Turkish bias behind anti-China protests
By Zan Tao Source:Global Times Published: 2015-7-13 23:53:01
A series of protests against China in Turkey have captured the headlines of international media. They were partly triggered by false information that China has banned fasting for Ramadan in the Muslim-majority Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Late last week, the Thai consulate in Istanbul was vandalized by pro-Uyghur protesters as the Thai government announced it would repatriate over 100 illegal Uyghur migrants who wanted to steal their way to Turkey. Amid a spike of condemnations by some so-called human rights organizations, Turkey's reaction to the repatriation could be among the most violent.
Although far from Xinjiang, the Turks are related to the Uyghurs in many ways. Many Turks believe that they share strong cultural and religious connections with the Uyghurs, who also speak a Turkic language. For the last century, Turkey has been the major destination of Uyghur immigrants, whose descendents have constituted a massive community with a population of more than 100,000 according to the Turkish Interior Ministry.
The deep roots of pan-Turkism create the major drive for some Turks to pay such keen attention to the Uyghurs. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, as a successor, has gradually become regarded as a home to various Turkic-speaking peoples across the world. This trend has greatly enhanced Turkish concerns about their "siblings" around the globe.
There was no chance in modern history for the Turkic-speaking peoples to found a pan-Turkic empire, but after imposing influence for decades, pan-Turkism has taken a deep root among the Turkish people culturally and psychologically.
Therefore, what is happening to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is also treated as the Turks' business. In this way, the cultural concerns of pan-Turkism have been translated into political ones. After Turgut Özal came to power in Turkey in late 1980s, Turkey's politics started to transform from Kemalism, featuring meritocracy and statism, to post-Kemalism, including liberalism, pluralism and nationalism, by moderate Islamic political parties. This has given rise to both pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism.
Aside from pan-Turkism, the expansion of pan-Islamism has also contributed. The natural "brotherhood" among all Muslims has been developed into an ideology that is used by many pro-Muslim political entities to strengthen links among Muslim communities.
The AK Party formerly led by Recep Tayyp Erdogan in Turkey, which came to power in 2002 and had won three successive parliamentary elections since then, is deemed as a pro-Islamist party. The AK Party and its former charismatic leader Erdogan have frequently voiced their high-profile concerns over affairs in various Muslim areas of the globe.
Another major factor is that Turkey to some extent shares the same value system with the West. Turkey has been tirelessly embracing the Western Hemisphere in its process of modernization. However, Turkey faces a divided future.
On the one hand, it claims itself as a Western country by trying every means to find a way into the NATO and EU. On the other hand, it is not treated as "one of them" by European countries. For example, its application to accede to the EU has been in bad shape for decades. However, although not fully accepted as a Western country, Turkey is eager to share the same modern values and ideologies with the West in terms of freedom of religion, minority issues and human rights.
Pan-Turkism, pan-Islamism and West-oriented modernity are the three essential factors that have bred the recent protests in Turkey against China. Besides, the populist Erdogan, who has held power for more than a decade, has added fuel to the rise of nationalism.
The power of ideologies, reflected in public opinion, can easily run out of control. Once a prejudice is established among the public, governments will find it hard to be rectified. Likely, Uyghur issues may grow to be a big barrier in Sino-Turkish relations unless both sides take further measures as soon as possible.
The crux of Turkish bias is a lack of real knowledge about the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. People-to-people communication, a sphere to which we have not paid enough attention so far, must be given its due focus. A regular and constant communication mechanism on common concerns must be established between the two sides as an indispensable supplement to the official bilateral relationship between Turkey and China.
