generalspeaking

Paying The Price

The spillover from the rancid and vicious civil war taking place in Syria is having its wobble-effect on the security of its neighbours. The intractable hatred unleashed from its simmering depth within the viscera of tribal cultures has resulted in a no-holds-barred conflict between Sunni and Shia. A conflict that is widely seen reflected throughout the Middle East, where each sect is incensed by the other's attempts to assert its full authority over the 'heretic' other.

There is one issue only that will see them drawn together in a mutual agreement and that is the loathed presence of a Jewish State in their midst. All issues between them, they assure the naive West, can be resolved once the "Palestinian issue" has been solved. An 'issue' that merely cloaks what a history of dysfunction between themselves alone should reveal to be illusory in nature, self-serving and abysmally revealing of the compelling nature of Islam's and tribalism's failings.

Turkey, once under the secular-based government that resulted from the Ataturk rebellion against political Islam, had reconciled itself to the presence of the State of Israel as a neighbour with whom much could be achieved in a unity of purpose and mutual values. But the sweeping tide of Islamic 'purity' and orthodoxy has resulted in the tide of Turkish opinion turning toward a rejection of that reconciliation and a more open policy toward its Islamic neighbours.

That has gained Turkey little in the way of political, social and economic advancement. Turkey is now more than ever conflicted over its geographical presence between the Arab Middle East and Europe. Allying themselves with the rejection of Israel, toward the renascent authenticity of 'pure' Islam as expressed in the Ayatollahs' theocratic control of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Turkey saw fit to replace Israel in its uneasy esteem with the far more comfortable fit of Syria and Hezbollah and that paragon of Islamic rule, Hamas.

For its pains in changing horses in the midstream of the Middle East's riotous and ever-changing politics whose waters forever rush to judgement of the West and the placidly peaceful still-water joys of Islam Turkey cast its dice. With Islam, as the one true source of inspirational faith where tribal antipathies set upon one another mercilessly, latterly concluding with Syria's civil sectarian war following hard on the embittered heels of Iraq's. Turkey has been rewarded for its choice; it is now blessed with attacks on its soil, not from the accursed Jews, but from fellow Muslims.

"We are angry with the refugees and with Assad. We are angry with Erdogan because they are allowed to come here driving around, going anywhere", said Salih Tas leading a chant of "Erdogan out, Erdogan out", with a gathering crowd of Turkish malcontents. "There were 60, maybe 100 of them. They were shouting, 'You are Syrian, you are bombing us'. They said they should shoot all Syrians, even the children", said a shaken young Syrian refugee from Aleppo, taking haven in Reyhanli, among fellow Sunnis.

How painfully thin the membrane of family ties among Muslims where Syrian Sunnis flee the Alawite Shia regime's bombs, seeking shelter in neighbouring Turkey, among fellow Sunni Muslims. The Syrian rebels, in civilian life businessmen, travelled to Turkey to take advantage of trade opportunities in a country prosperous by Syrian standards, funding their arms purchases through any profit realized through their cross-border enterprise.

And Turkey, recompensed for its compassionate shelter of Syrian refugees and blatant support of the Syrian rebels whom one-time ally Bashar al-Assad now names, in most instances quite correctly, 'terrorists', cleans up from the two explosions that killed 44 Turks and two Syrians in Reyhani. "Unfounded accusations", claimed Syria, denying it had any hand in the atrocity. Teenage Turks, quite unconvinced, took to smashing cars with Syrian license plates as Syrians fled in terror.

Aytug Atici, an opposition Turkish MP for a nearby town aired his opinion: "The Alawites (Turkey's ethnic Arabs) are afraid that Alawites and Sunnis will be pitted against each other. Erdogan has made a big mistake. Syria was a neighbour with a fire -- we should have taken water to put it out, not gas to make it flare up". And Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu slams the West for inaction on the Syrian file, as though it is meet and just for the 'international community' to settle Middle East disputes.

"The attack shows how a spark transforms into a fire when the international community remains silent. It's unacceptable for the Syrian and Turkish people to pay the price for this", he ranted, on a diplomatic mission to Germany. Deadly disputes between close neighbours in the Middle East, people who share a way of life, societal values, a common history well before the rule of the Ottoman Empire, and above all a world religion. Not pay the price for what they have contrived between them?

Who then should pay the price?

Labels: Conflict, Defence, Islamism, Revolution, Security, Syria, Turkey

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, May 14, 2013