President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) Mustafa Akıncı said, “Some territories have to be given up to establish peace with the Greeks”!
Unbelievable!
There are elections today in Cyprus. I would like to share with you one of my articles that was published exactly 18 years ago to remind our Cypriot brethren that they need to lay claim to Cyprus, that in order to lay claim to Cyprus they need to maintain their Muslim identity, and that if they lose their Islamic identity, they will be easily destroyed.
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The wrong and misleading questions asked by the mediators of media, the “Neo-priests” of our age, the cash barons, and the “sandal-wearing lords” who are interested in playing anachronistic and acrobatic games of our civil and non-civil bureaucracy, their cross-eyed interpretations, clearly reveal the terrifying and pitiful state of the mentality of our elites.
Turkey has not been able to become a cultural party in Cyprus ever since the military operation it conducted in 1974. We exported our authoritarian and absurd secularism, the secular culture to Cyprus as well. We culturally disqualified ourselves ago in Cyprus – with our own hands!
Yet, we could have ensured that the Turkish community in Cyprus maintain their presence by strengthening their relationship with Islam. The Muslim identity could have given them a sense of belonging, a sense of security and confidence.
We are still yet to realize that, through secularization we assimilated (wasted away) the Turkish Cypriot community, which has almost no trace today of the Islamic legacy, depth, and sensibility, that we destroyed their sense of belonging with our own two hands, and thus threw them in the arms of the Greeks! I truly can’t seem to understand how we fail to see that we made the Cypriot Turks resemble the Greeks by secularizing them.
I know Cypriot Turks well from London. Do you know what the primary indicator of Cypriot Turks’ identity and sense of belonging is? Making the Arsenal football club play against Tottenham! They are against Tottenham, because the colors of the Tottenham team’s uniform are the same as the Greek flag.
Cypriot Turkey supports Arsenal! The Arsenal team uniform contains the colors of the Turkish flag! Is such a sense of belonging possible? So, what is this? Of course, it is the sign that a nation has been destroyed, that their identity has been eliminated, that they have been assimilated! Such a grotesque form of identity and belonging exists!
Almost no Greek Cypriot or Greek speaks Turkish, but almost every Cypriot Turk, without exception, speaks Greek! As a matter of fact, they speak it more fluently than they do Turkish!
Looking back at all that has happened, this should not come as a surprise. We need to call things as we see them: Cypriot Turks lived intertwined with the Greeks in the Ottoman era, from the time we lost Cyprus until 1974. Of course it was a challenge for Cypriot Turks to maintain their Islamic identity in such an atmosphere.
However, this is where the strongest part of my analysis and argument lies: What Turkey had to do was adopt an approach that would give prominence to and strengthen the Islamic identity of Cypriot Turks. But instead, the exact opposite was done. Similar to Turkey, efforts were made to make secularism (secularism means Western culture) dominant there as well, and the Islamic identity was completely suppressed and eliminated!
Now we watch as a case in point how Cypriot Turks and Cypriot Greeks strongly and angrily criticize and protest Turkey and the Cypriot Turkish administration alongside the EU.
We long “lost” Cyprus culturally! We thus laid with our own hands the building blocks that would ensure our actual loss of Cyprus!
Had Turkey developed a clever strategy that would strengthen the Islamic identity in Cyprus, had it paved the way for religious movements, even if the TRNC was to join the EU, a Cypriot Turkish community, whose identity is determined by Islam, would have always been a great trump card for us.
If we do not want Cyprus’ present state to be Turkey’s future, we have no choice but to strengthen and consolidate Turkey’s Islamic identity rather than suppress it! Otherwise, there will be no difference between the presence or lack thereof of a Turkish community that has been secularized and whose Islamic identity has been destroyed.
The sole common identity, the sole common spirit, the sole bond, the sole dynamic, the sole source of life and vitality that is enabling this society to remain standing and overcome all difficulties, is not secularism but the Islamic identity. Secularism, secular culture will serve nothing other than to strip this community of its identity and start the decaying process – just like the Cypriot Turks – and it being taken captive by the West without using it having to resort to weapons or force.
This is the main reason the secular Turkey model is presented these days as an example to the Islamic world: We should also start seeing that the fundamental reason why Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said, “The secular forces in Turkey must be supported,” and Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Vice Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz said, “Turkey’s EU membership and secularism need to be supported to prevent Turkey, which is within the orbit of the West – civilization – from changing civilizations and from other pursuits – such as neo-Ottomanism” lies here!
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Cypriot Turks were secularized by Turkey and brought to the verge of suicide; their spiritual ties with Turkey were destroyed. Hence, we have no right to complain about people like Akıncı! He is a product of secular Turkey! Every child of this country is obliged to question whether Cyprus’ present state will become Turkey’s future!
Let us not forget: The moment you remove Islam from this nation’s life, there will be nothing left!
