“Letters from Yugoslavia” consists of translation of previous articles published in Turkish language in different portals which are piled in "Yugoslavya Mektupları" and current articles that are published in İleri Portal, the press agency of TİP (Workers' Party of Turkey).

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Sunday 30 September 2012

BOSNIAN POLITICIANS: COME TO YOUR PLACE, TURKEY!

Original text: September 29, 2012

Turkish conservatism have always had a special concern on Bosnia and Herzegovina. This concern is usually recognized as an uninformed concern. A Muslim land in the middle of Europe does mean a lot for a romantic conservatist. However, on the other side, for example, when they see Bosnian citizens vote for Serbia or Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest, they never understand the reason since they have no idea that only less than half of Bosnia is Muslim, and being Muslim is a national identity more than subject of religious practices.

Turkish conservatists very often visit Bosnia and they have got a pseudo image of Bosnia that the whole country is just a totality of mosques, Ottoman architectural structures, that Bosnia is only Başçarşija or just limited to a few more Ottoman islands like Travnik or Mostar. Apart from the fact that Socialist Yugoslavia was more successful than Republic of Turkey in protecting and conserving Ottoman artifacts, the average Turkish conservatist in Bosnia has got a prejudice that those very historical artifacts do reflect actual reality.

What is reflected on TV screens is not very much different. Those TV producers who have concerns about Bosnia, but who do not have any idea about what really Bosnia is, have similar visions of Bosnia. In fact, this is also preferred by the Bosnian conservatist politicians as well. Whether if he is a Bosnian Serb or Croat, or a Bosnian Muslim, the politicians have a wish to see Bosnia as a totality of religious identities. In this respect, we witness a very successful manipulation of media, not only in Bosnia, but also in countries like Croatia, Serbia or Turkey, which enforces Bosnian citizens to vote for one of the three nationalist parties representing their national identity.

Since the end of the war, the game continues like that, that eventuates with empowerment of nationalist-conservatist parties. Only in the last elections in Bosnia, the game was spoilt by Bosnian Muslims, who were sick and tired of their politicians and voted for Zeljko Komşiç, the candidate for Bosnian Croat member of presidency from SDP. Bakir İzzetbegoviç, son of Alija İzzetbegoviç still represents Bosnian Muslims in tri-presidential system but not the whole Bosnian Muslims. Many Bosnian Muslims voted for a Bosnian Croat, but a 100% Bosnian politician. Nationalist Croats are angry for this as well since the Bosnian Croats are not represented by a nationalist Croat in the presidency.
Erdogan with Izzetbegovic (Photo: haberbosnak.com)
 Turkey stands for the greatest ally for the Bosnian Muslim politicians, who are ironically the cause of Bosnian Muslims to vote for Bosnian Croat candidate. Not only the recent serials like “Valley of the Wolves” or the “Magnificient Century” which praises the honor of Muslims, but also recent international diplomacy of Turkey, which can simply be defined as “bullying” but nothing more, somehow creates an illusion of a strong state of Turkey. Moreover, this illusive state backs Bosnian conservatism under any terms. Of course, this support is not unrequited.

We cannot underestimate the support of Bosnian politicians to their Turkish brothers. The latest reflection of this support was visible during the visit of Erdoğan to Bosnia.  Turkey’s international politics was praised in Bosnia.

Turkey’s recent performance in international politics especially in Middle East is recently very much clear. Despite the blindness of main stream media, Turkey’s direct support to terrorists and indirect responsibility in massacres in Syria is recently recognized. Turkey succeeds to have lousy relations with both Iraqi Kurdish Administration and central Iraqi government at the same time. Turkey not only has problems with her neighbors, but even with those further countries miles away.

However, the conservatist point of view allocates his mind with bullying of Tayyip Erdoğan in Davos three years ago against Yitzhak Rubin and his support to Gaza Fleet, which ended by aggression of Israeli Army. Simply, in the Islamic world, Turkey is recognized as a country stands against Zionist policies in Middle East. Unfortunately, that blind point of view ignores the fact Turkey did not hesitate to locate the anti-missile radar system in favor of Israel, against Iran. The same point of view ignores the fact that Turkey acts like a pioneer of the imperialist policies against Iran.

Paradoxically, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was praised with the “Isa Beg Ishakovic Peace and Stability Reward”.

This is solely like a joke!

Even that joke was not enough. Erdogan’s speech, advising each Bosnian family to have at least five children was applauded by the audience during the ceremony held in National Theater of Sarajevo. Previously, Erdoğan advised Turkish families to have at least three children, and he even did not find it enough for Bosnian families. It has to be noted that Bosnia has an unemployment rate around 40% and younger population seek to escape from the country to find better living standards in other countries.

We have an advice to those Bosnian conservatist politicians who praises Erdogan: Come and involve in politics in Turkey. Turkey has the potential to nurture unconscious politicians like that of in Bosnia. If they will take active role in Turkish politics, they can even earn more money than they do in Bosnia now, and their relatives can benefit more which is the standard practice in Turkey.

Probably Bosnia may have better political scene with the absence of those conservatist politicians.