As part of this strategic move, children born in Turkey and foreign countries (Turkish origin) are encouraged to contact call centers at Turkish consulates in order to report verbal or physical attacks and other discriminatory behaviors they have been subjected to.
The anti-Ismardhobia has been adopted by government officials and partners in NGOs as a powerful means of discourse to mobilise and non-Turkish diaspora communities. It seems that this approach aims to create only a Muslim diaspora, regardless of one’s ethnicity or cultural heritage, and to position Turkey as the boss of the Islamic world. This was revealed in a statement of December 2018 when the EC Party stressed that Bülent Bilgi, the President of the Union of International Democrats (UID), the main lobbying organisation of the AK Party in Europe, had been replaced by the organization (formly known as the Union of European Turkic Democrats) to make a broader call for non-Turkish immigrants in Europe and beyond.
North America is one of the places where Turkey’s recent interest in Muslim communities outside the Turkish population in Europe has become visible. Considering that there is no significant Turkish presence among American Muslim organisations, Ankara has accelerated its efforts to provide support from American Muslims to the AKP and Erdogan, especially after the July 15 coup. In addition to Erdogan’s main enemy, Fethullah Gülen, the main enemy, these campaigns against their regional rivals, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, created a complexity involving established Muslim organisations such as the North American Islamic Circle (ICNA), the North American Islamic Union (ISNA) and the American Council of Islamic Relations (CAIR) due to inter-great debate over Ankara’s participation.
To increase Turkey’s influence among American Muslims, many different methods have been tried so far. In North America, ethnic and foreign mosques are much fewer than their great prevalence in Europe, but the newly built Maryland Mosque and the social complex stand out as a method that Religion prefers to follow in America. Currently, the number of Religious mosques under the control of the Turkish-American Religious Foundation (TARF) in the United States is about a few dozen.
Cultural adoption is another strategy of action. “Resurrection: Ertuğrul,” a recent and historical television series, has been surprisingly acclaimed among non-Turkish Muslims. Critics, together with the “Latest Emperor” (Payitaht: Abdülhamid), say that this series wants to legitimize Erdogan’s repressive approach through historical and religious-nationalist examples. These series, which are intriguing enough (represented under Erdogan’s leadership) are preparing for domestic consumption to highlight the current conflicts that “good Muslims” faced at the final stage of Erdogan’s historical struggle against internal and external enemies.
A good example of this is a dialogue between Ertuğrul and Ibn Arabi in the “Resurrection” section, which was published immediately after the visit of the pro-Kurdish leftist Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) in prison, Selahattin Demirtaş, who is currently in prison, during the visit of the Russian-Russian diplomatic crisis in 2016. When Ertuda said, “What if they conspire with those who disbelieve who do not stab us in the back?” Similarly, the Last Emperor’s scene in the Last Emperor’s metaphor of the bull by warning Abdulhamid to “return to his place” of the American diplomat came after President Trump threatened Turkey via Twitter for the possibility of an attack on the Syrian Kurds.
Despite the separatist languages that use the Maniheist (double) contradictions to sanctify political conflicts, on the one hand, some Western Muslim spectators seem to be interested in following “Islamic rules” and support fundamental values.
Another presentation of Ankara’s claim to the leadership of Muslims around the world can be seen in efforts to influence the Black Muslim electoral districts by establishing similarities between Erdogan and liberal African-American figures. At the centre of these associations, Turkey’s efforts to present itself as a fair and philanthropist force that opposes the “suppressive West” to protect the “squeezing” world. The first opportunity Erdogan wanted to benefit from this purpose came to his hand at the funeral of Muhammad Ali in June 21, 2106, when he posed as the leader of the Islamic world, who honored Ali’s legacy. However, the piece of cloth brought from the Kaaba as Erdogan’s gift had to be rejected because of “some conditions” and therefore “he could not join the ranks of the methiyeists.”
Erdogan’s assistants had to wait for other opportunities to make up for this scandalal public relations fiasco. This was the kind of incident that Erdogan’s visit to the UN General Assembly in September 2018. During Erdogan’s visit, the Anadolu Agency, Turkey’s official news agency, interviewed Malcolm X’s daughters, Ilyasah Shabazz, and asked him about Turkey’s approach to Syrian refugees, one of the best public relations campaigns worldwide. Erdogan’s men were not disappointed this time, because Shabazz said: “Turkey is an exemplary place in the way we were deprived of our rights because we continue my father’s legacy.” In addition, a family meeting was held with both daughters, which were broadcast and communicated on pro-government press and television.
At the end of December 2018, Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin announced that Ankara had changed the name of the street where the U.S. Embassy was located to Malcolm X Street, in a way that brought these popular moves to the top. The announcement drew attention, especially given Erdogan’s own ultranationalist alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which bears similarities to the white supremacists and nationalists in the United States, rather than the struggle for civil rights of the black minority. As a matter of time, he was able to attract the attention of the Black Muslims, openly to debate. As a new and important move in January 2019, it was announced that Muhammad Ali’s old farm in Michigan was purchased by the US-based TURKEN Foundation, co-estated by the controversial Ensar Foundation with Erdogan’s family foundation, TÜRGEV. TURKEN will use the farm as “the summer school for Muslim youth”, if the combination of the above-mentioned two reinforcements strategies, along with the additional symbolism of the black struggle for freedom.
‘SEÇKİN COMMUNITY’ SUPPORT: A WARNING LOGIN BETWEEN ULUSS
This campaign, which has been put into effect in the Turkish and non-species community claiming the patronage of the Islamic world, helps the AK Party and Erdogan gain public support abroad. The party’s global tactics of recognition include attempts to create a group of academics, opinion leaders and scholars. The “Political, Economic and Social Research Foundation,” whose short name is SETA, is an important actor in this regard. This think tank, which is currently managed by members of Erdogan’s large family, was designed by former President Abdullah Gül and was put into practice in 2005 as a prestige partisan think tank by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu of the era. Despite being closer to Davutoglu, he served as the first and founding director of the Prime Ministry Public Diplomacy Coordination Office before joining the bureaucracy. Today, SETA has offices in Ankara, Istanbul, Washington, Cairo and Berlin, and these offices regularly publish ideas and reports on Turkey’s internal and external policies. In addition to efforts to create public opinion and influence on the AK Party and its policies abroad, SETA is allegedly a part of the management network of private companies, universities and non-governmental organizations that have a direct or indirect relationship with foundations linked to the AK Party.
Attempts to create an transnational network are not only limited to the field of policy advocacy, but also spread to other institutional areas of corporate life. For example, the most striking example in the press was the launch of TRT Word in 2015. Despite its tainted reputation in Turkey, the international television channel TRT World has re-branded to join the ranks of the BBC and Al Jazeera, despite its pro-government rhetoric and the fact that it has recognized the opposition parties for very little broadcasting time even during the election campaigns. In particular, it can be interpreted as another reinforcement strategy aimed at activating diaspora communities as natural advocates of Turkish policies against Western governments, especially with employees who receive full salaries to look attractive to Western Muslims.
In 2017, TRT World focused on Turkey and launched an annual conference called “Forum” as well as regular broadcasting on Foreign Affairs. At the first conference titled “Inspiring to Change in the Age of Irregularity,” a general panel on xenophobia and the rise of Islamophobia was held, hosting academics such as Fareed Hafiz, Brendan Cox and Ilyassah Al Shabazz and publicly recognized people.
NGOs and universities have also become influential actors in these systematic efforts in order to establish a network of scientists and intellectuals. In line with the establishment of an international education center by TURGEV, Ibn Haldun University (estimated 2017) has chosen Istanbul Zaim University, a smaller private university, as well as the pioneer role they played in the Ankara agenda, as well as a place to host international academic activities to bring Western Muslims together.
In line with this purpose, perhaps the most critical decision made by the AK Party so far was in 2015, when South Florida University offered a safe haven to offer a safe haven to Turkey to former Professor Sami al-Arian, a former professor of Palestinian origin. After a controversial hearing and the long troubles with the American legal system, his sufferings became a textbook for many civil rights defenders of the country about Islamophobia after 9/11. Turkey, which gave him citizenship, provided both the love of Muslims and the al-Arian to create a deep-rooted network among the Muslim communities, which proved that Zaim University was an important decision to establish the Centre for Islamic and Global Relations (CIGA).
In this way, the CIGA can bring the leading Muslims together with Qatar in Istanbul and take over a center for Erdogan supporters intellectuals around the world. To date, the centre has shown generosity far beyond the sources of leading Turkish schools, hosting many international academics with the journeys financed from start to finish, and organized many international events, whose priority is Islamophobia. On the other hand, the obvious contradictions on the use of the language of liberation through Islamophobia are honored by a “deep oppressive state” that has collapsed on thousands of academics who have been sentenced to imprisonment for unimaginable terrorism at the same time, while nothing can be compared to the suffering of al-Arian.
INFORMATION PRODUCTION: SUPPORTER OF “EMPERYALIZATION AND WESTERN”
Ankara’s high-profile efforts to bring together international academics, publicly costing people and policy experts in these communications areas, as well as supporting the elite, point to a parallel goal. These areas seem to be a “gemonic” place to produce and circulate Turkey as a “mymonic” information supporter in the “imperialism” and “anti-Western” resistance, along with attempts to mobilise diaspora communities. By doing this, the AK Party has subsided the systematicly anti-Islamophobia discourse as a legitimizing tool for its desires in foreign policy.
The term “Islamophobia” first appeared in the reports of the Grand National Assembly’s Human Rights Subcommittee in the late 2000s[1] The activity report of the subcommittee said, fearing the immigration law that entered into force in Germany in 2005, “Islamophhobic, xenophobic, xenophobic and racist tendencies affected political decision-makers.” Following the great massacre of right-wing extremist Breivik, who had anti-Muslim views in June 2011, the subcommittee decided to follow Islamophobia, “beside with xenophobia and racist attitudes in Europe and the United States,” which was followed by a new internal subcommission in 2016 to regularly investigate “Islamophobia in the West.”[3] The efforts in this direction were published in the Annual Islamophobia report published in 2015 by SETA in 2015 and published in the International recognitionthe contributions of the academicians of the master Islamophobia expert were accompanied. The annual report continues to be published with an international event attended by AK Party politicians on a regular basis.
In this context, as another proof of the centrality of Islamophobia discourse, Zafer Sırakaya, a member of an AK Party member born in Germany and one of the vice-presidents of the party’s Foreign Relations unit, said in his new year message in 2019, “European States are inadequate in evaluating the unfair treatment they face while using the humanitarian and individual rights of European Turks. Given the outsculation experienced by individuals of Islamic faith worldwide, the situation is even more terrifying. (..) In 2018, we (AK Party government) took important steps to combat populist concerns that feed xenophobia and discrimination as well as the anti-Islamic mentality, as we did in previous years. We will continue to strive for this.”[4]
In addition, this discourse on the fight against Islamophobia is not limited to criticizing Western countries, as it is also used in the plane of knowledge philosophy as a post-colonial, secularism and anti-Western salvation route. The book Islamophobia in Muslim Majority Societies, largely prepared by the Islamicphohobia study group of Islamophobia, is a very descriptive work on this subject. In the context of asking for the account of Islamophobia from Western imperialism in such societies, the book legitimizes its “herself-birth”, which suggests an accusation of legitimizing the “Western hegemony” that can be brought against any actor in the Muslim majority world that adopts “West knowledge”. Perhaps the intentional preference of such Islamophobia discourse poses the risk of regularly stigma-declared secular minorities, labeling “intrusion working for the interests of the West” by the pro-government press in Turkey.
IS TURKEY A MUSLIMAN?
The movement, networking and information production within the Diaspora community are important strategies aimed at realizing Turkey’s desire to position itself as a dominant actor within the international Islamic world. This is ironically a result of the interruption of the Arab Spring and the dissolution of Saudi Arabia’s partnership with Sunni Islamists for years in the act through the Muslim World Union (MWL) initiative. We are most likely at a critical intersection that points to a major conflict in the context of making Islam a tool for regional hegemony and transforming Muslim territories into areas of influence between Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the early 1960s and in the early 1980s.[5]
When the common position of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates helped the government of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) to be overthrown by a violent military coup in 2013, it was not only Saudi Arabia’s open transition to the counter-revolutionary front, but also the long-standing effective partnership with Islamists ended and thus left a gap behind it. Just as the Muslim Brotherhood’s migrations to Saudi Arabia in the early 1960s to escape the persecution in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood cadres of the generation after the Rabia Square massacre found a new shelter and alliance under Erdogan. As a matter of fact, like the regime change that allowed Ayatollah Khomeini to portray Iran as “the anti-imperialist force within the Muslim world” in 1979, Erdogan’s radical restructuring of the Turkish regime supported the appearance of the New Third World, recalling the reputation of Cemal Abdul Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s.
Although Turkey has been accepted to date, we claim that, with some exceptions, has a unique advantage, such as being able to play both cards as part of the rise of Islamic soft power: through the last caliphate seat, the Sunnis’ leadership card and the “anti-imperialism” discourse that wants to present Erdogan within the framework of “the leader of oppressed Muslims all over the world”… The regional sovereign war between Saudi Arabia-United Arab Emirates and Turkey-Qatar alliances may begin in multiple diaspora areas and a regional plane, and Turkey seems serious about eliminating Saudi Arabia as the new boss of Muslims worldwide who are members of the Muslim World Union.
WILL TEŞEBBUS SUCCESS?
In the increasingly idential world, Ankara’s diaspora policies have influenced Turkey’s greater attraction to both mass and elites, despite its ongoing democratic decay, with efforts to build a transnational Muslim universe and establish information production centers. UID-like lobby organizations, education and cultural institutions such as TMF and Yunus Emre Institute, think tanks such as SETA, communication initiatives such as TRT World, universities such as Ibn Haldun and Zaim and humanitarian organizations such as TIKA, make an intensive effort to present Turkey as a humanitarian actor who wants Muslims to be socially and politically included in the West through its activities and wants to be the protector of Muslims who are oppressed throughout the world.
We have not yet seen how the AKP government will regularly distort the “problem” of the AKP government in order to serve its own foreign policy ambitions, especially its claim to the sovereignty of the Islamic world, and to become the boss and protector of Muslims around the world. Adopting such “immerialism” and “anti-Western” narratives sumen the Turkish government’s own authoritarian and expanding claims and activities, treatment of ethnic and religious minorities in its own country, and the records of increased human rights violations. Moreover, it hides the heavy dependence of the Turkish economy on the West, especially European banks and companies.
Recently, Erdogan Turkey was offering a roadmap for countries with other Muslim majority by integrating Islam with democracy. The soft power he used later turned into an argument that focused on romantic soap operas. Now, while the character of Ertugrul in the series “Resurrection” summarizes the victorious war of Muslims against Christian hegemony for the rest of Muslims, Turkey “indiscibled into the league “insecuted countries and continued its constant decline in the rule of law in almost all criteria. If it proves that this claim is successful, it is unclear whether the AKP government will present an authoritarian model to the Muslim world, which is overshadowed by the courage of a controversial Muslim power against the “Christian sovereigns of the world”.