Turkey Islamized northern Cyprus through a military invasion in 1974. To Islamize the much more powerful European continent, however, Turkey has been promoting demographic, rather than military, jihad.
“The places where you work and live are your homelands and new countries now… Drive the best cars. Live in the most beautiful houses. Make five children — not just three. For you are the future of Europe.” — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 2017.
Yesterday, while many Europeans are still pilloried for viewing mass migration from Muslim-majority countries as a threat to Western culture — and are still accused of “xenophobia,” “Islamophobia” and “fear-mongering” — the city of Afrin, in the Kurdish area of Syria, fell to Turkey.
At the same time, a prominent Turkish government official has been openly and proudly declaring that the demography of Europe is changing in favor of Muslims.
MP Alparslan Kavaklıoğlu, a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the head of the parliament’s Security and Intelligence Commission, recently stated:
“The fortune and wealth of the world is moving from the West to the East. Europe is going through a time that is out of the ordinary. Its population is declining and aging. It has a very old population. So, people coming from outside get the jobs there. But Europe has this problem. All of the newcomers are Muslim. From Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. Those who come from these places are Muslim. It is now at such a level that the most popular name in Brussels, Belgium is Mohammed. The second most popular name is Melih [Malih] and the third one is Ayşe [Aisha].”
According to Kavaklıoğlu, if this trend continues,
“the Muslim population will outnumber the Christian population in Europe. This… has increased the nationalistic, xenophobic and anti-Islam rhetoric there. Hence, marginal, small parties have started to get large numbers of votes… But there is no remedy for it. Europe will be Muslim. We will be effective there, Allah willing. I am sure of that.”
Kavaklıoğlu is not the first Turkish official to stress the importance of population growth. In 2009, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was prime minister at the time, called on the public to have at least three children per family. The greater our numbers, he said, “the stronger we will be.” Since then, Erdoğan has been trying to encourage Turkish nationals to multiply. In 2013, he reiterated his plea:
“We need a young and dynamic population… Right now, the West is in trouble. But we do not want to put Turkey in the same trouble. I am calling on my country through mothers: Do not take this sensitivity of ours lightly. We need to make this widespread, in waves. We need to make this happen. The [value] of this cannot be measured with money or any other physical wealth.”
In 2017, Erdoğan called on Turks residing in Europe to have even more children:
“The places where you work and live are your homelands and new countries now. Lay a tight claim to those places. Open more businesses and enroll your children in better schools. Live with your families in better neighborhoods. Drive the best cars. Live in the most beautiful houses. Make five children — not just three. For you are the future of Europe.”
Pictured: Thousands of supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rally, waving Turkish flags, in Cologne, Germany, July 31, 2016. (Photo by Sascha Steinbach/Getty Images)
Erdoğan is now also saying the same thing to Turks in Cyprus. During a recent meeting with the prime minister and deputy prime minister of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (recognized only by Turkey), Erdoğan reportedly said, “Economic growth happens in parallel with population growth. The population of Greek Cypriots is more than one million. Just make your own population grow.”
Turkey already largely Islamized and Turkified northern Cyprus through a military invasion in 1974. The Turkish military terrorized the indigenous Greek Cypriots, causing them to flee to the south. The Turkish government then imported thousands of illegal settlers from Turkey to northern Cyprus, to change the demographic structure of the illegally occupied territories. To Islamize the much more powerful European continent, however, Turkey has been promoting demographic, rather than military, jihad. This attempt by Ankara to guarantee that Muslims outnumber Christians globally has been accompanied by the erection of mosques – “from Europe to Africa, from the Balkans to the Central Asia” — by Turkey’s government-funded Diyanet (Religious Affairs General Directorate).
Whose assessments, then, are liberal Europeans to believe regarding unfettered immigration? Those who consider the mass influx from Muslim countries a threat to liberty and security, or the honest planners and perpetrators of demographic replacement and Islamization?
What Turkey Is Doing Lately…
Destroying Churches, Some Very Old, But Its A Way To Take Away Any Trace Of Christianity.
Crimea The People Of Crimea Did Vote And Prefered Orthodox Russia To Any Move From Turkey As Crimea Was In The Ottoman Empire And Erdogan Wanted It Back. Wanted Georgia Also,Another Under Conlict With Russia.
Killing Russian Ex-Spies, That If Russian Wanted Them Dead…They Just Be Dead A Long Ago. But NATO Is Shaken, Turkey Is One Of Its Member Anf If It Take Like Erdogan Said That He Want All Those Greek Islands And Cyprus.
While Fighting The Kurds, What A Busy Country…
The remaining 17 groups that make up the Syrian portion of Operation Olive Branch are a combination of Salafist, jihadist and ultra-extremist militants who have been either formed or supported by Turkey at various stages of Syria’s seven-year civil war.
In its offensive launched on January 20 against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, Turkey has deployed more than 25,000 Syrian rebel fighters who have been equipped and trained by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s powerful military.
The offensive, code-named Operation Olive Branch, aims at dislodging the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) from the Kurdish enclave of Afrin. On March 18, Turkish military and allied jihadist rebels took control of Afrin’s city center. Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an insurgent group that has been fighting for greater Kurdish autonomy in Turkey’s southeast. Backed by the United States, the YPG has been instrumental in the U.S.-led war on terror in Syria since 2014.
Pictured: Turkish soldiers at an outpost on the Turkey-Syria border. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
Nine days after the start of the operation, the pro-Turkish government website, Suriye Gundemi, published an infographic showing the Syrian rebel groups involved in the Afrin offensive. The website says that three divisions are part of the National Army that is under the command of the Syrian interim government, an anti-Syrian regime body based in Turkey.
This so-called army consists mainly of Islamist militants who were part of the most radical Islamic factions of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) at some point during the Syrian conflict, and was formed only two weeks prior to the Afrin operation. Most of these fighters fled to Turkey after they were defeated in battles across Syria, including in Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Idlib and Hama. While in Turkey, they were recruited by Turkish intelligence agencies to be part of forces invading the Kurdish-held Afrin.
The remaining 17 groups that make up the Syrian portion of Operation Olive Branch are a combination of Salafist, jihadist and ultra-extremist militants who have been either formed or supported by Turkey at various stages of Syria’s seven-year civil war. The following is a rundown of these groups:
Named after the notorious Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conquerer, who ruled in the 15th century and violently conquered Constantinople and Southeast Europe, this ethnic Turkmen group was founded in 2012 at the height of the Aleppo battle. It controlled six districts in eastern Aleppo, imposing a set of sharia (Islamic) laws on local residents. The group commanders were also involved in criminal activities, such as robbery and human trafficking. The group was later embraced by the Turkish government, and thus it participated in Operation Euphrates Shield, another Turkish-led offensive in northern Syria, which ended in March 2017. It has close to 1,000 fighters.
The Sultan Murad Division
An extremist group established by Turkey in 2013, it receives direct financial, military and logistic support from Turkish armed forces. Most of its fighters are ethnic Turkmen. Prior to the Afrin offensive, it was primarily based in the city of Aleppo. The group has been involved in clashes with other rebel groups over revenue sharing of the Bab al-Salameh border crossing when a rival group decided to hand over the crossing to the main Syrian opposition body.
The Hamza Division
Founded in April 2016 in Turkey, it was one of the first Turkish-backed Syrian groups that entered the Syrian town of Jarablus in 2017 alongside the Turkish military. Adopting an extremist anti-Western Islamic ideology, the group strongly believes in the return of Ottoman rule over the entire Middle East.
The Sham Legion
Originally named the Homs Legion, the group that was established in March 2014, has nearly 4,000 fighters, making it the largest force within the Operation Olive Branch. It is a union of at least 19 Islamist groups affiliated with the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The group joined other rebel forces in forming the Fateh al-Sham operation center. It has been active in the provinces of Aleppo, Idlib and Homs. The group is currently led by Yasser Abdulrahim, a rebel leader known for changing sides based on funding sources.
The second largest rebel group participating in Operation Olive Branch, the Shamiyah Front is a union of Islamists and Salafists from Aleppo. Its members are largely remnants of the Nureddine al-Zanki Brigades and other extremist groups that were active in Aleppo in 2015. Supported by Turkey and Qatar, this rebel group believes that jihad is the only path for Syria to become an Islamic emirate governed by sharia law. It has an estimated 3,000 fighters.
The Mountain Falcons (Hawks) Brigade
Named after the Zawiyeh Mountain in the northwestern province of Idlib, the group was active in Idlib’s countryside. It was originally part of the Descendants of the Prophet Brigades. It clashed with the al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, over revenue and power sharing. Defeated by al-Nusra, its members were forced to flee to Turkey, before regrouping and joining the Afrin operation.
Jaysh al-Nasr
The group is made up of smaller groups that operated in Idlib, Hama and Latakia.
Named after the Islamic prophet Mohammed’s title, the faction was founded in June 2016 with the financial and military support of Turkey. It participated in Operation Euphrates Shield.
Named after Saad bin Abi Waqqas, a companion of the prophet Mohammed and the 17th person to embrace Islam, the group was formed in early 2016 by the Turkish government. It has nearly 1,000 well-trained fighters.
Named after al-Muntasir bi’llah, the Abbasid caliph who ruled in the 9th century, this Syrian rebel group has embraced a radical Islamic ideology since its inception in February 2014. Based in Aleppo and Raqqa, it has engaged in several battles with Syrian regime troops. The group welcomed the arrival of ISIS in Raqqa and did not attempt to challenge its rule. After Aleppo was retaken by the Syrian military, most of the group’s fighters fled to Turkey, where they went through an organizational restructuring. They played a central role in launching Operation Euphrates Shield.
Named after Suleyman Shah, the father of Omsan I, founder of the Ottoman Empire, this group was formed in Turkey in April 2016 to participate in Operation Euphrates Shield. Its fighters are largely ethnic Turkmen, with a significant percentage of Sunni Arabs. It is currently led by Mohammed al-Jassim, also known as Abu al-‘Amsha.
Named after the Uzbek city of Samarkand, this is another Turkmen group that was formed by Turkey in April 2016. In its inaugural statement, it said that its main objective was to fight the Kurdish YPG. The group is led by Wael Musa.
These smaller groups that were formed in Syria and Turkey. Each group reportedly has 200-300 fighters who are commanded by the Turkish military and larger rebel groups.
Sirwan Kajjo is a Syrian-Kurdish Washington-based journalist and author.
Bern, Switzerland—Marksmen fill the recreation hall of this sand-colored shooting club in the wooded hills outside Bern, capping off a weekend competition to commemorate the 1798 Battle of Grauholz in the French Revolutionary Wars.
There is no shortage of patriotism here – there is even a yodeling club dressed in traditional red-trimmed black felt jackets – and indeed, for many Swiss citizens, guns are as central to their identity as the Alps. Switzerland has one of the highest per capita rates of guns in the world. “Every Swiss village has a range just like this one,” says Renato Steffen, a top official of the Swiss Shooting Sports Association, representing the group at the event. The association counts 2,800 such clubs across the country, with a youth wing for children as young as 10.
If this seems like a scene that belongs in gun-loving America, there the similarities end. The Swiss’s historic relationship to their arms as members of a standing militia, their motives for keeping them, and the regulations around them diverge from the American experience. It’s one reason that the prevalence of arms here is not accompanied by a scourge of gun violence.
Yet Switzerland does provide clues for gun ownership in America. Here divisions also have emerged after gun tragedies and efforts to rein in use – and the story is not settled as a new gun-control directive comes from the European Union. But ultimately the two sides have found consensus, getting beyond polarization that paralyzes the American debate even after such tragedies as the school shooting in Parkland, Fla. Those who loathe guns here accept their deep-seated position in Swiss tradition as they push for more controls, while gun advocates have pushed back but ultimately accepted more rules and oversight in the past 15 years.
“We can live with the restrictions placed on us until now,” says Kaspar Jaun, president of the Battle of Grauholz association, before hurrying off to prepare for the awards ceremony for best marksman.
‘Sport and protection of country only’
There is no official count of guns in Switzerland. But according to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey, Switzerland has more guns circulating per capita than any country besides the US and Yemen. The most recent government figures estimate about 2 million firearms in Swiss households. Conscription is mandatory for Swiss males, and citizen soldiers store their weapons at home, making up the bulk of guns in households today.
The militia, and the culture it has fostered, is seen as part of the common good, binding a nation together in a mission of national security. That differs widely from America’s individualistic gun culture. According to a Pew poll in 2017, 67 percent of those who own guns in the US cite their personal protection as a major motive.
And differences with the US don’t end at cultural ones. In Switzerland, regulations have become much more stringent since the free-wheeling days before a Weapons Act was put into place in 1999. And they have steadily tightened over the past 15 years. Military guns, once given to members after their service and passed down for generations, can now only be acquired after service with a firearms acquisition license. Since 2007, army-issued ammunition cannot be kept at home. A gun under the bed for self-protection? Impossible in Switzerland.
Loaded guns, whether military or for sport, cannot be carried on the streets here without a special permit which is rarely issued. Because of conscription, the Swiss are highly trained in weapons handling and storage. As he drives away from the shooting range Sunday, Mr. Steffen says he would never want the right to transport his army rifle loaded. “No, no,” he says, “that is crazy. For us, guns are for sport, and protection of our country, only.”
Switzerland does grapple with gun death rates higher than European neighbors, the vast majority of it suicide. Guns also play a troubling role in domestic disputes. But unlike the US, gun deaths out of self-defense are a rare phenomenon. Criminologist Martin Killias, at the University of St. Gallen’s law school, built a database looking at homicides committed in self-defense over a 25-year period ending in 2014. Of 1,464 homicides, in 23 cases defenders killed victims in self-defense or under duress. In 15 of those cases, a firearm was used, nine of which were the weapons of on-duty police officers.
The homicide rate in the US is about six times that of the Swiss national average. But when comparing domestic violence that ends in death with a firearm, the ratio is just under 2 to 1, a much smaller gap of gun deaths between American and Swiss households. “It is very illustrative,” Mr. Killias says. “It’s not so much that American people are more aggressive, or Swiss are so terribly more peaceful, it’s simply that gun use in the street [in the US] is quite common,” he says. “That is why robbery quite often ends with a shooting in America, whereas in Switzerland it is practically never the case.”
Switzerland’s gun debates
Nonetheless, the debate has still been divisive and bitter here. Josef Lang sits on the opposite end of the spectrum as men such as Steffen, and still receives hateful threats and messages over his role in the gun control movement in Switzerland.
A pacifist activist since the 1980s, Mr. Lang was a parliamentarian in 2001 in the canton of Zug when a gunman stormed the chamber. He ducked underneath the desk in time and survived, but nearly 20 years later he recounts vividly every second of the 2.5 minutes gun spree during which 14 of his colleagues around him were killed. He remembers the feeling of a bullet grazing his bushy hair.
With each incident, laws have tightened to get rid of loopholes. After the Zug massacre, gun control advocates pushed for cantonal police registries to be linked and for tighter controls for private gun sales. In 2006, after Swiss alpine skier Corinne Rey-Bellet and her brother were killed by Corinne’s estranged husband with his military rifle, rules banning the storage of military ammunition at home were created. Today, military members can choose to also keep their weapons at a central arsenal.
The battle hasn’t always favored gun control. In a 2011 referendum voters would have, among other things, required military arms to be stored in a central arsenal. Fifty-six percent voted against it. Today, many feel satisfied with where Switzerland is on gun control. “Swiss laws give freedom to the citizen but at the same time they attempt to reduce abuse with guns,” says Luca Filippini, the president of the Swiss Shooting Sports Association.
Switzerland’s reform history provides a lesson for the US, argues Erin Zimmerman, an American living in Switzerland who is a former US police officer and gun owner. While the country is vastly different from the US in demographics and population, she believes it shows the possibility of consensus for sensible gun regulations.
To underline the point, a nongovernmental organization she belongs to, Action Together: Zurich, led a fundraiser for the US-based nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety, timed to a visit to Zurich this week by former White House strategist Steve Bannon, who has resisted gun-reform efforts in the US.
While some US states have been able to pass gun reform, she says Americans in the national debate are too often only presented with “zero-sum” options. They are cast as simply pro- or anti-gun, making middle ground choices more elusive. “Switzerland has done a really good job of modeling that,” she says.
Creeping ‘Americanization’?
Now, however, the battle is heating up once more in Switzerland – and some worry about the creep of “American” mentalities. In response to the wave of terrorist attacks in Europe starting in 2015, the EU has imposed tighter gun restrictions. While Switzerland is not part of the bloc, it does belong to the passport-free Schengen area and so must adhere to EU rules.
Mr. Filippini argues the rules won’t have any bearing on terrorism, which is committed by criminals using illegal weapons and methods such as trucks. Gun advocates have promised to fight it in a referendum if it’s adopted into Swiss law and in general worry this is just the beginning of interference from the outside into their gun rules.
Both sides are staking their positions as gun-owning households in Switzerland has waned, in large part because the Swiss military has reduced its size by about sixfold since the 1990s. Today, 22 percent of households say they own guns, compared to 35 percent 15 years ago. Still, Lang worries about language he hears from the hard-line gun lobby about “self-protection,” against refugees and migrants or cuts in police budgets, a concept that is largely a taboo in Swiss society. Lang calls this the “Americanization” of the Swiss mentality.
The Anglican Church’s highest ranked priest Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby slammed sharia law, Islam’s legal code, in his new book. He warned the British government never to recognize sharia as part of the legal system, calling it incompatible with Britain’s laws.
Welby argued that sharia is a competing values system which is at odds with Britain’s legal and moral traditions that are based on Christian ideas.
“There has been, and remains, a demand for the introduction of those aspects of sharia law that affect family and inheritance,” Lord Welby said. “The problem is re-imagining Britain through values applied in action can only work where the narrative of the country is coherent and embracing.
“Sharia, which has a powerful and ancient cultural narrative of its own, deeply embedded in a system of faith and understanding of God, and thus especially powerful in forming identity, cannot become part of another narrative. Accepting it in part implies accepting its values around the nature of the human person, attitudes to outsiders, the revelation of God, and a basis for life in law, rather than grace, the formative word of Christian culture.
“They face enormous pressures and need one legal basis of oversight and one philosophical foundation of understanding. For these reasons, I am especially sympathetic towards those Islamic groups that do not seek the application of sharia law into the family and inheritance law of this country.”
In particular, the Lord Welby commented on the push for polygamy by Islamist groups, in contrast to British laws enshrining marital monogamy.
Earlier this month the British government rejected findings recommending regulating sharia tribunals which currently operate in the UK performing Islamic marriages and providing other services for the Muslim community. The government declined to regulate the tribunals on the grounds that to do so would be to recognize sharia as an alternative legal system within the UK.
Lord Welby’s position on sharia is a marked shift from that of his predecessor, Lord Williams. The former archbishop of Canterbury said it was “unavoidable” that Britain would incorporate some aspects of sharia law. He called for “constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law.”
Sharia is taken by many Muslims to mean a spiritual path of drawing closer to God and encompasses many rules surrounding prayer, permitted food and ritual. Some areas relating to criminal justice are incompatible with human rights, since they mandate the death penalty for adultery, blasphemy and homosexuality, along with other harsh punishments.
Sharia family law is at odds with Western positions on women’s rights. Women inherit half of what a man inherits and a man is allowed to take up to four wives. Divorce and custody laws are also biased in favor of the man.
Islamic feminist reformers are working on solutions to problems in sharia that are compatible to Islam.
Pictured: Thousands of supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rally, waving Turkish flags, in Cologne, Germany, July 31, 2016. (Photo by Sascha Steinbach/Getty Images)
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