The Alarming Resurgence of Islam in Turkey
In 17 years of coming to Turkey for both work and pleasure and mainly to Istanbul I have witnessed Islam tightening its grip on the culture and the politics of this once easy-going country. Not for me the ‘boiling frog’ effect; visiting periodically, it is more like witnessing events in time-lapse.
My first experience of the Muslim call to prayer was on January 18th 1991 when I woke up on the first morning of my deployment with British Forces Middle East in Saudi Arabia to play my own insignificant role in the First Gulf War. Very much a feature of life in the Middle East, which I visit often, it was never a feature of life in Istanbul until recently.
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I visited Istanbul last year and on the Western side of the river and in tourist parts especially, the call to prayer was very loud and making a statement. On the Asian side of the river, very quiet in comparison.
I have visited Turkey a number if times and always liked both Istanbul and also bursa.
I’ve not been now for the best part of 20 years and it is sad to read of this descent unto the hideousness of islamification.
And as usual all for the political convenience of one man.
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Gotta distract the masses from this:
EDIT, seems impossible to attach images.
I’m still convinced that this is being done to us while our complacent (in this respect) elites focused on fighting a largely imaginary “far right” entertain the illusion that everything’s fine because they believe to be controlling it. The native population of Europe is shrinking and because of this and the fact that Europe is rich and fertile, other people are moving here, will eventually take over all of the continent and might even repopulate and -civilize the desolate wildernesses in Eastern middle Europe intentionally created after the last pan-european war in order to eliminate Germany as independent power.
One could obviously argue that we’re responsible for unavoidable side effects of our obsession with sex as universal replacement of anything which used to be considered meaningful in the past and that hence, we are really doing this to us. But people are absolutely great at ignoring second order effects they don’t want to deal with and hence, it’s not intentionally being done. Just a bunch of lemmings chasing over the ‘promised’ cliffs without realizing what they’re actually doing.
”Such a resurgence of spirituality”
If only? I remember some years ago having an interesting discussion about the difference between spirituality and religion, clearly being religious tends to be about adherence to a particular set of beliefs, rituals and practices and it can often become associated with power and control, spirituality is harder to define but tends to be about an open journey of seeking a higher meaning and finding connections without being bound to fixed doctrines
https://innercamp.com/biggest-differences-between-spirituality-and-religiosity/#:~:text=Religion%20is%20%E2%80%9Cformal%2C%20institutional%2C,instincts%20and%20follow%20your%20heart.
To my mind what is being discussed here is religion and religiosity, there may, of course, be very spiritual people within Islam but what is being cited here does to my mind, count as religion and religiosity. Does this link to power and control? I’ll let you be the judge of that one.
A secular society is like a house built on sand.
Sorry, Mr Dawkins, you overlooked a basic fact: man is a religious creature. It’s just a choice between bad religion or good religion.
And those of us who are not followers of any religion? Where does that leave us, in your opinion?
There are many things which people treat as infallible, e.g. “settled science”. They don’t call it religion but actions speak louder than words.
In my opinion (which you are of course free to disagree with) everybody is religious, one way or another.
In fact, Richard Dawkins is one one of the most religious people I have ever come across. All he can think about is God. Just not in a good way.
I’m definitely not religious, so we’ll have to agree to disagree on that.
I find the adverts for Turkish holidays hypocritical: they have white models cavorting around in bikinis while shackling their own women with religious garb to turn them into anonymous creatures of fecundity.
I’m really not convinced that it is spirituality. It comes across more as religious observance mixed with social momentum. Much like the West’s secular bandwagons such as BLM, gender activism or anti-Israel protest whose adherents have the same zeal as seen in spiritual movements.
I wonder if Istanbul was ever representative of rural Turkey. I went to a non-touristy part of Turkey on an educational cruise for girls in 1976. We visited some ancient ruins then gathered in the town square waiting for the coaches to take us back to the harbour. Then we noticed that all the men folk from the town had gathered and were encircling us. Then they started closing in and grabbing us. Thankfully the coaches turned up at last but we were groped whilst trying to get on the coaches. I was 16 and kicked anyone who touched me but some of the younger girls were really traumatised by the experience. White Christian girls so fair game – sadly that sounds all too familiar in parts of Britain now. I have never wanted to visit a Muslim country since then.
Does anyone imagine that Almighty God wants to look down and see all those Muslim backsides pointing up to Heaven? And bowing down to Hell?
Last year my wife and I had an interesting conversation with a delightful Turkish young man over a beer in a street side cafe. He looked a tad guilty as he sipped from a bottle of Efes beer (splendid stuff and I recommend it) but spoke willingly of the effect of Islamic influence on him and his immediate family. He was torn between the relief of secular everyday life where people could just be people and that of the stricter Islamic terms where less forgiving ways hold sway. I tried to encourage him into thinking that we are all individuals and responsible for ourselves and no-one else, but the drag of Islam was too much. I hope he does well in the coming years. Quite what this adds to the conversation I don’t know but maybe it conveys the steep of the mountains to be climbed.
The stat about the most popular baby name may be misleading, it may reflect differences in the number of common names to choose from, for different groups of people.
Turkey is traditionally an Islamic country and they have as much the right to strengthen and revive their historical and cultural heritage as we have to ours. Turkey is a nation in a similar sort of decline to much of Europe, with catastrophically low birth rates and and a lunatic woke left wing seeking to divide the nation and weaponize minorities by preaching a victim mindset and denigrating Turkey’s history and traditions. Erdogan is completely right to warn against these dangerous fools. Rather than view what is happening in Turkey as a threat, I would see it as a lesson, and advocate that what Turkey can do, Britain and France can do. Only with our own cultures of course.
Maybe one day a strong and patriotic Britain, a strong and patriotic France and a strong and patriotic Turkey can stand as allies against the forces of mayhem that would destroy us all.
I am sure that the patriotic Turks would be willing to do this. Erdogan has been very supportive of Victor Orban for example.
As a woman, I have always avoided travelling to Muslim countries but was obliged in 2012 to spend a week in Istanbul with my adult daughter. It was winter and we certainly weren’t wearing shorts but were obviously from Northern Europe and two women on their own, and so we were constantly harassed by Turkish men in the street – it was absolutely unbearable and that was 13 years ago. I dread to think what it would be like now. However, we have now imported this to London! Hence the Womens Safety Initiative. I am beyond furious that we are now no longer safe at home either and have imported this dangerous, backward misogyny to our previously civilised and safe society. How dare the criminals in charge of our borders leave us vulnerable like this. How bloody dare they!
Simple answer: yes, Britain is going the same way. Civil war is therefore coming. I doubt there will be many, or any, prisoners, so deep and visceral is our anger.
I haven’t been to Turkey for several years. It used to be a place of smiling happy people when first I was there, my last trip the people were very different – intense and unsmiling. and no longer the friendly secular society it once was. The country has been spoilt with the increase in Islamic worship.
It’s a Stone age religion
I know Turkey very well having lived in Istanbul back in the 70s and visited many times since and it has always been proud of its secular roots first put down by Ataturk in 1920s. But it’s mosques have always lived alongside that and the sound of the minarets blasting out the call to prayer is part of the contradiction of modern Turkey. It knows how to live with the contradiction of the two. As we are now destined to be an Islamic state within the next few decades, amply demonstrated by the abolition of the Blasphemy laws and the introduction of ones about Islamophobia, we will have to take a lead out of Turkey’s book and learn to do the same. Good luck grandkids!
I think it was Toby in the triggernometry interview who said that we have gone from ‘tolerating’ differences to having to ‘respect’ differences. And pandering to them by changing the rules of everyday society.
It stuck with me as this appears to be the fundamental principle where we go wrong.
Maybe a way back to a civilised society is to return to tolerating but accepting there is a certain way things are done within this country.
For balance, I visited the Blue Mosque in 1970 and had to take my shoes off then. I have also had to cover my legs in an orthodox Greek church.
However, the Islamic resurgence under Erdogan was entirely predictable and the shahada is as the author points out very accurately “essentially, a war cry against the infidels”.
Make no mistake, the Muslims are coming for us and enjoying themselves immensely in the process.
Freedom of academic critical analysis of all religions is crucial, and given this then there is a deep weakness in this faith. See eg Jay Smiith, Robert Spencer and Tom Holland in their separate studies of the Quranic texts and of the historical existence of Mohammed The evidence is that the Arab conquests came first, then a warrior prophet was proclaimed and a text to justify the conquests. There is virtually no historical evidence for his actual existence. But Tom Holland’s Ch 4 documentary on these origins was pulled after threats: debate is ignored, the sword is mightier than the pen for this tradition, but scholarship must be defended as an absolute necessity in the western world. The Bible was subjected to historical analysis after the Enlightenment as was the person of Jesus. Islam must undergo the same testing, and not resort to threats and suppression.