Turkey: Glorious past revisited

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Turkey | 04 July 2016

On 29 May 2016 many events took place in Istanbul to celebrate the 563^rd anniversary of the conquest of the city by Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror in 1453. Asia News reported on 30 May 2016 that at one of the events in front of the Hagia Sophia, thousands of Muslims demanded that the ancient Christian basilica be converted back into a mosque. Before the 1453 conquest, the Hagia Sophia had been the most important Orthodox cathedral of the Byzantine Empire; after the conquest, the church was turned into a mosque. When the Ottoman Empire came to an end, the building was converted into a museum and a state monument marking the birth of the Turkish republic. Once established in power in 2014, President Erdogan set about reviving celebrations to commemorate the conquest of Constantinople, seeing this as an opportunity to present himself as the new leader of the new neo-Ottoman Turkey, transforming it into a presidential republic by trying to impose changes to the Turkish constitution. Meanwhile, the Muslims who prayed in front of the Hagia Sophia say they are collecting millions of signatures for a petition to have the basilica reopened for use as a mosque. Rolf Zeegers, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, points out that the events in Istanbul on 29 May are clear indicators of the double process Turkey is going through at the moment: "First, the combination of nationalism and Islamization in Turkey is showing its face again. The Ottoman Empire is Turkey"s pride - a glorious past that needs to be re-established. Secondly, President Erdogan is using this yearning to improve his own position. He aims to become the successor of the sultans of that empire. He wants to establish a presidential system where all power is in his own hands." Rolf Zeegers adds: "Polarization is becoming stronger and stronger in Turkey. Ethnic minorities (Kurds, Armenians, Greeks) and religious minorities (Christians and Alevites) are being marginalized. The danger is that such marginalization can turn into persecution very quickly. The level of violence has already gone up. The future doesn"t look promising."