In Human Events today I discuss one of the world's most skillful practitioners of the stealth jihad: Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan (news links in the original):
Anyone opposed to the global jihad should be watching recent developments in Turkey very closely -- not just for what they reveal about the direction in which that country is headed, but so as to understand nothing less than the new direction of the jihad movement.Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, along with President Abdullah Gul and their ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), have been moving for quite some time to dismantle Turkish secularism and transform Turkey into a state governed by Islamic law. But as Prime Minister, Erdogan has not engaged in a direct assault on Turkish secularism. Instead, he and the AKP have steadily chipped away at it, reintroducing provisions of Islamic law piece by piece, while professing to uphold the country’s secular character.
In 2004 Erdogan took steps to criminalize adultery, and late in 2005 the AKP banned alcoholic beverages in government cafes and restaurants in Ankara. In May 2008 a new law came into effect that effectively outlawed sale of alcohol by the glass in bars and restaurants.In the 1990s, as mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan was forthright about this goal, expressing his opposition to secularism in no uncertain terms: “You cannot be both secular and a Muslim! You will either be a Muslim, or secular!...It is not possible for a person who says ‘I am a Muslim’ to go on and say ‘I am secular too.’ And why is that? Because Allah, the creator of the Muslim, has absolute power and rule!”
Saying that Allah has “absolute power and rule” is a fundamentally political statement. And from its inception Islam has been a political and social system, not just a religious faith in the way most Westerners conceive of religion. The establishment of Islamic law as the only legitimate system of government is a goal that Erdogan shares with Osama bin Laden and other jihadists around the world; they only differ regarding the best means to go about this.
While Al-Qaeda and other jihad groups have focused on violent attacks on Western targets, Erdogan has shown himself a master of the stealth jihad: the slow, steady, step-by-step encroachment upon secular societal norms, continuing until Islamic law is fully in place.
This effort is proceeding, too, in the West. As a Muslim Brotherhood operative, Mohamed Akram, put it in 1991 memorandum outlining the organization’s strategy in the United States: “The Muslim Brotherhood must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” Akram explained that this sabotaging of Western civilization would take place not through terror attacks, but by numerous non-violent initiatives carried out by a variety of Islamic organizations. With the public geared to be on guard only against terror attacks, these efforts would slip by unnoticed.
And so they have in Turkey -- at least up until last week. In line with its small-step, indirect approach, for years now the government has been trying to overturn the law banning the Islamic headscarf in Turkish universities. But on Thursday the Turkish Constitutional Court, the nation’s highest court, overturned a new AKP-backed law allowing the headscarf in universities, saying it contravened the Constitutional tenets providing for Turkish secularism. With the possibility looming that the Constitutional Court could even ban the AKP itself, on the grounds that it posed a threat to Turkey’s Constitutional order, Erdogan canceled a trip to Switzerland and returned to Ankara, where he and his top aides met in an emergency strategy meeting on Friday. If the party is outlawed, Erdogan and Gul could be barred from holding political office.
The Turkish courts and military have intervened to save Turkish secularism before. They may now, and soon again. If Erdogan were to be down, he would not be out, and analysts would be well-advised to study his stealth jihad in Turkey: there are groups in Western Europe and the U.S. that are pursuing exactly the same kind of small-scale, step-by-step approach that the AKP has followed with so much success until last week.
With story after story appearing documenting the disarray and decay of Al-Qaeda, the stealth jihad could be the wave of the future around the world. And its guiding light, however his personal political fortunes may shift, will be Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
inch by inch Islamic jihad...no doubt.
President Bush has said that Turkey MUST be allowed to join the European Union. WHY?
It is my understanding that 70% of the Turkish military receive their early education in Islamic schools (Before entering the military).
How long before the military is no longer the protector of secularism.
I find it very discouraging that there always seems to be a trend towards more Islamic religious law and more Muslims. It's demography and that old time religion. Islam has a lot of appeal for ordinary people: power and primitive morality.
my liberal sister and sister in law and her daugher just came back from a trip to Turkey, went on a tour.. and came back with how beautiful blal blah.. and that their tour guide told them the vast majority of the Turks are secular, blah blah.. she even bought some Christian souvenirs.. the taqia, double talk she got from her tour guide was sickening. l told her to ask them about what happended to the non muslims in their country.. like
Aremenians, of course she did not ask. so the Turks are really promoting their country to Western eyes, the stupid ones as a progressive country... what deciet!
Islam has a lot of appeal for ordinary people: power and primitive morality.
Posted by: jewdog at June 11, 2008 7:06 AM
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"Primitive" is right -- "You do what'a we say, or we cut off'a you head!"
"my liberal sister and sister in law and her daugher just came back from a trip to Turkey, went on a tour.. and came back with how beautiful blal blah" --zena
I almost went to Turkey while on a European trip. But I wound up not going there. I'm sure the country is beautiful - it's the religion that's the problem.
Did your relatives mention having to hear the "call to prayer" 5 times a day?
Turkey: on the fast-track to becoming the next Islamic cesspool.
Two remarks. (maybe their combination make you wonder about my own point of view).
First.
Last month Ansamed had this horrifying item:
"TURKEY: PRESS, ISLAM ATTACKS WOMEN THROUGH BOOKS
(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, MAY 20 - "Women not veiled are prostitutes" and "Taking off the veil is responding to the call of Satan" are the titles of two books by famous Islamic authors who are very popular these days in Turkey where they have been sold at the price of 1.0 lira (less than a dollar), in order to guarantee their better distribution. The denouncement comes from the website of the newspaper 'Cumhuriyet' (Republic, pro Ataturk and leftist) which claims that while Turkey is suffering a deep political crisis due to the accusations against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP, pro Islamic) which is threatened with closure for alleged "anti secular activities", Turkish Islamic intellectuals are undisturbed in their propaganda against Turkish women who refuse to wear a veil. "The books written about the 'turban' (the typical Islamic headscarf) are a proof for the reactionary threat," the newspaper wrote, citing, among others, the book 'Invitation To Wear a Veil' by the retired mufti Mehmet Goktas, according to which "the girls that refuse to wear veils respond to the call of Satan". (ANSAmed)."
I try to get more information on those books mentioned in the first lines but surely the books only come with turkish titles so I can't find them. Ansamed does not react to my questions. Anyone here with enough knowledge of the turkish language to shed some more light on this?
Second (@ZenaWarriorPrincess mostly)
About secular Turkey. Sure as hell there are secular Turks and truly moderate muhammedans. Last year they marched against the AKP by the hundreds of thousands. Not the majority but a very important group. Please never forget the first victims of the jihadists: thinking people in the countries with muhammedan majority.
And of course in the efforts to reach for more tourists there is taqqiya and good sense of commercial opportunities but on the other hand the secular Turks can be found in bigger mumbers in the tourist areas.
"You cannot be both secular and a Muslim!"
Where is the stealth? He does it out in the open. There is nothing clandestine or furtive in Erdogan or in his policies, at any level. Maybe it's a slow jihad but there's nothing stealthy about it.
That's one heck of an "Invitation to Wear The Veil." I think I'll use that approach next time I invite my neighbors to a backyard barbecue: "Those who refuse to bring the appropriate hotdish respond to the call of Satan."
Whis is strange is that the secularists may be forced to abandon their Islamophobic laws in favor of 'religious tolerance' as a condition to get into the E.U.
Gradualism...hegemony slow but sure...it always works until something blocks it's path...
Sometimes it crushes everything that tries to block its path. It then has an even larger opening.
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=105587
Alcohol for foreigners but not for locals, even if the 'local' is local to Germany but of Turkish background.
A MOVIE,ROUNDLY DEMONIZED BY THE CAIR's OF THIS WORLD,"THE SIEGE"(1998),STARRING DEZELWASHINGTON,ANNETTE BENNING ,AND TONY SHALOUB , DEALT WITH JIHADIST TERRORISM IN AMERICA,IN NEW YORK CITY, PRE-9/11; THE ANNETTE BENNING CHARACTER MADE A STATEMENT THAT IS THE TRUEST OF TRUTHS,--"THE MOST COMMITTED WIN".
THE CHARACTER SHE PLAYS IS AN INTELLIGENCE OFFICER WITH VAST MIDDLE EAST EXPERIENCE AND ITS OBVIOUS THAT THE STATEMENT IS TRUTHFUL AND NOT A SCREEN WRITER'S IMAGINATION, BECAUSE THAT IS THE TRUE NATURE OF THE JIHADIST AGGRESSIVE WAR ON US AND THE WEST!
TURKEY AND IRAN ,AS EITHER COMPETING OR ALLIED ISLAMIST POWERS, IS A TERRIBLE DANGER TO WORLD PEACE.ADD SYRIA, LEBANON AND ALL OF IRAN'S PUPPET TERRORIST GROUPS SUCH AS HIZBOLLAH ,HAMAS,AND OTHERS, IRAN'S INVOLVEMENT IN IRAQ AND ELSEWHERE , AND THE ABSOLUTE CLARITY OF "THE MOST COMMITTED WINS" BECOMES THE ISSUE.THE ONLY ANSWER TO JIHAD AGAINST US IS "COUNTER-JIHAD"!
I take it that Erdogan knows how carefully he must step. The legacy of Kemal Ataturk is still prized in Turkey, and as I understand it the army there considers itself to be the guardian of that legacy. Turkey has much recent experience of how far the army will go in situations where national security is thought to be at stake. In this case the stealth jihad has to be very stealthy.
Perhaps there is nothing very surprising about Turkey slipping from its modern attempt at secularism. It's not as if the idea was a home grown Turkish one, not exactly a natural development of Turkish, or any other Muslim, culture. Think of the long, hard road that Europe had to travel to become secular. Apart from influences from outside, no Muslim country has even set foot on that road.
Did your relatives mention having to hear the "call to prayer" 5 times a day?
Posted by: darcy
thats a good question to ask her.. l know her children and husband along with myself were against her going to Turkey, she wasjust going about how beautiful the hotels were, and when downtown, observed people drunk and drinking like other European cities. l think the tour led them away from the sounds and sites of muslilm calls and headscarfed women, ie countryside. l told her thats no way to see a country, as when l went to Europe it was sans tans, and went to restauransts and bars, pubs where the locals went,which is a much better way to understand the country.
Perhaps it's time to recall an article from the Australian political journal, Quadrant, that was published in December 2007
http://quadrant.org.au/php/article_view.php?article_id=3715
and posted and extensively discussed here on jihadwatch on 1 January 2008
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/019405.php#comments
Its title? - 'Islam's Trojan Horse: Turkish Nationalism and the Nakshibendi Sufi Order'. Author: Paul Stenhouse. It focused particularly on an enigmatic character named Fethullah Gulen whose name is being given to an Islamic Studies Centre in the Australian Catholic University.
BTW - Irfan Yusuf, whose piece of spin in 'The Australian' (in which he tried some 'well poisoning' about Mr Spencer and jihadwatch) was posted here very recently, gets a mention in it.
Everyone here should perhaps re-read the article, and the ensuing comments as well.
Mr Spencer - is this material going to star in 'Stealth Jihad'?
For greater clarity, the penultimate sentence of my post above should read 'Everyone here should perhaps re-read Stenhouse's article, and the ensuing comments on jihadwatch, as well.'
In my opinion, Sencit, the reason Bush says Turkey should be allowed into the EU is to win points with Turkey, to try to win their cooperation. He knows most Europeans oppose their admission, with good reason. It's another example of "the religion of peace" syndrome. Lots of BS from the people who should be leading the world discussion. Instead of leading they think they are smart by "managing" the problem posed by international jihad. They actually come off as weak and hypocritical. The real question for me is why do we act so weak when we're not? Is it some kind of blackmail we don't even know about? Or is the oil weapon enough?
EU don't want the Turkish people in, because of their religeon, not admiting the genocide of the Armenions.
Their way of living, not speaking the language, but with a lot of people of other countries they the same problems.
The way Islam is spreading in Europe, I wonder what is going to be next.
I lived in Turkey for 2 years. 1976-1978.
You could not buy alcohol or cigarettes. Everything was bought under the table. They would ask for Marlboro, Johnny Walker Black or Red label. Also Playboy magazines and other in that genry. In restaurants and nightclubs you could buy it. Beer would be serven in your hotel room too.
Did not see girls wearing headscarfs, they were wearing an uniform, same color for boys and girls, blue pants or skirts and white blouses.
The lady who cleaned my house was wearing a scarf all the time, as soon she was in the house, she removed it. In the apartment coplex I lived in, the women were not wearing a scarf.
Yes, to call to prayer you could hear that, after a while you get used to that. The lower class women would wear the scarf, pants under their dresses and a cardigan to hide their arms. All of that even in very hot weather.
Like the nightclub blearing their music from 11 o' clock in the evening till 4 in the morning.
“I take it that Erdogan knows how carefully he must step. The legacy of Kemal Ataturk is still prized in Turkey, and as I understand it the army there considers itself to be the guardian of that legacy. Turkey has much recent experience of how far the army will go in situations where national security is thought to be at stake. In this case the stealth jihad has to be very stealthy.”
Posted by: Novalis
Just what do they teach the “Turkish Officer Corp” to keep them on track? What keeps them fighting Islam, year after year, willing to shed blood and depose governments to keep Islam at bay?
It seems we know NOTHING of this group, the one that is truly on the front line of the “War Against Islam”. They have been at this far longer than most of us and probably know the enemy far better than we do – why do we not know these people, why are they not our allies?
I have asked this question before – and will continue to ask it.
Anyone here have any answers – thoughts?
The craziest thing is that the EU wants to WEAKEN the conrol of the military over Turkey. So if Turkey does joint the EU it will inevitably become an Islamic state.