Shaping the new Syria: The role of Neo-Ottomanism
Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has sought to promote the uniqueness of Turkish identity, its exceptionalism and the highs and lows of the Ottoman era, helping him rally nationalist support. Historically, Ottomanism emerged in the 19th century through the Tanzimat reforms, which aimed to create a tolerant, multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire. Later, Kemalist Republicans tried to build a new form of Turkish identity, devoid of religion and distant from Ottomanism.
After the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), interest in the Ottoman era grew significantly, although it had already begun during the presidency of Turgut Özal (1989–1993). The AKP sought to balance the Kemalist westernized identity with a broader Ottoman historical identity, reminding the Turkish public that their nation once ruled areas in the Balkans, Middle East and North Africa. Neo-Ottomanism, therefore, is an idea that affects the Middle East, Balkans and Caucasus, where Turkish or Turkic groups live.
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The remaining Armenians who have endured 13 years of civil war and are still stuck in Syria, need to flee that country ASAP. The vast majority of the Armenians fled that country for good, either to the West or to Armenia, when the Syrian Civil War started in 2011. Once Assad was deposed and the Sunni Islamists came to power, the persecutions and massacres of Alawite Muslims (the liberal sect to which the Assads belong to), Christians (including Armenians) and Druze by the Sunni Islamists, started immediately and still occurs on-and-off. There is no future for Armenians, Christians, Alawites, Druze, secularists and democrats, in a Syria run by Islamists and which is effectively a puppet state of Turkey. And in this highly problematic country (and region), another bloody and devastating civil war is always a possibility.
Why are Armenian authors using the name “Türkiye” for Turkey in Armenian Weekly articles? This name change was imposed by Turkish dictator Erdogan in 2021, who insists that the “international community” uses the Turkish name for the country in international communiqués and that the foreign media uses it too. This name change is purely an ideological propagandistic motive by Erdogan, and foreigners, and annoyingly even Armenians are using it in Armenian communiqués and in Armenian media. The ideological aspect of the usage of the Turkish name is obvious, and one can even easily guess in Turkey, who is an Erdogan supporter and who is not, because Erdogan supporters always use “Türkiye” in other languages, whereas Erdogan opponents definitely do not. Armenians should also not use the Turkish name for Turkey, for this reason.
Erdogan, the supreme ruler of Turkey, made his plans to rebuild the glory days of The Ottoman Empire very clear, on 10 February 10, during a ceremony marking the centenary of the death of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II held at The Yildiz Palace in Istanbul.
Sultan Erdogan proudly declared:“The Republic of Turkey, just like our previous states that are a continuation of one another, is also a continuation of the Ottomans…Of course, the borders have changed. Forms of government have changed… But the essence is the same, soul is the same, even many institutions are the same.”
Sultan Erdogan continued his diatribe against “bigoted” secular Western democracies, that often referred to Abdulahamid II as “The Red Sultan”, by insisting that Abdulhamid II, who slaughtered more than 200.000 Armenians (Hamidian Massacres), was one of the “…most important, most visionary and most strategic minded” ruler that left indelible marks on the political landscape of Turkey for the last 150 years.
Sultan Erdogan concluded his speech by adding the following statement: “Some people insistently try to start this country’s history from 1923. Some unrelentingly try to break us from our roots and ancient values…We take pride in our history without making discrimination.”
The centenary celebrations of 2018 made it very clear that Sultan Erdogan was determined to emulate the greatness of “The Red Sultan”. If Abdulhamid believed that, the best method to solve “The Minorities Problem” within his empire was total extermination of all minorities, Sultan Erdogan was ready to annihilate the minorities such as the Kurds, currently backstabbing Turkey the way Armenians did during the reign of Abdulhamid II.
If Abdulhamid II pilfered the wealth of The Ottoman Bank by building extravagant palaces that reflected the glory of his regime, Sultan Erdogan without any qualms sent the Turkish economy on a downhill trip to complete the construction, on the outskirts of Ankara, of a “a new presidential palace complex, with 1,100 rooms and an official price tag of $615 million — although critics suggest both figures are probably higher.” Sultan Erdogan’s humble “shopaholic” wife Emine Erdogan is well known in many European capitals for single purchases of luxury goods ranging from $20.000 to $50.000 per purchase.
If The Red Sultan was silencing the opponents of his regime by imposing long prison sentences and building a large network of corrupt spies and minions, Sultan Erdogan adopted the same blue print in dealing with those who refused to echoe his own vain views of his own achievements. Full of adoration for Abdulhamid II, Sultan Erdogan “… crafted a novel and potent ideology made up of elements of Islamism, nationalism, unswerving loyalty to a one-man cult and state-sanctioned corruption.”
Sultan Erdogan also assigned a critical importance to Islamism and nationalism in laying the foundations of his foreign policy in The Middle East in general and The Caucasus in particular. In many countries such as Syria and Lebanon, his plan of acquiring new markets protected by a Turkish military presence, or the threat of a military intervention was very simple.
https://artsakhtheinadequateresponse.blogspot.com/2021/08/sultan-erdogan-pm-pashinyan-and-forging.html
In 2024, Turkey’s Ministry of National Education has unveiled significant changes to its history curriculum, replacing the phrase “Central Asia” with “Turkestan.” Many scholars and academics argued that the move is designed to instill in the Turkish population a new spirit of nationalism shaped and coloured by a desire to revive the glory days of The Ottoman Empire, when Ottoman Sultans dominated Turkestan until Russian Tzars occupied the region and reversed the name to “Central Asia.”
Ironically, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, is obsessively pursuing a plan to “Normalize” relations with Turkey, and on several occasions shook the hands of his mentor Sultan Erdogan, a Neo-Ottoman ruler determined to turn Armenia into the newest Villayet of Turkey named Ermenistan.