Saudi-funded TV channels continue to radicalize Muslim youth

With billions of petro dollars to fund their global clout, the Saudi lobbies have simply brought off opposition to their continued efforts to spread Wahabism worldwide.  In failing to confront Wahabism, North America and Europe remain paralysed by a combination of political correctness and a racism of lower expectations while in muslim majority countries, the Saudi lobbies have used the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Ikhwan to infiltrate every level of the State.  Together this ensures that the relentless radicalization of millions of urban, upper and middle class Muslim youth is going on at a relentless pace in only Pakistan, India, Middle East, Egypt, Somalia, Indonesia and Malaysia but also in North America and Europe through the concerted efforts of Saudi-funded Islamic TV channels. Examples of such channels include: Dr. Zakir Naik’s Peace TV (English and Urdu), Islam Channel, Iqraa TV and a few others.

In her book titled ‘Reconciliation’, late Benazir Bhutto offers a bold and critical description of Wahhabi Islam and its home, Saudi Arabia. She recounts the history of Wahhabism, with its repeated destruction of the mosques, monuments and lives of other (moderate) Sunni sects, as well as its war on Shiites. According to Fareed Zakaria, given that Saudi Arabia has been a generous patron to Pakistan, it is striking that Bhutto was willing to write things that would surely have caused her difficulty had she become prime minister.  This threat materialized in reality with the Saudi regime actively opposing the democratic PPP-lead government and its President Asif Ali Zardari as evidenced by both wiki leaks and this New York Times article which both highlight how the Saudis prefer dealing with the ISI and pro-Taliban politicians instead of those like the PPP who have the mandate of the nation.

The very fact that Benazir Bhutto and several other leaders and workers of her party (PPP), and thousands of innocent Pakistanis, Afghanis and nationals of other countries of diverse faiths, sects and ethnicities  have been martyred by the radicalised Jihadis is an indication of the violent and intolerant Salafi-Wahhabi ideology at play.

It is possible to identify three goals of the Saudi-funded Islamic TV channels.

1. The first goal of these channels is to drive a wedge between Muslims and non-Muslims and create a narrow, sectarian binding identity for Muslims, brainwashing them towards a Saudi version of Islam;
2. The second goal is to strip away the diverse and rich cultural heritage of Muslims world-wide by condemning and ridiculing their syncretic spiritual practices. The aim is to create a stark, monochromatic and intolerant version of Islam as per which all other faiths or sects are deviant or heretic;
3. The third goal of these channels is to encourage hatred and physical violence against alls those diverse sects of Islam, e.g., Sufi / Barelvi, moderate Deobandis, Bohras, Isna Asharis, Ahmadis etc, which do not conform to the official Saudi version.

Zakir Naik and dozens of his clones currently being produced by the Saudi-funded Peace TV network are a classic example of how thousands of moderate Muslim youth, women and men, are being subconciously and silently being radicalized by Saudis.  Through a sectarian, decontextualized and selective misinterpretation of the Quran and the Hadees, Zakir Naik is creating divisions and hatred not only between Muslims and non-Muslims (Hindus, Christians, Jews etc) but also between different sects of Islam. Naik’s bigoted propaganda and insensitive diatribe against Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity and also against Sufi, Shia and Ahmadi sects of Islam is completely opposite to the tolerant and the inclusive practices of the Prophet Muhammad.

Similarly, the Islam Channel is known for promoting a narrow sectarian version of Islam wiping out moderate Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims from its programs and discourse. According to a media commentator:

What Islam Channel has done is to give an un-due prominence to Islamist voices that represent only a small minority of British Muslims. This over-representation has also led to other voices “ for instance from the UK’s Shia community or from non-Islamist Muslim groups” being under-represented on the channel.

Many of its speakers are Islamist extremists from organisations like Hizb ut-Tahrir who use the channel to promote intolerant and bigoted interpretations of Islam. Others are Wahhabi graduates of Saudi universities who have denied the Holocaust and promoted hatred of Shia Muslims. Other presenters are Islamists who have been suspended from their jobs in government due to their extremist statements or who are from organisations that the government has broken ties with due to their leading members’ alleged support for terrorism.

One of the most worrying aspects of Islam Channel is the promotion of its extremist agenda via the views and politics of its presenters. Amongst these have been the Wahhabi cleric and anti-semite Yasir Qadhi, and Azad Ali of the Islamic Forum Europe (IFE), who was suspended from his position of civil servant earlier this year, following the publication of extremist jihadi literature on the IFE blog.

Iqraa TV channel is yet another Saudi-funded channel aimed at redefining an Islamic identity among Arab viewers. The channel is owned by Saudi billionaire Sheikh Salah Kamal’s Arab Media Corporation.

According to Abu Haiba: Two easily identifiable media discourses in the Islamic media environment today are: the visibly Saudi-influenced one, which are clearly embodied by the Salafist ideology. Though narrow in their scope, Salafi stations focus on rituals and spirituality, where women and music are virtually non-existent on the airwaves. Furthermore, political quietism is another characteristic of these stations. However, there is also presence of relatively moderate, more refined and subtle Saudi-Salafi channels which are characterized by a contradiction of statements both in style and content stemming from their ostensibly moderate inclinations. Some shows have expanded their range of issues covered, beyond Islamic laws and spirituality. For example, they not only addressed issues pertaining to ethics and values, but also featured women as anchors, guests, or among the general public presenting media stories. However, political quietism and wiping out of diverse sects of Islam remains their key characteristic.

Another example of an exclusive and intolerant agenda of such TV channels is their policy of wiping out Karabla and Imam Hussain from their transmission even during the first ten days of Muharram when Muslims across the world, notwithstanding their particular sect or belief, mourn the great sacrifice of Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Millions of Sunni and Shia Muslims in India, Pakistan, North America, Europe and other countries pay homage to Imam Hussain, which is also evident on moderate Islamic channels such as Noor TV, ARY QTV, Hidayat TV, Takbeer TV etc.  However, the mention of Imam Hussain andthe  family of the Prophet is completely censored on Saudi-funded Peace TV, Iqraa TV and Islam Channel. It must be acknowleged that the great sacrifice of Imam Hussain has been acknowledged and apprecaited by Muslim and non-Muslims alike who treat the revered Imam as a symbol of humanity and truth.  All Islamic TV channels are paying homage to Imam Hussain except Saudi-funded, OBL & Yazid apologist Zakir Naik’s Peace TV and other Saudi-financed channels.  While both Muslims as well as Hindus, Christains, Sikhs, Jews etc. respect the timeless Karbala paradigm, the Saudi hate lobby, lead by the likes of Zakir Naik ensures that Imam Hussain is ignored or that the tyrannical caliph Yazid who murdered the Prophet’s family is eulogized.

A similar censorship is enforced by the Saudi-funded channels on the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (known as Mawlid or Eid-Milad-un-Nabi), which is observed by a dominant majority of all Sunnis and Shias except those belonging to Saudi-Salafi interpretation of Islam. From a Saudi-Wahhabi perspective, the majority of moderate Sufi/Barelvi Sunnis are ridiculed as mushrik (polytheists) and Shias are reduced to kafir (infidels).

Such Saudi-funded TV channels are also being facilitated by other pro-Saudi preachers such as Dr. Farhat Hashmi and other Taliban and Al Qaeda apologists. Previously activists and scholars such as Sarah Khan, Tarek Fatah, Farzana Hasan and Raheel Raza have written on the potential threats posed to peace, tolerance and Islam itself by pseudo-Muslim scholars such as Zakir Naik and Farhat Hashmi.

To see the creeping Talibanization and sympathy for Al Qaeda initiatives Farhat Hashmi, refer to Salon’s “The Taliban’s ladies auxiliary” , this Daily Times report and the a collection of various newspaper articles, reports and comments that have has been compiled by LUBP.  These accounts painstakingly highlight how Wahabi proselytizers have made significant strides in creating rejectionist and misogynist mental ghettos amongst muslim communities worldwide, especially in Canada and Britain.

The progenitors of Zakir Naik and Farhat Hashmi are 20th century ideologues like Syed Qutb, Abul Ala Mawdudi and Hassan Al-Banna.  The last is the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood/Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen and grand-father of Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss acadamic whose subtle Wahabi-lite activism needs greater intellectual scrutiny.  These are the ideologues who have been the biggest promotors of a global Wahabist agenda that rejects both moderate muslim opinion as well as the rights and values of other faith traditions.  This Wahabist agenda justifies the horrendous violence against both muslims and non-muslims.  It is the reason why the many brainwashed upper-middle class muslim urbanites of Europe and North America are completely silent about the violence that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of muslims from Somalia to Indonesia.  This is the specific violence committed by Al Qaeda and its Taliban, Jamaat-e-Islami, Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi affiliates while moderate muslims, especially the Ahmedi, Sufi, Sunni and Shia sects are the primary victims of this violence.

I am painfully aware of the fact that millions of Muslims not only in India and Pakistan but also in the US, Canada, UK and other countries across the world are allowing themselves and their families to be gradully brainwashed by watching the Saudi-Ikhwan sectarian propaganda of such TV channels.

It is a sincere warning to all those persons who are allowing themselves and/or their family members to be exposed to and brainwashed by the Saudi-funded TV channels: you might have a future Faisal Shahzad, Major Nidal Hasan or Muhammad Ata currently being groomed right within your own house.  Through your subscription or donation to the Saudi-funded TV channels, you may be, at least indirectly and subconsciously, contributing to the spread of Al Qaeda, Taliban and Saudi-ization of moderate Muslims. It is time to reflect on ways to discourage and impede the ongoing Saudi-ization (Wahhabi-ization) of moderate Muslim youth.

List of Saudi-funded Wahhabi-Salafi TV networks

Name	Language(s)	Established	Type	Notes
Islam Channel	English	December 2004	Wahabi Islam	Saudi-funded; Available throughout  UK and Western Europe via Eurobird.  Available throughout Europe and Middle East via Hotbird 6 and throughout Africa  via EutelsatSesat and Eutelsat W4.
Peace TV	English	September 2007	Wahabi Islam	Saudi funded; Owned by Zakir Naik.
Peace TV Urdu	Urdu	July 2009	Wahabi Islam	Saudi funded; Owned by Zakir Naik.
IQRAA TV	English / Urdu	April 2009	Wahhabi Islam	Saudi funded; IQRA TV is owned  and run by Al Khair foundation under  the supervision of Imam Qasim. Mainly  in English but also runs some Bangali  and Urdu programming. Has strong links with PEACE TV and recently hosted the Al-Khair Peace  convention jointly in UK. On Sky in the  UK and can be receivedin Europe via  Eurobird 1.
Al Resalah	Arabic	2006	Wahabi Islam	Saudi funded; Owned by Prince Waleed bin Talal.

Arabization of Pakistan: Bringing the desert home

By Suleman Akhtar

By Suleman Akhtar

Abaya was an unknown word in Urdu language PHOTO: AFP

There was a land of cavaliers and cotton fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their ladies fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a civilization gone with the wind.

– An introductory foreword to the film Gone with the Wind (1939)

Civilizations can never be made up, this is all hitherto history has to tell us, but yes they can be ruined to irretrievable notwithstanding. Societies are never absolute in their very essence. This is the natural organic flow of events that weaves the edifice of a society over the time period by encompassing the divergent customs, languages, dogmas and traits. The final synthesis, what we call a society, is the one to impart the distinguishing identity to its adherents. The more firm the foundations of society, the more preeminent will be the identity yielding out of it. Societies are prone to decadence only when they cease to embrace the extrinsic flavors or when become the subject of deliberate acculturation. Later is the case with ‘the land of pure’ which, as for some, is yet to be more pure.

Pure is the word and Arabization is the synonym.

Pure of what?

Pure of the specter of the pre-partition Indian identity that was the congenital inheritance of Indian Muslims bestowed on them by the indigenous society that had evolved over hundreds of years by the commingling of various cultures and civilizations.

Plagued by quandary, the Pakistani state, after the partition, was quick to embrace the pan-Islamic identity embellished with salient features of Arabian Peninsula whilst cunningly blending it with religion in order to render it more acceptable for the local populace. The identity engineers considered it the last resort to homogenize the diverse local cultures and vernacular languages by binding them in a construct emanated from religion based identity. That was fall of Dhaka that led to expedition of the Arabization process.

Eminent historian Dr Mubarak Ali explains the predicament in the words:

“Since its inception Pakistan has faced the monumental task of formulating its national identity separate from India. Partitioned from the ancient civilization of India, Pakistan has struggled to construct its own culture; a culture not just different and unique from India, but one appreciable by the rest of the world. ..The tragedy of 1971 [when Bangladesh separated] brought a shock to the people and also a heavy blow to the ideology of Pakistan… More or less convinced of their Islamic heritage and identity, Pakistan’s government and intelligentsia consciously attempted to Islamize the country.”

History itself has been the cardinal victim since antiquity in the hands of plunderers who deem it their foremost target for their ulterior motives. That’s what happened here. History, taught in public schools, starts from the arrival of Muslim Arabs and ends at carving a Muslim state out of Hindu India. Everything else has been rendered smokescreen.

The past, prior to Muhammad Bin Qasim, is a direct threat to the engineered Arab identity as it was obviously Hindu-Buddhist so omitted. The puritans, Aurangzeb Alamgir and Ahmad Sirhindi, get all praise since they are in line with the unyielding version of Arab Islam whilst heretic Akbar is accused of creating a new religion ignoring the fact that people were far better off in Akbar’s era. There’s not even a single mentioning of inter-faith harmony Dara Shikow had been preaching given that there’s no space whatsoever for trans-religious approach in a society aimed for adherents of single creed.

Plunderer Mehmud Ghaznavi has been denominated as ‘idol-breaker’ merely to glorify the unified Islamic triumphalism over the misbeliever India. This systematic maligning of young minds is not confined to only government educational institutes but by an act of parliament, passed in 1976, all private schools are also required to follow this curriculum.

Rubina Saigol, an expert on education says:

“Our state system is the biggest madrasa. We keep blaming madrasas for everything and, of course, they are doing a lot of things I would disagree with. But the state ideologies of hate and a violent, negative nationalism are getting out there where madrasas cannot hope to reach.”

Over the last three decades Pakistan has seen some drastic changes in societal demeanor and etiquettes ranging from language to customs. Dissemination of construct based on the Arab identity is bearing fruit.

Abaya’ that was an unknown word in Urdu language has now become the benchmark of the fictitious morality that is the ultimate result of deliberate assimilation of arid Arab culture. Even the moderate ones are obliged to wear Abaya to meet the newly contrived moral standards of society. ‘Chaadar aur Char Dewaari’ (veiled behind high brick walls) policy of dictator Zia-ul-Haq is turning out to be the worst kind of oppression of women, along with the laws like Hudood ordinance enacted during his regime.

Even the language has not been spared amidst this whole drivel of purification. Article 31/2 (a) of Constitution of Pakistan states:

“The State shall endeavor, as respects the Muslims of Pakistan to make the teaching of the Holy Quran and Islamiat compulsory, to encourage and facilitate the learning of Arabic language.”

 What’s that?

A pathetic attempt to make Arabic lingua franca for Pakistan where less than 1 per cent population can understand Arabic?

What about the divergent local languages or even the so-called national language?

The most common but glaring example that may be put forward to underline the predicament is gradual replacement of the Indo-Persian ‘Khuda Hafiz’ with Arabic ‘Allah Hafiz’ implying that Arabic Allah is the only proper word for God.  Khuda is an Indo-Persian term to say God. It is built on the same building blocks that other Indo-European languages use. The English say God, Germans say Gott or Gutt, Persians say Khuda. The G is a variation of Kh and the utt or od is a variation of “uda”. They’re very similar. On the other hand, Arabic is Afro-Asiatic language. By taking a look to other Semitic languages such as Hebrew, they are very near to Arabic flavor. As for instance Jews say Elohim that sounds very familiar while reciting the word ‘Allah’. Where do the attributes of God come into the matter from? Some of the 99 names of God have their origins in classical Hebrew instead of Arabic. So in the view of this logic should those be abandoned too?

Renowned scholar Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy sheds the light on the issue:

“Persian, the language of Mughal India, had once been taught as a second or third language in many Pakistani schools. But, because of its association with Shiite Iran, it too was dropped and replaced with Arabic. The morphing of the traditional “Khuda hafiz” (Persian for “God be with you”) into “Allah hafiz” (Arabic for “God be with you”) took two decades to complete. The Arab import sounded odd and contrived, but ultimately the Arabic God won and the Persian God lost.”

An interesting aspect of this whole phenomenon is the puritanical version of Islam i.e. Salafism/Wahabism that is predominately a phenomenon traces its roots to Arabian Peninsula and has been instrumented by the identity surgeons to homogenize the cultures that have not even an infinitesimal thing in common – consequences are horrible. This unyielding interpretation of Islam puts great emphasis on rituals and codes of conducts than on substance quite contrary to the Indian version of Islam that is marked with local customs evolved over the centuries through intermingling of diverse doctrines.

All religions have two aspects that are theological beliefs related to one’s relationship with divine reality and sociological beliefs comprising of social behaviors dealing with human society. The former remain more or less absolute in their very nature while the later do change with the passage of time when religions go trans-regional.

Problems predominately start erupting when the sociological beliefs are subjugated by state to implement and propagate hidden agendas. These sociological beliefs then lay the bases of hatred, bigotry and misogyny. This is what has been done in land of the pure in the name of purifying religion by escalating a particular expression of religion to the stature of only-viable-interpretation-of-Islam. God has been portrayed as some Arabic speaking deity who is restricted to ethno-linguistic boundary which is clearly in contradiction of message of religion.

As the Holy Quran says:

“Another of His signs is the creation of the heavens and earth, and the diversity of your languages and color. There truly are signs in this for those who know” (30:22). There is also this famous verse: “O people, we created you from the same male and female, and rendered you distinct peoples and tribes, so that you may know one another.” (49:13)

As for elaborating further the above discussed phenomenon take the example of Madrassas in Pakistan. They are the social sites for the reproduction of Islamic orthodoxy. Hence, to say that the ideological orientation of madrassa education is conservative is to state the obvious.

The madrassas in Muslim South Asia teach a curriculum known as Dars-i-Nizami, first introduced by Mullah Nizamuddin Sihalvi (d.1747) who was a scholar of some repute in Islamic jurisprudence and philosophy in Lucknow. But this was only during the last two decades of twentieth century when they became involve in militancy despite having the two hundred years apathetic history.

The curriculum of madrassas has been the same for about 150 years which is most pacifist in nature. Its approach to Islam is ultra-conservative, literal, legalist and sectarian, but definitely not revolutionary or militant. If it were the militant tendencies of madrassas could have been observed during the most volatile events like: partition, fall of Dhaka and Indo-Pak wars.

What happened during the last two decades of twentieth century?

A classic example of importing doctrine is not-so-secret now and the answers lie with the diplomats and generals who were power brokers in Islamabad, Kabul, Riyadh and Langley, VA at that time.

Kamal Azfar, a Pakistani writer, states the dilemma in words:

“There are two concepts of Pakistan: the first empirical and the second utopian. The empirical concept is based on solid foundations of history and geography while the utopian concept is based on shifting sands. Utopia is not an oasis but a mirage… Samarqand and Bukhara and the splendors of the Arab world are closely related to us but we do not possess them. Our possessions are Mohenjo Daro and Sehwan Sharif, Taxila and Lahore, Multan and the Khyber. We should own up to all that is present here in the Indus Valley and cease to long for realities not our own for that is false-consciousness.”

To conclude, I will take liberty to speak for the third generation, who has the privilege to breathe in the air of this still-not-so-pure-land and is Pakistani now.

I’m not going to mourn the Indus Valley civilization, but what is the substitute they offer me if it is not desert?

The bitter reality is that I don’t have a clue of half of indigenous literature that has been written in Persian.

I have nothing whatsoever against religion, but how would they justify the attacks on the shrines of my land?

I’m all for endorsing their policies, but what is the vindication they have of myriads of dead bodies of my country-fellows?

I’m ready to relinquish Khusro, Ghalib, Bhittai, Bullah, Rahman Baba and Gul Khan, but can they introduce me to an equivalent of this stature?

I shall not question them, but will they care to tell me, ‘who am I’?

Erdogan hitches Turkey’s wagon to NATO, as he assumes role of Muslim East prelate

By Zainab Cheema

The Fall season is here, and Ankara is somnolent with the dreams of Rome. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan recently completed his Arab Spring tour over North Africa, including the recently despoiled Libya, delivering his trademark no-holds barred rhetoric that has won the hearts of the Arab street. But while he continues to verbally joust with Israel, raising his profile in the streets of the Muslim world, he has signed on the dotted line for the NATO-led counter-revolution in the Muslim East. The fate of the Turkish model is by now, a twice-told tale, a suspense novel unraveling into a familiar potboiler after the spoilers have been revealed. But since the Turkish model is still widely touted as the blueprint par excellence for the new Muslim East, a retrospective is useful here.

Since beginnings are important, let us not neglect our “once upon a time.” One of the most stirring events in recent political history is the rise of the AKP, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, which appeared to advocate a unique blend of Islamic politics. The formula included a domestic return to Muslim cultural identity (headscarves in public are now permissible), and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s famous “zero problems” policy, which has tilted toward building strong economic and political links with the Middle Eastern countries rather than the long-desired Europe. Nervous political observers in the US and Europe began ringing alarm bells on Turkey’s “Islamicization” and “neo-Ottomanization.” If it were true, it would certainly be a perilous development on the hinge of the Bosphorus, the apex of the world’s military, economic, and energy traffic.

Disenfranchised Muslim populations watched in awe as Erdogan and his aides appeared to helm a burgeoning first-world state rooted in memories of the Muslims’ past civilizational greatness. In one of his media interviews, Davutoglu related a story illustrating this trademark: how he shamed warring Iraqi factions into an accord by reciting to them the past glories of Baghdad. Seemingly, such intervention can only be performed by an urbane, cosmopolitan Turkish-Muslim politician endowed with the knowledge and confidence of past Muslim civilizations. How could the street in Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt, and Indonesia find this anything but irresistible?

However, notwithstanding Baghdad, Andalusia, and Mughal India, the AKP in particular harks back to memories of the Ottoman Empire. This is the continuity through which Turkey sees itself, in Davutoglu’s words, as imparting a “sense of justice and a sense of vision to the region.” Since 2007, Turkey actively presented itself as the Muslim East’s peacemaker, the strategic shuttle between US and European alliances and the Iranian, Syrian, and Hizbullah nexus. Turkey views its influence as a variety of soft-power stemming from deep cultural links with the Muslim East, uniquely bestowed by its Ottoman history in the region.

The Turkish experiment, for all the brouhaha about the US’s unease about Turkey’s covert Islamists, has been made possible by a particularly fantastic pitch: that the senescent US power agree to teamwork with a vibrant Turkey possessing the keys to the Muslim East (the people, not just to the dictators’ clubs). In Davutoglu’s vision, outlined in interviews and his academic writings, the US has been disadvantaged in that it possesses no “strategic depth” — that is, historical-geographic and cultural connections — to the Muslim East. It was more or less, an alien power. Turkey, possessing all of the above, was presented as an ideal collaborator in its quest for greater penetration. The role of go-between “was not assigned to Turkey by any outside actor,” wrote Davutoglu in Foreign Policy, “[t]his is what it means to be part of “we.”

“A global power like this [referring the US], a regional power like that [referring to Turkey] have an excellent partnership,” Davutoglu continued in an interview with the New York Times. In one of his articles for the journal Foreign Policy, Davutoglu characterized the AKP’s politics as “proactive and pre-emptive peace diplomacy” that honored NATO alliances but also maintained Turkey’s organic cultural and religious ties with the Muslim world. As a self-conscious Muslim power, it could deliver in a way Mubarak and Co. could not, since it could tap into the cultural and psychic panorama of the Muslim East. While US diplomats privately railed about Erdogan and co. as “pashas,” “beys,” and “radical Islamists,” it was an offer they couldn’t refuse. It is like lionizing a disreputable insider to get into the best club in town.

For Turkey’s part, its organic link with the Muslim East maps a little too uneasily on the borders of the Ottoman Empire at its zenith. It is an open question for Davutoglu whether Turkey’s organic connection with the Muslim East falls under the rubric of imperial domination in an Ottoman-esque manifest destiny or leadership that emerges from advocating for and promoting the rights of the disenfranchised? Erdogan’s speech after his 2011 election victory is instructive on that point. “Believe me, Sarajevo won today as much as Istanbul, Beirut won as much as Izmir, Damascus won as much as Ankara, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, the West Bank, Jerusalem won as much as Diyarbakir,” he declared, sketching the former borders of the Ottoman Empire.

Not that this should come as a surprise. After all, nationalism and imperialism are a natural fit, like hot-dogs and relish. The modern age of colonialism began when European populations gelled together as nation-states. What is ironic is that for all the AKP’s Islamic rhetoric, it shows itself to be deeply tutored by Ataturk’s legacy of European-style nationalism. “Justice and Development” has become rather an oxymoron for Erdogan and his aides, because “justice” means globally representing Muslims in Erdogan’s inimitable street-fighter style, while “development” is code for furthering Turkish national interests. Which has taken precedence? A hint: Turkish web writer Mustafa Akyok is rather on point when he says, “[t]he “Muslimness” of Turkish foreign policy should be seen as a bit like the “Judeo-Christianness” of American foreign policy”. That is, “Render unto Caeser what is Caeser’s and to God what is God’s.”

Nevertheless, the role of go-between has allowed Turkey to advocate for Iran within the halls of NATO, the military body that has reconfigured itself following the end of the Cold War for the long war in Eurasia and the Muslim East. At the end of 2010, NATO planned to unveil a new “Strategic Concept” that would openly define Iran as the new threat to Europe justifying NATO’s crusading and war-trafficking. Turkey raised a ruckus, preventing NATO from openly naming Iran and Syria as threats on official documents about a lavishly expensive missile shield and other projects. “Defending against the threat of a possible ballistic missile attack from Iran has given birth to what has become, for NATO, an essential military mission,” declared the original report, written by former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright. Turkish President Abdullah Gul declared that Turkey “would definitely not accept” pointing fingers at Iran, as it would harm relations between the two countries.

Perhaps zero-problems’ most significant achievement has been to forge a zone of economic cooperation between Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria, enabling the free flow of business and tourists across the regions. Iranian tourists flooded into Turkey to the tune of millions, causing some slight recriminations in the US and Europe about blocking Turkey’s membership to the EU over the years. Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said as much: “if there is anything to the notion that Turkey is, if you will, moving Eastward,” it was the result of being “pushed by some in Europe refusing to give Turkey the sort of organic link to the West that Turkey sought.”

Banked by impressive legislative victories against the military and a robust Turkish economy dubbed by observers as the rising Eurasian tiger, Erdogan even had the leverage to talk tough with Israel, an achievement that can be claimed by few Muslim politicians. In the 2009 Davos World Economic Forum, during Israel’s Gaza massacre, Erdogan burst out at Shimon Peres before storming off the stage: “You know how to kill people very well!” The Mavi Marmara incident then proceeded to lift Erdogan to stardom in the Muslim street, as Pepe Escobar put it, “a cross between U2’s Bono and Barcelona’s superstar Argentine footballer Lionel Messi.” A political rockstar, a messiah from the Black Sea rather than a Bethlehem manger.

The US, long used to driving Faustian bargains with its allies, now found itself in the hot seat. A nightmare was driving the frenzied diplomatic cables, political counsels and newspaper articles — would AKP dare to convert their cultural Islamic capital, tentatively placed into NATO’s service so far, into political Islam? Newspaper print on this issue materialized into black ink the sweat that trickled down numerous Savoy Row and Hugo Boss suits over this issue.

This fear factor has helped Turkey in its trajectory on the world stage. “Zero problems” has yielded fabulous windfalls — greater penetration into the Muslim East, which paradoxically rendered it an even more desirable tango-partner for the United States. Turkish businesses blossomed in the wake of this precarious balancing act between Europe and the Muslim East, gaining access to both the distribution of resources in energy-rich, hard-luck countries and diplomatic cachet with Superman and friends. Turkey has blossomed into an object of study, anxiety, and fascination across the US’s political, economic, and academic strata — all thanks to the AKP.

Turkish influence in Iraq is a particularly successful example of “zero problems”. “This is the trick — we are very much welcome here,” noted Ali Riza Ozcoskun, the head of Turkey’s consulate in al-Basrah, referring to Turkish presence in Iraq. By mediating between Iraqi and US power factions (and eschewing Gothic installations of horror like Abu Ghraib), Turkey “has positioned itself as the country’s gateway to Europe, while helping to satisfy its own growing energy needs,” as the New York Times put it. Trade between Turkey and Iraq has already grown to $6 billion, doubling from 2008, and Iraq is projected to be Turkey’s largest export market in a few years.

Alas, all good things come to an end. As other writers have observed, Turkey was completely caught by surprise by the Arab Spring and found itself hedged by the Muslim world’s vociferous demands for self-determination on the one hand, and the desperate US and EU attempts to bring back the neo-colonies in line on the other. If “zero problems” means to eat your cake and have it too, at some point, you have to pay up when the baker comes calling. That is, at some point, the AKP would have had to face up to the contradiction between globally advocating Muslims’ rights and consolidating membership in the halls of power.

The US does know how to send a message — the postman doesn’t just ring twice, he makes a point of ringing three, four or even a dozen times. As a result of bomb-blasts leading to the 2011 Turkish elections, secret-negotiating in political councils, and some meetings with Saudi envoys, Turkey got the message that NATO expected it to toe a certain line in its campaign to tamp down on the Middle Eastern revolutions. Turkey has since backed away from the Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah nexus, and toward the US, EU, and Saudi alliance.

Perhaps the most obvious example is Erdogan’s recent agreement to house a radar system that is part of NATO’s missile shield against Iran. “Turkey’s hosting of this element will constitute our country’s contribution to the defense system being developed in the framework of NATO’s new strategic concept,” announced the Turkish Foreign Ministry in a statement that completely backpedaled on the AKP’s earlier resistance to NATO’s military rhetoric. “It will strengthen NATO’s defense capacity and our national defense system,” it continued. The Pentagon greeted the move with smug delight: “It was well received here,” reported one senior American military officer in Washington. Certainly, Turkey’s shift from objecting to anti-Iranian language on NATO reports into a shield-maiden for US and EU-crusading is slightly whip-lash inducing.

The Libya chapter has lifted a bloody feather in Erdogan’s career. NATO’s reconquista of Libya has involved genocide, a result of massive bombing campaigns over the city in order to destroy infrastructure, kill pro-Qaddafi population centers, and pave the way for the rag-tag rebel victory. Erdogan initially protested the Libya campaign for a few weeks — Turkey enjoyed considerable investment in Libya under Qaddafi, to the tune of $23 billion. However, he eventually came around, sending naval and logistical support to the Benghazi opposition, many of whom are hired thugs. Recently, Benghazi and a subdued Tripoli have been key stops in Erdogan’s Arab Spring tour.

“Few images of Turkey’s expanding influence are more powerful than of Mr. Erdogan joining hands with Libya’s new leaders for Friday prayers,” noted Alexander Christie-Miller of the Christian Science Monitor. Rebel leaders profusely thanked Erdogan for his help: “Our hands are clasped with those of the Turkish people,” declared Benghazi imam Salem al-Sheikhi, “We will never forget what you did for us.” Erdogan returned the gesture, painting the CIA-propped band of rebels as a bona fide democratic movement. “Turkey will fight with you until you take all your victory,” declared Erdogan, “You proved to all the world that nothing can stand in the way of what the people want.” Turkish companies are poised to win major contracts in the reconstruction phase, when NATO-affiliated corporate interests will move in and take ownership of Libya’s resources in return for rebuilding the infrastructure destroyed by NATO sorties.

Erdogan has also taken the diplomatic lead in championing the US-led counter-revolution against Bashar al-Assad. Mixed in with civilian demonstrations that swelled over the Muslim East, CIA-trained armed groups in Syria have been fighting pitched battles against the state army and accusing the latter of civilian massacre. “Those who repress their own people in Syria will not survive,” declared Erdogan, playing to the crowd with clichés scripted straight from Hillary Clinton’s desk. “The time of autocracies is over. Totalitarian regimes are disappearing. The rule of the people is coming,” he stated. The New York Times suggests that Turkey has been selected as the key interface for igniting civil disorder in Syria to bring the star crashing down like Humpty Dumpty: “In coordination with Turkey, the United States has been exploring how to deal with the possibility of a civil war among Syria’s Alawite, Druze, Christian and Sunni sects, a conflict that could quickly ignite other tensions in an already volatile region.”

If Syria and Iran (and their networks of influence) are out, what happens to Turkey’s cultural access to the Muslim East? It is telling that Davutoglu announced that Turkey’s future partnership will now be with Egypt (and not with the “disreputable” Iran and Syria, as he made clear). Ever given to hyperbole, Davutoglu described the Turkish-Egyptian partnership as a new axis of power in the Muslim East, positioned to alter the region’s geo-politics. “This will be an axis of democracy, real democracy,” he told the New York Times, “an axis of democracy of the two biggest nations in our region, from the north to the south, from the Black Sea down to the Nile Valley in Sudan.” Erdogan’s policy of publicly criticizing Israel while privately acquiescing to NATO seems intended to position Turkey as the heir of the Muslim East revolutions — to place Turkey “at the center of everything,” as he described it.

Of course, Egypt’s military junta has been paid off to the tune of $4 billion by Saudi Arabia acting on behalf of the cash-strapped US and EU, in order to put the brakes on the Egyptian revolution and keep North Africa’s most important asset firmly tethered to the US orbit. After the popular uprising against Cairo’s Israeli embassy on September 9, the “aid” promised to Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi has jumped to $80 billion in order to keep things quiet. Turkey’s talk of developing an alliance with the military-governed Egypt is rather an outlandish piece of theater — Davutoglu seems to be working from NATO’s “divide and rule” script to paint a bona fide “Sunni” outpost of power to counterbalance the Iranian-Syrian-Lebanese “Shi‘i” one — not to mention hypocritical, considering the AKP’s own struggle with military authoritarianism in Turkey.

It seems that “zero problems with neighbors” is running into all sorts of problems. The Arab Spring has given way to a winter of discontent for Turkey, which fabulously believes that it can achieve domestic political agendas, regional influence, and international clout through real-politiking. As the AKP frays ties with key demographics in the Muslim East, reversing their political move “Eastward,” Erdogan has intensified his rhetorical bashing of Israel. Apparently, he sees no contradiction in signing on to NATO crusades against Libya and Syria while verbally flaying the most important outpost of US and European empire in the Muslim East. There is a tactic at work here, but clearly no strategy — Turkey seems to believe it can continue to justify its claims to leadership in the Muslim East by milking the symbolic capital offered by the Palestinian issue across the Muslim world. In this calculus, rhetoric can apparently substitute for real commitment to the people that one is invoking.

Of course, it is understandable that politicians must address multiple audiences and population groups — but it does not hold that Erdogan and Davutoglu see those various groups as equal. The biggest problem with “zero problem,” whether Turkey acknowledges it or not, is that there is a massive schism emerging between the two main audience groups that Erdogan and company have committed themselves to catering: US and European power groups (bankers, lobbies, politicians, war juntas) with their local representations in Turkey (military officers, secular nationalists) on the one hand, and disenfranchised populations struggling for bread and breath in the Muslim world on the other. Not to mention the split between the global Muslim street and Turkish capital interests, represented by the 200 or so businessmen who followed him on his trip to Tripoli and Benghazi.

Perhaps the greatest contradiction is that Turkey still desires Europe. As late as November 2010, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told the Reuters news agency that “We have been kept waiting at the gates of the EU for 50 years. We are still waiting and waiting and still in the negotiating process.” Like their secular predecessors, Erdogan and Davutoglu desire the economic benefits that flow from consortium membership, political influence from sitting at tables with France and Germany, and the prestigious cultural recognition that yes, Turkey is part of Europe, not just its neglected gate-keeper. In a perfect future, the AKP would reconstitute the Ottoman zone of influence — empire has since become a dirty word — and force Britain, France and Germany to acknowledge it as an equal and a partner. The stain from history’s remembrance of the “the Sick Man of Europe” would finally wash away.

In imaging a divine right to history, AKP’s Turkey is betraying the present. In assuming Turkey’s role at “the center of everything,” Turkey is robbing the millions who strove to assume their God-ordained right to public action this past Spring. Dreams of Ottoman glory and grandeur — the seigneurial right to rule — has no place in the “we” that Davutoglu invoked in gently telling the New York Times that US power is alien to the Middle Eastern territory. However, the failure of Erdogan’s cabinet to imagine a future of inter-regional fraternity risks turning Turkey into an alien to this moment in time.

The Dönmeh: The Middle East’s Most Whispered Secret (Part II)

BY WAYNE MADSEN

What will surprise those who may already be surprised about the Dönmeh connection to Turkey, is the Dönmeh connection to the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia.

An Iraqi Mukhabarat (General Military Intelligence Directorate) Top Secret report, “The Emergence of Wahhabism and its Historical Roots,” dated September 2002 and released on March 13, 2008, by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in translated English form, points to the Dönmeh roots of the founder of the Saudi Wahhabi sect of Islam, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab. Much of the information is gleaned from the memoirs of a “Mr. Humfer,” (as spelled in the DIA report, “Mr. Hempher” as spelled the historical record) a British spy who used the name “Mohammad,” claimed to be an Azeri who spoke Turkish, Persian, and Arabic and who made contact with Wahhab in the mid-18th century with a view of creating a sect of Islam that would eventually bring about an Arab revolt against the Ottomans and pave the way for the introduction of a Jewish state in Palestine. Humfer’s memoirs are recounted by the Ottoman writer and admiral Ayyub Sabri Pasha in his 1888 work, “The Beginning and Spreading of Wahhabism.”

In his book, The Dönmeh Jews, D. Mustafa Turan writes that Wahhab’s grandfather, Tjen Sulayman, was actually Tjen Shulman, a member of the Jewish community of Basra, Iraq. The Iraqi intelligence report also states that in his book, The Dönmeh Jews and the Origin of the Saudi Wahhabis, Rifat Salim Kabar reveals that Shulman eventually settled in the Hejaz, in the village of al-Ayniyah what is now Saudi Arabia, where his grandson founded the Wahhabi sect of Islam. The Iraqi intelligence report states that Shulman had been banished from Damascus, Cairo, and Mecca for his “quackery.” In the village, Shulman sired Abdul Wahhab. Abdel Wahhab’s son, Muhammad, founded modern Wahhabism.

The Iraqi report also makes some astounding claims about the Saud family. It cites Abdul Wahhab Ibrahim al-Shammari’s book, The Wahhabi Movement: The Truth and Roots, which states that King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, the first Kingdom of Saudi Arabia monarch, was descended from Mordechai bin Ibrahim bin Moishe, a Jewish merchant also from Basra. In Nejd, Moishe joined the Aniza tribe and changed his name to Markhan bin Ibrahim bin Musa. Eventually, Mordechai married off his son, Jack Dan, who became Al-Qarn, to a woman from the Anzah tribe of the Nejd. From this union, the future Saud family was born.

The Iraqi intelligence document reveals that the researcher Mohammad Sakher was the subject of a Saudi contract murder hit for his examination into the Sauds’ Jewish roots. In Said Nasir’s book, The History of the Saud Family, it is maintained that in 1943, the Saudi ambassador to Egypt, Abdullah bin Ibrahim al Muffadal, paid Muhammad al Tamami to forge a family tree showing that the Sauds and Wahhabs were one family that descended directly from the Prophet Mohammed.

At the outset of World War I, a Jewish British officer from India, David Shakespeare, met with Ibn Saud in Riyadh and later led a Saudi army that defeated a tribe opposed to Ibn Saud. In 1915, Ibn Saud met with the British envoy to the Gulf region, Bracey Cocas. Cocas made the following offer to Ibn Saud: “I think this is a guarantee for your endurance as it is in the interest of Britain that the Jews have a homeland and existence, and Britain’s interests are, by all means, in your interest.” Ibn Saud, the descendant of Dönmeh from Basra, responded: “Yes, if my acknowledgement means so much to you, I acknowledge thousand times granting a homeland to the Jews in Palestine or other than Palestine.” Two years later, British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour, in a letter to Baron Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Zionists, stated: “His Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people . . .” The deal had the tacit backing of two of the major players in the region, both descendant from Dönmeh Jews who supported the Zionist cause, Kemal Ataturk and Ibn Saud. The present situation in the Middle East should be seen in this light but the history of the region has been purged by certain religious and political interests for obvious reasons.

After World War I, the British facilitated the coming to power of the Saud regime in the former Hejaz and Nejd provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The Sauds established Wahhabism as the state religion of the new Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and, like the Kemalist Dönmeh in Turkey, began to move against other Islamic beliefs and sects, including the Sunnis and Shi’as. The Wahhabi Sauds accomplished what the Kemalist Dönmeh were able to achieve in Turkey: a fractured Middle East that was ripe for Western imperialistic designs and laid the groundwork for the creation of the Zionist state of Israel.

Deep states and Dönmeh

During two visits to Turkey in 2010, I had the opportunity of discussing the Ergenekon “deep state” with leading Turkish officials. It was more than evident that discussions about the Ergenekon network and its “foreign” connections are a highly-sensitive subject. However, it was also whispered by one high-ranking Turkish foreign policy official that there were other “deep states” in surrounding nations and Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria were mentioned by name. Considering the links between Ergenekon and the Dönmeh in Turkey and the close intelligence and military links between the Dönmeh-descendent Sauds and Wahhabis in Arabia, the reports of close links between ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his intelligence chief Omar Suleiman and the Binyamin Netanyahu government in Israel may be seen in an entirely new light… And it would explain Erdogan’s support for Egypt’s revolution: in Turkey, it was a democratic revolution that curbed the influence of the Dönmeh. The influence of Wahhabi Salafists in Libya’s new government also explains why Erdogan was keen on establishing relations with the Benghazi-based rebels to help supplant the influence of the Wahhabis, the natural allies of his enemies, the Dönmeh (Ergenekon) of Turkey.

Erdogan’s desire to set the historical record straight by restoring history purged by the Kemalists and Dönmeh has earned him vitriolic statements from Israel’s government that he is a neo-Ottomanist who is intent on forming an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab countries. Clearly, the Dönmeh and their Zionist brethren in Israel and elsewhere are worried about Dönmeh and Zionist historical revisionism, including their role in the Armenian and Assyrian genocide, and their genocide denial being exposed.

In Egypt, which was once an Ottoman realm, it was a popular revolution that tossed out what may have amounted to the Dönmeh with regard to the Mubarak regime. The Egyptian “Arab Spring” also explains why the Israelis were quick to kill six Egyptian border police so soon after nine Turkish passengers were killed aboard the Mavi Marmara, some in execution style, by Israeli troops. Dönmeh doctrine is rife with references to the Old Testament Amalekites, a nomadic tribe ordered attacked by the Hebrews from Egypt by the Jewish God to make room for Moses’s followers in the southern region of Palestine. In the Book of Judges, God unsuccessfully commands Saul: “Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, and infant, ox, and sheep, camel and donkey.” The Dönmeh, whose doctrine is also present in Hasidic and other orthodox sects of Judaism, appear to have no problem substituting the Armenians, Assyrians, Turks, Kurds, Egyptians, Iraqis, Lebanese, Iranians, and Palestinians for the Amalekites in carrying out their military assaults and pogroms.

With reformist governments in Turkey and Egypt much more willing to look into the background of those who have split the Islamic world, Ataturk in Turkey and Mubarak in Egypt, the Sauds are likely very much aware that it is only a matter of time before their links, both modern and historical, to Israel will be fully exposed. It makes sense that the Sauds have been successful in engineering a dubious plot involving Iranian government agents trying to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington in an unnamed Washington, DC restaurant. The Iraqi intelligence report could have been referring to the Zionists and Dönmeh when it stated, “it strives to . . . [the] killing of Muslims, destructing, and promoting the turmoil.” In fact, the Iraqi intelligence report was referring to the Wahhabis.

With new freedom in Turkey and Egypt to examine their pasts, there is more reason for Israel and its supporters, as well as the Sauds, to suppress the true histories of the Ottoman Empire, secular Turkey, the origins of Israel, and the House of Saud. With various players now angling for war with Iran, the true history of the Dönmeh and their influence on past and current events in the Middle East becomes more important.

WAYNE MADSEN

Investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist. A member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the National Press Club