“You’re Not Welcome Here”:
The Diplomatic Crisis between Turkey & Holland

1,668 words

The Turkish Context

Would you rather be a member of the world’s most exclusive club of oligarchs or an Oriental potentate? Only one person in the twenty-first century has had to struggle with that question so far, and his name is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey. As the hurdles to becoming a Bilderberger in good standing grew higher and the misbehavior of his predecessor’s former subjects became international in scale, the choice has been made for him. 

On April 16, 2017, the Turkish voters (including Turks living abroad) will decide whether or not to approve the constitutional amendments which will eliminate the position of Prime Minister and concentrate executive, legislative, and judicial powers in the office of the President. It will also not only eliminate the requirements for candidates for Parliament to have completed their compulsory military service, but also cryptically bans candidates who have “ties to military service,” which goes beyond the existing ban on active-duty military candidates. Recall that the military has historically been the last-ditch defender of Kemalism, Turkey’s particular blend of civic nationalism and secularism.

As the constitutional amendments are contrary to the principles of the balance of power, it concentrates power in the hands of a soft Islamist, and reinforces the constitutional denial of the existence of Kurds within Turkey. It is also opposed by think-tanks and parties of the Center-Left, of the Kemalist-Nationalist tendency, and of the Far Left/Kurds, respectively.

Erdogan is therefore hunting down every Turkish vote he can find to pass this controversial change. Despite his party having over 57% of the seats in Parliament, polls in January and February did not look good for his referendum. So he has started outreach to Turkish citizens living abroad, including the 400,000 Turks in the Netherlands . . . which brings us to the current crisis.

The Dutch Context

The Netherlands is currently ruled by a coalition government of the Center-Right and the Center-Left that was created in order to keep the civic nationalist Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party out of power. The head of government is the cuckservative, Mark Rutte. The Netherlands is holding its parliamentary elections on the 15th of March . . . let’s hope that day treats Rutte as kindly as it did Julius Caesar.

Geert Wilders’ party has a plurality of support in most opinion polls since November, while Mark Rutte’s party is in second place. The Netherlands has proportional representation and is not subdivided into constituencies. Even if Wilders makes it to first place, he will struggle to create a coalition government with other parties of the Right. Mark Rutte is well aware of the populist wave sweeping Europe and the anti-migrant feeling among the voters. 

The Diplomatic Incident

The Turkish Foreign Minister tried to fly into the Netherlands, not on government business, but rather on behalf of his political party to rally Turks in Rotterdam to vote “yes” on the referendum. According to Dutch sources, the Foreign Minister was informed on Thursday that he would not be given logistical support, though his “freedom of assembly” would not be impacted. (Nationalists should laugh when a government like that of the Netherlands pretends to champion this Right.) When the Foreign Minister decided to exercise his Dutch “freedom of assembly,” he was prevented from landing. In a major rally in Turkey on Saturday supporting the “yes” vote, Erdogan accused the Dutch government of containing Nazi remnants.

On the municipal level, the Moroccan mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb, hoped to make good on his promise to the Turks to hold a rally with a member of the Turkish government present. On Saturday evening, the hijab-wearing Turkish Minister of Family and Social Policies flew into Germany and drove to Rotterdam in an attempt to address the rally at the Turkish consulate there. The Dutch government deployed their jeans-and-sneakers special forces to handle the protesters and rioters, and also to stop the Turkish Minister. After stopping two decoy convoys from Germany, they managed to halt the Minister on foot within blocks of the consulate! She was eventually escorted back to the German border.

Meanwhile, in Turkey, violent demonstrations were held in front of the Dutch diplomatic outposts. The Dutch ambassador, who was out of the country, was told not to return by the Turkish government.

Turkish state television did all they could to instigate anger. They played a two-year-old video of Geert Wilders telling the Turks, “You are not welcome here,” and pretended that it had just been released.

During their protest coverage, a former Prime Minister speculated about why his government was spending so much money on “refugees” (there are around four million currently in Turkey) when they are only being held back from Europe as a favor to the EU. Other government officials have suggested banning Dutch airlines from passing through Turkish airspace, among other threats. They have also ploddingly reminded all of Europe that “all of the oil and gas that Europe needs passes through or around Turkish territory.” The geopolitical importance of Turkey will be addressed below.

Other Bumps in Turkish Diplomacy

Both before and after the attempted coup in July 2016, the Turkish consulates and embassies were seeking out political rivals of Erdogan among the Turkish diaspora in Europe. This led to public criticism from a number of European governments, including the Dutch. For an analysis of the coup and its underlying rivalries, I recommend the work of The Caspian Report, which I have relied upon for several years.

What Is Really Going On?

There can be no doubt that Erdogan is intentionally inflaming tensions with Europe. There is an inverse relationship between the popularity of Erdogan and his soft Islamism and the extent to which Turkey is treated as part of Europe. This escalation was perfectly timed for the most sensitive political moment in the Netherlands and in time for Erdogan’s mega-rally on Saturday. Erdogan has suppressed polls since January, when his numbers looked bad; however, if this gambit has worked, we should see some poll numbers released soon.

There is an open question about the motivations of the cuckservative Prime Minister, Rutte. As a pro-EU errand boy for the oligarchy, Rutte does not want Turkey to pass any laws that will hurt its chances of joining the EU. Also, amidst the rising tide of nationalism and anti-migrant sentiment, Rutte has to look like he is being tough on the Muslims. So there are three possible thrusts on the Dutch side which caused this incident:

• The Dutch Foreign Minister made a legalistic decision distinguishing government business from domestic electoral business. The situation then got out of hand.
• Rutte is a good liberal-democratic evangelist of the European Union, and he doesn’t want his dear Turkish neighbors to make the wrong decision next month, so he will silence the voices urging the wrong decision using the tools at his disposal.
• Rutte is a purely cynical political player and has seized a situation that will allow him to weaken the base of the nationalists (like the Jewish-Hungarian Nicolas Sarkozy did in the 2007 French presidential election) by acting tough for a week. He is primarily focused on the elections.

What’s Next?

Erdogan will continue to heat up tensions with Europe as he approaches his April 16th vote. Perhaps he will pick a fight with Marine Le Pen and France during this time (we can hope).

Rutte has had over six years as Prime Minister to show the Dutch how he handles Muslim issues. This incident will be too little, too late.

Geert Wilders gave an excellent response to the incident, undoubtedly stoking the fiery passions of these squatters on European soil.

The Freedom Party will likely come in first in the election, though they will not hold a majority of the seats. Wilders will likely remain out of power because he will not be able to form a coalition government.

The Geopolitical Goals of White Nationalists

I have spent the last decade personally working against the neocons, but there is one Middle Eastern war I am in favor of: we must retake those European lands that are currently in Turkey, all the way to the Bosporus. Turkey holds an incredibly important strategic position, and there is no level of cultural destruction that will alienate their government from the alliances with the forces of the world periphery—see George Friedman’s book The Next Hundred Years for an example of this attitude toward Turkey—seeking naval chokepoints to use against continental peoples.

Regular readers of my articles know that I have a soft spot for national liberation movements, and the Kurdish struggle is no exception. I hope that they will be able to carve out an independent state in Western Anatolia which will act as a buffer state against Iran and Iraq.

The city of Adana, along with its surrounding farmlands and mountains, would be a worthy compensation to Syria for their loss of Kurdish territories to this future Kurdish state. Adana has a large Arab Alawite population (the ethno-sectarian group of Syria’s Assad family) who will be happy to change out their passports. The city also has many Shi’a Alevis who fled to the city to escape massacres at the hands of the Turkish Army, and their traditional preference for secularism, gender equality, and socialism would be welcome in a country run on Ba’ath Party principles. There are also still many crypto-Armenians, as this was once a mostly Greco-Armenian city before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Armenian Genocide. This would also result in the closing of the NATO’s nearby Incirlik Air Base and the removal of its forty American nuclear warheads from Asia Minor.

The Republic of Turkey should remain only as a rump state bereft of its geopolitical importance, so that it may never again threaten to turn the lights off in Europe, to open the gates to the barbarian hordes, or to aspire to lead the Muslim world toward political unity.