Anti-Americanism reaches new peak in Turkey
Some Turks express a fierce desire for the United States to suffer through another civil war, which they see as likely or even imminent.
As much of the world watched anger spiraling out of control Aug. 11-12 in Charlottesville, Virginia, some Turks were rather pleased with the events. Even before US President Donald Trump fully indulged white supremacists with his words and before US media outlets mentioned fears of a possible civil war, several pro-government voices in the Turkish media said they were certain the United States is destined for a civil war or is even on the brink of one.
In the pro-government Turks' commentaries, three features are evident. First, most of these statements are brewing with a rather new type of anti-Americanism, rejoicing in the possibility of American suffering. Second, the statements reflect limited knowledge of US politics, and that knowledge sometimes is intentionally distorted. Last, the comments don't mention white supremacists’ hatred of Islam or Turkish-Americans; rather, the focus has been mostly on the supremacists' slogan “Jews will not replace us.”
Here are a few examples:
The most provocative piece came Aug. 14 from Hilal Kaplan, a columnist for the pro-government Sabah daily. The piece, titled “To the privileged, equality is torture,” claims that white supremacists are similar to “White Turks.” White Turk was a term coined by a journalist in the early 1990s to define the rich, secular ruling elite of Turkey. On the other side, then, are Gray or Black Turks, who are the poor, pious Muslim majority. In her piece, Kaplan struggles to explain how the White Turks and American white supremacists resemble each other, as she further claims white supremacists are middle or lower class — therefore logically more like Gray Turks of the 1990s. Then she says they are also WASPs, branding white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants as racists.
