Why we are reading Mein Kampf

last updated 8 January 2015

Turkey

Dogu Ergil

Islamic fundamentalism is gaining ground in Turkey, said Dogu Ergil in Ankara’s Turkish Daily News. Hitler’s Mein Kampf is a current best-seller. So is that absurd anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Strangely enough, this wave of hate has been growing ever since the U.S. invaded Iraq. The war angered many Turks, who feared that it would lead to Iraq’s Kurds forming an independent Kurdistan on their borders. That, in turn, would lead Turkey’s Kurds to want to break away, fracturing our nation. Over the past two years, Turkey’s ruling party has been steadily distancing itself from the U.S. Rather than derive their power from a close relationship with the superpower, Turkey’s rulers have begun to rely more on “internal forces,” particularly the “nationalists, statists, and Islamists.” These disparate “fringe groups” want to take Turkey in different directions. The one thing that unites them is “anxiety of change and hatred of the enemy,” and they view America, the Jews, and Israel as the enemy. Fortunately, these groups are not yet in charge. Turkey can still return to the pro-Western path if it regains a more positive “unifying idea”—the promise of E.U. membership.