Update: KGS has kindly created an animated GIF of President Erdogan morphing into the Demon Führer of the Neo-Otttomans. The file is quite large, I’ve placed the image below the jump, to spare the bandwidth-impaired (including, of course, Schloss Bodissey).

The recent conflicts between Turkish government ministers and various European countries have been generated deliberately by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Mr. Erdoğan desperately needs the votes of Turkish citizens abroad if he wants to have any hope of winning next month’s referendum on the expansion of his presidential powers. By demanding that his ministers be allowed to campaign on his behalf for a “yes” vote, Mr. Erdoğan has caused outrage in Europe, and not just in the EU — Switzerland has been a target, in addition to Austria, the Netherlands, and Germany.

Turkish Gastarbeiter and their descendants in Germany comprise the most significant bloc of Turkish voters outside Turkey, so the greatest push has been to court the “yes” vote within Germany. The Germans showed less spine than the Dutch, and allowed Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu into the country to speak to Turkish-German voters.

The Germans did impose restrictions on Mr. Çavuşoğlu, however, putting up enough resistance to incur his anger, and the anger of his esteemed Führer, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The two videos below (translation by Egri Nök, subtitling by Vlad Tepes) bookend the controversy nicely. First, a brief overview of President Erdoğan’s reaction:

The second video shows Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu’s speech in Germany. Mr. Çavuşoğlu displays a deft combination of threats and self-pity, and somehow manages to seem menacing and whiny at the same time:

Egri Nök has also translated several articles and written explanatory material to help readers understand the background of the crisis in German-Turkish relations. Her summary on the case of Deniz Yücel, a Turkish-German journalist imprisoned last month by the Erdoğan regime, is particularly useful for illuminating the bizarre relationship between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Neo-Ottoman Empire.

First, from Focus.de:

After Nazi accusations: The more nervous he is, the more he lashes out: That is why Erdoğan risks everything

March 3, 2017

Fronts are hardened between Germany and Turkey: Last week, several German cities forbade rallies by Turkish Ministers. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accuses the Federal Republic of “Nazi-methods” and announces: “If I want, I will come to Germany”. If someone tried to prevent him, he would start an uprising.

The Federal government is shocked by Erdoğan’s verbal attack. They reject the Nazi comparison as “absurd and out of place”. Also because it would only downplay the crimes against humanity by the National Socialists.

The relations between the two countries have reached a new low with this. Erdoğan seems to have stopped caring about what Berlin thinks of him a long time ago. But his Nazi comparison crosses a red line — he risks damaging the relationship irrevocably.

Why does he do this? The answer lies in the Turkish interior policies. Erdoğan is under heavy pressure — and the more nervous he becomes, the more he lashes out.

The background:

For months, Erdoğan has been preparing for a change in the Turkish constitutions. It will massively increase the president’s powers. Among others, the changes planned are:

• The office of the prime minister will be abolished and the president will have full power.
• The president can keep his party membership and install ministers and judges himself.
• The state of emergency that has been declared since the failed coup will become a permanent state; the president can rule by decree.
• The power of the parliament will be severely curtailed.

The parliament, which is dominated by AKP, has already agreed. But now the citizens must agree in a referendum.

Erdoğan is worried that the people will not give their consent to the change of the constitution — which would endanger his plan for his extension of his power, and weaken his position.

58 percent against it

According to a poll from January by the Akam polling institute, almost 58 percent of the Turks reject the planned presidential system. Only 42 percent would vote “yes”. Even among followers of the governing party AKP the reform is controversial.

So Erdoğan is doing everything to prevent a defeat at the referendum on April 16. He even tries to extinguish the word “No” from domestic public use — so that the Turks won’t get any ideas. For example, he had flyers by the ministry of health redacted which had asked the citizens to say Hayir, “no”, to smoking.

But the president is not only counting on Turks in his own country — he hopes for voters abroad. Germany plays a particularly important role. There are about 3.5 million people with Turkish roots living here; approximately 1.4 million of them are entitled to vote in the referendum on the constitution in Turkey.

With both sides being in a head-to-head race in polls, their voices could tip the needle. This is reason enough for the Turkish president to send government officials to campaign in Germany.

The Turkish president is furious that German authorities have now upset his plans. He is furious. But at the same time, the confrontation gives him an advantage: Erdoğan can now present himself as the victim of the supposed despotism of Germany, and can gain votes with his verbal attacks. Both in Turkey as well as in Germany, many are impressed by Erdoğan’s hard line against the federal government.

“Erdoğan wants to impress them with his aggressive rhetoric”

The integration minister of the Christian Democratic Union, Cemile Giousouf, told Focus online: “The upcoming constitutional referendum is responsible for the current escalation […] The German-Turks hold the balance, and Erdoğan wants to impress them with his aggressive rhetoric.”

He accepts that it will annoy the federal government permanently and narrow the diplomatic scope between the two countries. There is much at stake for Erdoğan. He has been trying for years to remodel Turkey after his own ideas. He has tried to establish a presidential system in the past.

His plan might fail a second time

At the election in 2015, his AKP missed the three-quarter majority that would have been necessary in parliament. After the failed coup in July last year, Erdoğan saw his chance and used the events to massively restrict freedom of opinion in the country and to proceed against the opposition.

If he fails again, Erdoğan will probably have to say farewell to his dreams of a presidential system. At least if he wants to use even remotely democratic means. A defeat would not sit well with his image as the strong man at the Bosphorus — and could be the beginning of his end. A situation like this makes a politician such as Erdoğan only more unpredictable.

The next article is from the Hamburger Abendblatt:

Çavuşoğlu appearance: These gestures alarm the Office for the Protection of the Constitution

By Christoph Heinemann, Michael Arning and Jens Meyer-Wellmann
March 8, 2017

Authorities and politicians interpret the hand gesture during the speech of the Turkish Foreign Minister as “Wolf Greeting” of the right-extremist “Grey Wolves”.

Hamburg. The scene occurred when the official part of the appearance was coming to an end. Turkish Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu was still bathing in the cheers of his followers at the consulate residency at the Uhlenhorst [street] — and, just like several of his attendants, suddenly formed his fingers into a gesture, waved it in the air and displayed it to the audience.

For the Hamburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution, for SPD, Greens, CDU and Left several photos of the Abendblatt show the “Wolves’ Greeting” — the greeting of the right extremist nationalist Turkish group “Grey Wolves”, who call themselves “Idealists”.

Çavuşoğlu’s gesture a “worrying reference”

Çavuşoğlu’s gesture was without doubt the Wolves’ greeting, says Marco Haase, speaker of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, to the Abendblatt. But it remains debatable whether it means that Çavuşoğlu himself was committing himself to the right-extreme supporters. In any case, the incident was a “worrying reference”, said the speaker of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

According to the security authorities, the right-extreme group is potentially dangerous and is being observed: The “Grey Wolves” desire a great-Turkish Islamic empire from the Balkans to central Asia. There have been repeated reports of notable anti-Semitism, racism, and the readiness to use violence against Kurds.

A brief summary by Egri Nök of the case of Deniz Yücel:

Deniz Yücel is a Turkish-German journalist with dual nationality, currently imprisoned in Turkey. The German government and journalists are protesting his detainment. Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel called Yücel “a German patriot with Turkish roots” on the public TV news Tagesschau on March 7^[1].

Not all Germans give such unconditional support to Yücel, however.

Wikipedia states that Yücel is “best known for his work for die tageszeitung (taz) and Die Welt”^[2], and indeed:

Yücel is best known for a vitriolic text in taz, where he expressed his joy at the low birth rates of Germans, arguing that it is beneficial if Germans die out, as their only contribution to human civilization was “giving evil a face and a name”, and in closing, he did not care for what became of Germany, “Everything is better than Germany”^[3].

Yücel also earned fame when he declared his wish for the author Thilo Sarrazin, who is critical of Islam and migration, “that his next stroke will thoroughly destroy his work”^[4], alluding to Sarrazin’s unilateral facial paralysis.

Der Spiegel argues that the somewhat meek support of the German public for Yücel now is a result of the Germans’ racism^[5].

Below is the translation of Yücel’s text:

Amazing, Germany abolishes itself!

BERLIN taz | Finally! Great! Amazing! It was only a rumour last year, but now it is scientifically (with numbers and data) and officially (with stamp and seal) proven: Germany abolishes itself!

Only 16.5 percent of the 81 million Germans, the Federal Statistical Office has established, are under 18 years of age; nowhere else in Europe is the percentage of minors that low. There are only 8.3 births per 1,000 inhabitants — this, too, being the lowest rate in Europe.

Particularly pleasing: the immigrants who have artificially kept the birth rates high for years, no longer resist integration and contribute their, although expandable, share to the Deutschensterben (dying of the Germans).

National sports: Moaning and foreigner-smacking

Even more pleasing: the east Germans abolish themselves first. While in the west, the share of minors fell by ten percent over the last ten years, it fell 29 percent in the east. Sandy, Mandy and Jacqueline flout the new Cross of Honour of the German Mother (“parental benefit”) and contribute their share that in the foreseeable future, the east German national sports of moaning, victim-playing and foreigner-smacking will run out of recruits.

What Sir Arthur Harris, Henry Morgenthau and Ilja Ehrenburg failed to do, what George Grosz, Marlene Dietrich and Hans Krankl dreamt of, the Germans now do themselves, which is why we can trust that it will really happen. It was never German to be half-hearted (“total war”, “whole grain bread”); the whole world somewhat admires, but fears even more, Germans for their thoroughness.

Admittedly, quite a few people have left the stages of world history without the violent interference of others: The Etruscans became Roman citizens, the Hittites blended into the Anatolian ethnic mixture, the Scythians disappeared into the vast steppes.

A nation that stands out by its bad temper

The imminent exit of the Germans is extinction of a people from its most beautiful side. A nation whose greatest contribution to the history of the civilization of mankind is giving evil a name and a face, and, as Wolfgang Pohrt once wrote, to have made war the administrator and executor of humanity; a nation that has always stood out for its unlimited self-pity, pungent fault-finding and eternal bad temper; a nation that has got dozens of expressions for the word “complain”, but has to borrow the expressions of other people for everything erotic, because their own language only has uptight, coarse or clinical vocabulary; this joyless nation can gladly pass away.

Speaking of language: the list of German words which cannot, or only with a significant loss of meaning, be translated into other languages, illustrates what the world would lose with the passing-away of the Germans: Blitzkrieg, Ding an sich, Feierabend, Gemütlichkeit, Gummibärchen, Hausmeister, Heimweh, Kindergarten, Kitsch, Kulturkampf, Lebensabschnittsgefährte, Nachhaltigkeit, Nestbeschmutzer, Ordnungsamt, Querdenker, Realpolitik, Schlager, Spaßvogel, Tiefsinn, Torschlusspanik, Vergangenheitsbewältigung, Volksgemeinschaft, Weltanschauung, Wirtschaftswunder, Zwieback.

Which person of reason, style, and humour would be sad if these words and the attitudes behind them perished? See.

More tenderness for the shepherd dog than for the language

The preservation of the German language, by the way, is not an argument for keeping the German population alive. Germans and German are like astronomy and astrology. Or, even better: like lamb and slaughter. “A German feels more tenderness for his shepherd dog and his living room cabinet than for his language”, Thomas Blum remarked once. In the interest of the German language, the Germans can’t get lost fast enough.

Now, that the end of Germany is confirmed, the question remains what to do with the space without people that will develop in the middle of Europe: share between Poland and France? Split and sell on eBay? Hand out to Palestinians, people from Tuvalu and Kabylie, and others in need? Let it overgrow into a recreational park? Or turn it into a turnip field?

It doesn’t matter. Everything is better than Germany.

Source

1.		Twitter
2.		Wikipedia
3.		Die Tageszeitung
4.		Web Archive
5.		Der Spiegel

Transcript video 1:

Transcript video 2: