THE RED SKINS EXPERIENCED GENOCIDE IN AMERICA BECAUSE THEIR ANCESTORS WERE TURKS

The first casualty of foreign policy-related wars is language. To quote the words of Thukydides, during the ideological conflict, words need to change their ordinary meaning and take the meaning given to them now.

A word that has been at the center of our foreign policy for more than a century is “colonialism”. Instead of defining a historical phenomenon -with all its complexity, mixture of good and evil, and contradictory motives found on every page of history- “colonialism” has now become an ideological artifact that functions as a vulgar nickname. As a result, our foreign policy decisions are distorted by self-hatred and guilt, which are eagerly exploited by our enemies.

The great scientist Robert Conquest, who studied Soviet terrorism, drew attention to this linguistic deterioration decades ago. Conquest wrote that historical terms such as ”imperialism“ and ”colonialism“ now mean ”a malevolent force with no program other than the subjugation and exploitation of innocent people". Therefore, these terms are verbal “mind blockers and thought extinguishers”, serving “mainly to confuse the complex and necessary process of understanding with the simple and unnecessary inflammatory process and, of course, replace it”. Especially in the Middle East, “colonialism” has been used to hide the real history that explains the chronic dysfunctions of the region and has legitimized policies that are doomed to failure because they are based on the distortion of this history.

The simple discrediting of colonialism and its evil twin imperialism came to the fore in the early twentieth century. in 1902, J.A. Hobson's influential Imperialism: A Study reduced colonialism to a malicious economic phenomenon, a tool of what Hobson called the “economic parasites” of capitalism, looking for resources, Sundays and profits abroad. in 1917, faced with the failure of classical Marxism's historical predictions of the proletarian revolution, Vladimir Lenin built on Hobson's ideas in Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1917. Now the indigenous colonial peoples would fulfill their historical role of destroying capitalism, which the European proletariat could not fulfill.

These ideas influenced the anti-colonial movements after the Second World War. John-Paul Sartre wrote in the preface to Franz Fanon's anti-colonialist book The Damned of the World: "Natives of underdeveloped countries, unite!“ To replace the ”workers of the world" of classical Marxism with the Third World. The leftist idealization of the colonial Third World and the demonization of the capitalist West survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and the discrediting of Marxism and gained wisdom in both academia and popular culture. As the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner wrote, the reflexive guilt of the West underscored the idea that “every Westerner will be considered guilty until proven innocent” because the West contains a “fundamental evil that must be paid atonement for”, colonialism and imperialism.

This leftist interpretation of words such as colonialism and imperialism transforms them into ideologically charged terms and ultimately distorts the tragic facts of history. They imply that the discoveries and conquests of Europe have created a new order of evil. In fact, the movements of peoples in search of resources and the destruction of those who have these resources are the constant dynamics of history.

Romans in Gaul, Arabs in the Mediterranean and South Asia, Huns in Eastern Europe, Mongols in China, Turks in the Middle East and the Balkans, Bantu in South Africa, Khmers in East Asia, Aztecs in Mexico, Iroquois in the Northeast or Sioux in the Great Plains, human history has been stained by man's constant use of brutal violence to acquire lands and resources and destroy or replace those who own them. Academics may find subtle nuances of evil in the European version of this ubiquitous aggression, but for the victims, such subtle discrimination is irrelevant.

However, this ideologically charged and historically challenged use of words such as ”colonialist“ and ”colonialist" remains widely present in analyses of the century-long confusion in the Middle East. Both Islamists and Arab nationalists, with the sympathy of the Western left, blamed the European ”colonizers” for the lack of development, political banditry and widespread violence, the roots of which are mainly based on tribal culture, illiberal sharia law and sectarian conflicts.

Moreover, it is a clear hypocrisy for Arab Muslims to complain about imperialism and colonialism. As Middle East historian Efraim Karsh documented in Islamic Imperialism, “The Arab conquerors acted in a typical imperialist manner from the very beginning, subjugating indigenous peoples, colonizing their lands and confiscating their wealth, resources and labor." In fact, if one wants to find a culture defined by imperialist ambitions, Islam fits this goal much better than Europeans and Americans, who later joined the great game of imperial domination that Muslims have been successfully playing for a thousand years.

Karsh writes: "From the first Arab-Islamic empire in the middle of the seventh century to the Ottomans, the last great Muslim empire, the story of Islam has been the story of the rise and fall of universal empires, and it is no less important than that.” , of imperialist dreams.”

It is possible to see a current example of this confusion caused by careless language in comments on the ongoing disintegration of Iraq due to sectarian and ethnic conflicts. There is a growing consensus that the creation of new nations in the region after the First World War sowed the seeds of the current disorder. Decrying these ethnic and sectarian differences, the British created the Iraqi nation from three Ottoman provinces, roughly concentrating Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites in individual provinces.

There is a lot to be learned from this history, but even intelligent commentators overshadow this value with misleading words such as “colonialist”. For example, Wall Street Journal writer Jaroslav Trofimov, who recently wrote about the creation of Middle Eastern nations, described France and Britain as “colonial powers”. Similarly, Charles Krauthammer, a columnist on the same topic, had used the phrase “colonial borders”. In both cases, the adjectives are historically misleading.

Of course, France and England were “colonial powers”, but their colonies were not in the Middle East. The region has remained under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for centuries. Therefore, Western “colonialism” was not responsible for the dysfunctions in the region. On the contrary, the incompetent policies and imperialist fantasies of the Ottoman leadership in the century before the First World War culminated in the disastrous decision to enter the war on the side of Germany and bore much of the responsibility for the chaos that followed the war. The defeat of the Central Powers.

Another important factor was the questionable desires of the British to create an Arab national homeland on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire and satisfy the imperial claims of their allies, the Hashemite clan. He had been important in the fight against the Turks during the war.

Obviously, the European powers wanted to influence these new nations to protect their geopolitical and economic interests, but they had no desire to colonize them. Idealists may condemn this intervention or see it as an injustice, but it is not “colonialism” properly understood.

Krauthammer's use of “colonial borders” to describe the nations in the region does not get any more accurate than this. Like all combatants in a great struggle, the British and French, anticipating the defeat of the Allied States, began planning settlement in the region in 1916, with a meeting that gave birth to the Sykes-Picot agreement that year. But there is nothing exceptional or inappropriate about this. In February 1945, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met in Yalta to negotiate spheres of influence in Germany and Eastern Europe after the war Dec. It would have been strange if the Entente powers had not laid out their plans for the territory of the defeated enemy.

Thus, as part of the peace Decrees and conferences concluded after the First World War, the French and British were granted “mandates” over the former Ottoman territories remaining between Egypt and Turkey, under the authority of the negotiated agreements and under the supervision of the League of Nations. . in 1924, the purpose of the mandate administration was to implement the 22nd Amendment of the League of Nations Convention. The article explained as follows: "Some communities that formerly belonged to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be temporarily recognized. Administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they can stand on their own. The wishes of these communities should be the main consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.”

Thus, the nations created on the former Ottoman territories were approved by international law as the legitimate prerogative of the victorious Entente powers. There was nothing “colonial” about the borders of the new nations.