Written on 19 March 2016.

Nach dem Untergang des Morsi-Regimes in Ägypten verlagerte sich das Zentrum der Bestrebungen der Moslem-Bruderschaft, den Nahen Osten zu beherrschen, nach Ankara.

Es ist eine überflüssige Frage, ob Regierungschef Davutoglu und der Präsident Erdogan formell Mitglieder der Bruderschaft sind oder nicht. In jedem Fall sind sie Islamisten, die sich emsig bemühen, den Herrschaftsanspruch der Brüder in möglichst vielen Ländern durchzusetzen. Im Westteil Libyens ist das bereits gelungen; in Tripoli herrscht die Bruderschaft. Im Sudan und in Gaza regieren Ableger der Bruderschaft. Seit 2011 kämpft die Regierung in Ankara, um die Bruderschaft in Syrien an die Macht zu bringen, mit ungewissen Erfolgsaussichten, wie folgende Nachricht zeigt:

Ankara: Neuer Versuch zur Vereinigung der syrischen Opposition

Im Zeichen der Friedensgespräche, die am Mittwoch in Genf wieder begonnen haben, haben sich moderate syrische Rebellenvertreter unter Vorsitz von Riad Hidschab in Ankara versammelt. Die Türkei gehört zu den einflussreichsten Förderern der Opposition in Syrien. Ankara scheiterte jedoch, die Opposition unter der syrischen Muslimbruderschaft zu vereinen.

Bei dem lange zuvor geplanten Treffen wurde die allseitige Entschlossenheit zum Ausdruck gebracht, alle syrischen Oppositionsgruppen in Syrien unter einem Banner vereinen zu wollen. Der politische Vorsitzende der Freien Syrischen Armee, Riad Hidschab, hielt zu diesem Zweck auch eine Sitzung mit dem türkischen Premierminister Ahmet Davutoğlu ab.

Medienberichten zufolge kamen aus den Regionen Aleppo, Damaskus und Dara jeweils drei Vertreter nach Ankara. Diese sollen im Rahmen einer Wahl entscheiden, wer die Leitung der Dachorganisation übernehmen werde. Nachdem Russland einen Teilabzug seiner Truppen erklärt hat und auch die libanesische Hisbollah ihre Truppen abzieht, scheint nunmehr die ideale Grundlage für nachhaltige Friedensgespräche am Verhandlungstisch gefunden zu sein.

Dem Syrien-Experten Levent Kemal zufolge seien die Gespräche vorerst dahingehend gescheitert, dass Ankara die FSA-Gruppen nicht unter Führung der syrischen Muslimbruderschaft, die Ankara zuvorderst hofiert, vereinigen konnte.

EURASIANEWS.de

Interessant ist in diesem Zusammenhang, dass die EU mit 6 Milliarden Euro die Türkei für angeblich 8 Milliarden Euro türkischer Aufwendungen für die Syrien-Flüchtlinge entschädigen will. Bedenkt man, dass die AKP-Regierung in Ankara jahrelang die Flüchtlinge ins Land gelockt hat, um das Assad-Regime zu stürzen und den Islamisten in Syrien an die Macht zu verhelfen, so muss man daraus schliessen, dass die EU-Mittel dazu dienen werden, die Kosten der türkischen Politik zugunsten der Bruderschaft zu kompensieren.

Eine indirekte Subvention der Bruderschaft und der islamistischen Kämpfer, die das Blatt in Syrien noch wenden könnte.

--ed

Facts

Die Moslem-Bruderschaft gilt als terroristische Organisation in Bahrein,Ägypten, Russland, Syrien, Saudi-Arabien und den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten. In den USA gelten Mitglieder, Büros und Stiftungen der Bruderschaft als terroristisch, aber nicht die Organisation insgesamt. Im November 2015 lancierte der republikanische Präsidentschaftsbewerber Ted Cruz einen Gesetzesvorschlag, der das Aussenministerium auffordert, die Bruderschaft eine "ausländische Terrororganisation" zu nennen.

Die offizielle Webseite der Bruderschaft ist ikhwanweb.com zuerst in Cricklewood, London, danach in Graz, Österreich. Der ägyptische politische Arm der Bruderschaft ist die Freedom & Justice Party, deren Organ http://www.fjponline.com in Dallas, Texas angemeldet ist.
Die türkische Regierung unterstützt Mitglieder der Brotherhood und ihre Veranstaltungen in der Türkei. Das Hauptquartier der HAMAS, die die Filiale der Bruderschaft in Gaza ist, befindet sich in der Türkei.

Präsident Erdogan war in den 70er Jahren Mitglied der World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), der grössten Islamischen Organisation, die eng mit der Global Muslim Brotherhood verflochten ist. Tariq Ramadan (Oxford) und Youssef al-Qaradawi (Qatar) sind Führer der Global Muslim Brotherhood.

In Europa verfügt die MB über verschiedene nationale Organisationen. Das Markfield Conference Center gehört einer Stiftung des Muslim Council of Europe und beherbergt die Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe (FIOE), eine der grössten Organisationen der Bruderschaft in Europa.

Bereits 1960 gründete sich in Deutschland die Islamische Gemeinschaft in Deutschland e. V. (IGD), die die mitgliederstärkste Organisation von Anhängern der MB in Deutschland ist.

Written on 17 March 2016.

Mexico has a long tradition of mysterious death cults which are difficult to unterstand. The case of Rancho Santa Elena became publicly known only because of the death of a foreigner. Cult leader Constanzo was raised by a mother who was, according to neighbors and police, a practitioner of Santería, a religion based on African rituals melded with Catholicism. Santería may have some 100 million adherents, concentrated in the Caribbean and South America.

March 13, 1989: Cult leader Adolpho de Jesus Constanzo sacrifices another human victim at his remote Mexican desert compound Rancho Santa Elena. When the victim didn't beg for mercy before dying, Constanzo sent his people out to find another subject for torture and death. When they abducted American college student Mark Kilroy outside a bar in Matamoros,Mexico, Constanzo inadvertently set in motion the downfall of his bizarre cult.

Up until then, Constanzo and his cult had ritually killed at least twenty people, and maybe as many as 100. He had escaped detection because his victims were almost exclusively prostitutes, homeless people and drug dealers. But when Mark Kilroy disappeared, it became an international incident that focused attention on Mexican law enforcement efforts.

Authorities in Mexico were pressured to step up their campaign against drug smuggling across the Texas border. On April 1, Serafin Hernandez, a cult member and the nephew of the leader of the Hernandez family drug-smuggling network, which had hired Costanzo to use black magic to bring them profit and protection, drove right through a police roadblock. Apparently, he actually believed that the magic potions Constanzo sold to drug dealers worked. Hernandez thought that he was invisible to the police and led the police directly to Rancho Santa Elena where officials found a large stash of drugs and guns.

Cult disciples who were arrested began to tell police about the human sacrifices at Rancho Santa Elena. Within a week, authorities had found 27 mutilated bodies, including Mark Kilroy, at or near the cult headquarters. When police raided Constanzo's Mexico City home, they found a hidden torture chamber and a large stash of homosexual pornography, but no sign of Constanzo himself.

The cult leader didn't turn up until May 6, when he panicked and opened fire on police who were going door-to-door in search of a missing child. An intense gun battle ensued, and as the police closed in, Constanzo insisted that one of his assistants, El Duby, shoot him. Constanzo was dead when police finally stormed in.

El Duby and Constanzo's other surviving cohorts were tried and convicted for the murders at Rancho Santa Elena.

OVI Magazine

Written on 16 March 2016.

Islamists have betrayed all hopes of being a part of democratization processes in Muslim countries. Turkey is no exception. Far from it, Turkey is the most significant example of that betrayal because it was once the most hopeful.

I’m not saying that I am personally disappointed, as I have supported the Islamists’ rights and freedoms for years, long before they came to power in Turkey. But at the same time I never subscribed to the thesis of “moderate Islamism” or “post-Islamism.”

I think there is huge difference between the two positions, as democrats should recognize the freedom of expression of everyone. Moreover, I also thought that the Islamists’ criticism of the rigid understanding of secularism was justified. The ideas of “moderate Islam” and “post-Islamism,” however, recognize all non-violent expressions of Islamism as agreeable and see “Islamic governance” as an alternative case of modernity, as long as it does not dare to be anti-West. Many years ago, I suggested that these theses were merely a new expression of Orientalism, as they mean “democracy, bon pour l’Orient.”

But I still thought Islamists in Turkey could be part of a democratization process - as long as they fought against the authoritarian status quo. It must have been the same story with many democrats elsewhere in the Arab Spring. However, by the time of the Arab Spring I was already very concerned by the politics of the ruling Islamists in Turkey. Indeed I was calling on democrats to be aware of the danger of civil authoritarianism, which could replace military dominance over civil politics, by the end of 2009.

Nevertheless, I never thought it could be such a total backlash. We now have in Turkey a situation where democratic legitimacy is being gradually replaced by Islamist-nationalistic legitimacy under the rule of the president and the governing party. Now the government media is more explicitly Islamist and calls for an Islamic constitution, relating the idea of a Turkish-style presidential system to a caliphate. It seems that a regime change is at stake and the big project of a “New Turkey” intends to do away with secularism. The president is already defined as the “great leader” not only of Turkey but all Muslims; likewise, Turkey is defined as “the spine of Sunni Islam.” In the end, Turkey has managed to become a “model,” but not in the way it was expected to be. It has rather become a “model of the failure of Islamism.”

Still, unlike many other secularists I don’t think Turkey’s fate was sealed from the beginning when the ruling Islamists came to power back in 2002 with a “hidden agenda.” It is obvious that Turkey’s Islamist rulers have never sincerely believed in democracy and secularism, but their alliance with liberal democrats and the realities of Turkey could have transformed their views. It is their narrow-mindedness and greed for more power, rather than their religious zeal, which has pushed them to return to Islamism. It is their narrow-mindedness and greed that has hindered their capacity for democratic governance. It is their failure to govern Turkey with all its complexity that has led them to seek more power, in the absence of the ability to achieve democratic political authority. It is their lack of sophistication to comprehend the complexities of domestic and global social and political issues that has led to their failure to govern effectively. Foreign policy failures have only contributed to this vicious cycle.

It is always those who fail to govern effectively without suppression that end up becoming authoritarian – whether secular or religious. This is the story not only of Turkey’s Islamists, but also of all Islamist politics. They seek Islamic (sublime) legitimacy as a powerful tool of suppression when they fail to deal with political and social complexities. In the same way, they turn to conspiratorialism when they fail to comprehend the complexity of society, politics, history, and even human life in general.

Nuray Mert -- Hürriyet Daily News

Written on 16 March 2016.

Falls ich auf die Idee käme, Urlaub in der Türkei zu machen. Dann gälte für mich folgende in Vorbereitung befindliche Gesetzeslage:

“Ein hoher Vertreter der regierenden Gerechtigkeits- und Entwicklungs-Partei (AKP) erklärte Reuters früher am Tag, dass die Türkei daran arbeite, die Definition 'Terror-Verbrechen' so zu erweitern, dass sie auch jene umfasst, die die Medien benutzen, um Gewalttätigkeit zu unterstützen oder zu loben. Erdogan warnte Journalisten, Hochschullehrer und Gesetzgeber mehrfach, sie sollten sich nicht als immun von der Verfolgung unter Anti-Terrorismus-Gesetzen betrachten.“ Unter dem Titel “Erdogan: Eiserne Faust im Samthandschuh wird den Terror zerschmettern” berichtet dies die Hürriyet Daily News.

Da germanpages.de – Deutsche Rundschau (vorher german.pages.de) seit Beginn der AKP-Regierungszeit 2002 die Entwicklung in der Türkei kritisch beobachtet und kommentiert, wäre ich als verantwortlicher Redakteur, falls ich die Türkei besuchte, ein typischer Kandidat für Untersuchungshaft, Prozess und womöglich viele Jahre in rattenverseuchten Verliesen.

“ Hier wiederhole ich es noch einmal: wir sollten sofort “Terror” und “Terrorist” neu definieren. Wir sollten sofort das Strafgesetzbuch gemäss dieser neuen Definition modifizieren. Wir sollten unseren Sicherheitsdiensten, Staatsanwälten und Richtern alle Arten von legalen und technischen Möglichkeiten geben, die sie in die Lage versetzen, den Terror und die Terroristen wirksam zu bekämpfen, erklärte Erdogan.”

Wow! Eine kalte Brise, aus der Richtung von Nordkorea kommend, weht über die Türkei. Für mein Teil habe ich alle Gedanken an einen Istanbul-Besuch gestrichen. Dass neue Terrorgesetze in mehreren Ländern weiten Spielraum zur Unterdrückung der Meinungsfreiheit bieten, beklagte die New York Times in ihrer Wochenausgabe vom 4. 3. 16.

Irgendwie erinnert mich die Situation an jene Jahre zwischen 1967 und 74, als in Griechenland das Militär herrschte und ich von Grikos, dem inoffiziellen Geheimdienstresidenten der Obristen in München, gewarnt wurde, nicht nach Griechenland zu reisen, da man mich dort nicht möge. Ich reiste trotzdem und verliess mich (zurecht) auf den Schutz meines damaligen Laissez-Passer der Vereinten Nationen.

Deutsche und andere Touristen mieden in jenen Jahren aus Solidarität mit der Bevölkerung Griechenland. Das schadete zwar der ohnehin ärmlichen griechischen Wirtschaft, aber es setzte ein weithin sichtbares Signal.

Heinrich von Loesch

Update

"Immer mehr westliche Journalisten ziehen sich wegen Drohungen und Repressalien aus der Türkei zurück. Jetzt verlässt mit "Spiegel"-Mann Hasnain Kazim einer der schärfsten Erdogan-Kritiker das Land."-- Die Welt

Written on 14 March 2016.

A long history of mutual enmity is exacerbating tension between Turkey and Russia. Leaders in both countries are apt to view their current hostilities through the prism of a bitterly contested imperial past.

“There is a good old, nasty feeling between those countries,” observed Turkish historian Ayhan Aktar of Istanbul’s Bilgi University. “There have been over the centuries several military encounters, [and] Turkey lost all of them. And then there was the Cold War against [the] Soviet Union, but for Turks it was always the Russians.”

Over the past 500 years, Russians and Turks havefought 12 wars, the first in 1568 over the Astrakhan khanate, located where the Volga River flows into the Caspian Sea. The last was during World War I, a conflict that hastened the collapse of both empires.

Now, the bad blood produced by past conflicts is again bubbling to the surface, catalyzed by Turkey’sNovember shoot-down of a Russian military jet that was on a mission targeting Ankara-backed Syrian rebels. The Kremlin’s recent decision to deploy some of Russia’s most sophisticated fighters and bombers to a Russian military base in Armenia, a country with which Ankara has no diplomatic relations, has significantly raised tension.

In Turkey, nearly every military and political mishap is now blamed on Moscow – from the defeat of Syrian rebels backed by Turkey to the February 21 expulsion of a senior Turkish diplomat from Bulgaria, a country which Tsarist Russia liberated from Ottoman control.

In a 26-city survey conducted by Istanbul’s Kadir Has University last December, 64.7 percent of 1,000 respondents named Russia as the biggest threat to Turkey.

Meanwhile, Russian officials, pro-government media and analysts tend to believe Turkey’s hostility toward Russia’s military actions in Syria, a former Ottoman province, is rooted in Ankara’s “imperial ambitions.” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova did not hide the contempt that many Russian policymakers have for Turkey’s geopolitical aspirations when she said recently that Turkey should remember that the Ottoman Empire once ranked as “the sick man of Europe.”

Russian officials refer to that label, created by Tsar Nicholas I, “to remind Turkey of its vulnerability and relative weakness compared to Russia,” and to underline the difference between “an aspiring regional power” and “a ‘great power,’ if no longer a superpower,” said Princeton University’s Associate Professor of Near East Studies Michael A. Reynolds, author of “Shattered Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires: 1908-1918.”

But, Reynolds noted, Russia’s own insecurities also play a role in shaping Moscow’s “contempt for Turkey.” Less developed than Europe, Tsarist Russia’s defeats of the Ottoman Empire, as well as Persia, and its takeover of the Caucasus and Central Asia, “served to reassure many Tsarist officials that they represented an advanced European civilization and not a backward and weak ‘Asiatic’ civilization.”

That viewpoint lives on today. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s December remark that the Turks “are not separating themselves [from Russia] just by tomatoes,” in reference to the fruit-and-vegetable boycott Moscow imposed after the shoot-down incident, was a “disparaging reference to the Turks as a nation of vegetable peddlers,” Reynolds said.

Relying on old patterns to explain present-day developments around or in Syria runs a risk for both powers, cautioned Montana State University history professor James Meyer.

“The risk is that people in Russia would allow themselves to be persuaded that ‘neo-Ottomanism’ is real, while in Turkey people would similarly come to see Russian actions in the region simply through the prism of Russian aggression,” wrote Meyer, author of “Turks Across Empires: Marketing Muslim Identity in the Russian-Ottoman Borderlands.”

It is Turkey’s policy toward its Kurdish minority that ultimately could pose a major policy challenge. Pro-government Turkish media is awash with reports that Moscow is providing military assistance to the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD. Heightening emotions in Ankara, Turkish officials claim the PYD has connections to Turkey’s rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Turkish security forces are currently waging a destructive, wide-ranging campaign against the PKK across Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast.

The big fear now muttered in government circles and their media outlets is that Moscow will end up supporting the PKK as well, warned political consultant Atilla Yeşilada of Global Source Partners.

There is a historical basis for such concerns. In the years leading up to World War I, the Tsarist government extensively backed Kurdish rebels in Anatolia, said historian Reynolds. And during the Cold War, the Soviet government was “often supportive of anti-Turkish Kurdish groups” as a way “to destabilize NATO’s southern flank.”

Both Reynolds and Meyer questioned whether Russian policymakers were placing too much emphasis on history. Both experts maintained that Turkey’s stance on Syria was not influenced heavily by Ottoman “fantasies.” Instead, Turkey’s position was shaped primarily by present-day interests – especially a desire to maintain firm control over its own predominantly Kurdish southeastern regions.

Ironically, it was not that long ago that Russian leader Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, seemed ready to forge strong strategic ties rooted in energy exports. More broadly, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the two countries experienced a rapid rise in trade and social contacts.

“That historical context of … wars between the two empires and all that, well, that was all forgotten for the last 25 years, with a lot of Turks marrying Russians,” Kadir Has’s international relations expert Soli Özel commented. “There are Russians living in Turkey, Turks living in Russia … and I really feel very saddened by the fact that what was built up over [the] last 25 years … is now also being destroyed by Putin.”

Clinging to memories of better bilateral times, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu predicted on February 23 that Russian tourists would not “give up on Turkey.” Despite the official Russian boycott on charter vacations in Turkey, he said they (Russian tourists) will “find a way and come.”

In a video interview with Pravda.ru, one Russian historian echoed Özel’s dismay. “For most of the population, those 12 Russo-Turkish wars … [are] far-off history that no one takes as relevant for today,” said Moscow State University’s Oleg Airapetov.

Hopes of any rapprochement in the near future seem unlikely. Humiliated by the shoot-down incident, “Putin seems to really want to hurt Erdoğan,” said one Turkey-based Western diplomat, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the topic.

On February 23, the European Union’s foreign policy boss, Federica Mogherini, warned that “a hot war” between Russia and Turkey over Syria was possible.

Meyer is among those analysts who believe it is crucial for present-day Russian and Turkish policymakers to maintain a levelheaded view of the past. “Once people – particularly those in positions of influence – actually begin to believe that conflict is deriving from age-old rivalries, rather than more malleable sets of present-day interests … conflict begins to appear inevitable,” Meyer said.

Dorian Jones and Elizabeth Owen -- Originally published by EurasiaNet.org

Ankara: Neuer Versuch zur Vereinigung der syrischen Opposition

Islamists have betrayed all hopes of being a part of democratization processes in Muslim countries. Turkey is no exception. Far from it, Turkey is the most significant example of that betrayal because it was once the most hopeful.

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