Mediaboss Marketing

Islamists in Turkey and the Arab-Muslim world have had a hard time accepting the end of the Muslim caliphate ever since the proclamation of the secular Turkish Republic, in October 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on the rubble of the Ottoman Empire and the abolition of the caliphate in March 1924.

Since then, pan-Islamic movements, particularly in Egypt and on the Indian subcontinent, never missed an opportunity to denounce this historic betrayal. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 by Egyptian Hassan al-Banna, although later banned by King Farouk, was the most virulent critic of the civil state and the most ardent advocate of a return to the caliphate in the land of Islam, even though no reference to the caliphate was made in the Quranto consecrate it as the type of regime for a Muslim rule.

Since 2002, Turkish Islamists, led by now-President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, repeated that Ataturks republican and secular legacy would not be abandoned in Turkey. Their words sounded more like the old Islamist takiyya strategy -- in concealing real intent for the sake of a "higher purpose."

In this case, the Brotherhood was striving to secure a grip on power. In Turkey, the "higher purpose" being sought was reflected inErdogans and the Islamists efforts to simply erode Ataturks legacy, especially regarding the separation of state and religion and in the rampant Islamisation of educational content in Turkish schools.

In 2018, a presidential regime was established in Turkey and Erdogan started behaving like the new Ottoman sultan. Barely voted in as president, he declared: The Republic of Turkey, like our previous states which are a continuation of each other, is also a continuation of the Ottomans.

Of course, the borders have changed; the forms of government have changed... but the essence is the same, the soul is the same, even many institutions are the same, he added.

Among those institutions inspired by the Ottoman Empire, Erdogan has resurrected, in a new incarnation, the concept of janissaries, made during the days of the empire of European slaves and prisoners of war, a sort of praetorian guard of the Ottoman dynasty.

This military body, known for its cruelty, had become a threat to the regime it was supposed to protect. Sultan Mahmoud II abolished the military corps in 1826, liquidating 7,000 janissaries in Istanbul and 120,000 in the rest of the empire.

Despite the massacre, the recourse by the Ottomans to the services of mercenaries and agents to do the empires dirty work remained a tradition among the sultans and later among Turkish nationalists. From 1894-96, the agents of the Turkish state were used against the minorities of the empire. In response to the Armenians' demands for reform and modernisation of the institutions, Sultan Abdul-Hamid II killed 200,000-250,000 of them with the help of Kurdish auxiliaries.

In turn, the latter would be much later repressed, massacred and their cultural identity erased.

Modern Turkish nationalists (aka the Young Turks) were not to be outdone. They perpetuated the tradition of Ottoman genocides and ethnic cleansing against the Armenians, the Assyro-Chaldeans or Pontics (Greek Orthodox of the province of Pont on the Black Sea) and Greek minorities.

With the war against Syria in 2011, Erdogan, relying on Qatari money, used the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood to try to destroy the Syrian state, which was too secular for his taste, and Islamists in Libya to bring down the few things that resembled state institutions under Muammar Qaddafi.

In the Turkish-occupied areas of Syria -- Idlib and Aleppo regions and the north-east border area -- Erdogan uses the Brotherhood and Islamist brigades as well as Turkish-speaking ethnic minorities (Turkmen) and Chinese Islamist militants (Uighurs) to maintain order, with cruelty, and organise the looting of resources (factories, oil, grain).

Always pushing forth, he rushed to the rescue of the Tripoli-based government of Fayez al-Sarraj, with whom he had signed oil exploration and defence agreements. The Turkish Army started to enlist, sometimes by force, Syrian and other Islamist mercenaries who had fighting the Syrian government since 2011, with the intention of dispatching them to Misrata, the stronghold of the Libyan and Egyptian Muslim Brothers, and Tripoli.

Despite the outcry in Libya and internationally, against the blatant interference, Erdogan didnt give up. He announced the deployment of Turkish troops, following approval given by a Turkish parliament dominated by Justice and Development Party Islamists and his nationalist allies.

He claimed that the mission of our soldiers there is coordination and thats what theyre doing right now, in a command centre. One of our lieutenant-generals will head this command centre.

Erdogan acknowledged that Turkey will also have other teams there as combat forces, outside our regular troops. In other words, they are the mercenaries of the Syrian armed opposition in the pay of Turkey. They will serve as cannon fodder.

Despite his bluster and boastfulness, Erdogan seems to be losing the game in Libya. Islamists who control the Sarraj government are losing momentum.

Their territory is shrinking. The fall of Sirte, a strategic point that controls access to Misrata, which happened whileTurkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, preceded by Sarraj, was being received in Algiers, is a sign the dice had been thrown.

Weakened and besieged, the Sarraj government could be forced to negotiate a face-saving exit but from a weak position. It would be an exit that Turkey's modern-day janissaries are unlikely to prevent.

Follow this link:
Turkey's new 'janissaries' head to Libya but may be too late for Sarraj - The Arab Weekly