Thursday, October 25, 2007

Turks Riots in Brussels and Amsterdam; Attack Armenians & Kurds




Update from Brussels Journal: the list of "sensitive urban areas"--a polite term for entire sections of cities where even police dare not go because of Islamic violence--is growing.

In Amsterdam, an Islamic extremist linked to terrorists via both family ties and friends, walked into a police station and began stabbing a policewoman and a colleague.

Barely saving her life, the policewoman shot Bilal Bijacka. The result? Massive Islamic riots because not only an infidel, but an infidel woman, killed an Islamic male.

His attack came two years after his brother was arrested in a terrorist plot to blow up a passenger airliner. And, Bijacka's friends included Mohammed Bouyeri. Bouyeri, one of the Jihadists in the interlinked web of violence and hatred, ritually murdered a Dutch film maker, Theo van Gogh, in 2004.

As both Brussels and Amsterdam grapple with violent immigrants who literally have taken over portions of their cities and sack, loot and plunder them at will, the rest of the western world may want to reconsider immigration. When police simply dare not enforce laws in entire districts, there is no law except that of blood, violence, hatred, and mob rule.

Here's a classic case of how not to get sympathy for your cause. Turks in both Brussels and Amsterdam have been on a rampage as tensions mount on Turkey's borders.
The current riots follow September's Ramadan riots. Brussels was also engulfed in Ramadan riots in 2006.

Last night (Wednesday evening) heavy rioting erupted in Turkish quarters of Brussels, the capital of Belgium. Buses and trams were attacked. Several cars were torched and shops destroyed. Police forces were unable to restore law and order in the boroughs of Sint-Joost-ten-Node and Schaarbeek where since last Sunday the animosity among Turks is running high. Turkish flags are omnipresent. In some streets the Turkish crescent and star adorns almost every house.
The Turks’ anger was provoked by rising tension with Kurds along the Iraqi-Turkish border and by the debate in the American Congress about the Turkish genocide of the Armenians in 1915. On Sunday night Turkish youths in Sint-Joost destroyed the pub of Peter Petrossian, an ethnic Armenian who had to flee for his life.

Red



The streets in many Turkish cities turned red. Protesting the attacks of the PKK against the Turkish military and their presence in Northern Iraq. Fed by the Turkish media, the Turkish public became angrier than it already was. Yusuf Kanli wrote today about the censorship which is placed upon the Turkish media. Read it here.



Psychiatrist Professor Sunar Birsöz from Akdeniz University in Antalya clearly stated today that rallies could transform into individual and mass violence, and, added, “this pressure needs to be relieved”. He calls it anger management, a common term for decades not to steer up the the public. Especially teenagers, as you can see below. Read his comments here.


And what if notorious groups in Iraq are going to join the PKK? A warning has already been given. Also, many people in Iraq fled from the south to northern Iraq since it's relatively stable. Turkey, by its first real confrontation, lost 12 soldiers and 8 were captured.



Until now the Turkish government restrains from a mass cross border action, which would be a tactical blunder. Mustafa Akyol, an expert in Kurdish issues was clear here. Attacks of innocent Kurdish citizens already started in Bursa and Mersin.

Fortunately, the Turkish General of Staff Gen. Büyükanıt asked for caution: 'The reactions of citizens to terrorism must not spiral out of control'. Read it here.



If Turkey is not using its common sense, the streets in Turkey will not be filled by red flags but by blood. Communication seems to be a new word in Turkey. Both the government and media need to learn what 'crisis management' means.

A talk show about Turkey on Italian TV

Last night on one of the Italian TV channels, La7, in the program called L'infedele, conducted by Gad Lerner, they talked about Turkey, Iraq, PKK and the Armenian issue. During the whole day in our mailing lists for Turks living in Italy we received mails asking for Turkish people (around 5 people were asked for) living in Milan who would like to participate in the program as part of the audience to represent the Turkish side. The program was supposed to be on air at 21.30 and the audience was called for 20.30. The problem is, if they were really sincerely willing to have some people representing the Turkish side they would have made this call days before so that people would get ready/cancel appointments etc. to be able to attend the show. When you receive a call just hours before a live talk show it is not easy to say immediately 'OK, I am available'.

I wasn't willing to watch the show, in fact, since I get usually very angry seeing these one-sided discussions that go nowhere. But my husband while zapping had found the program and called me saying 'They are talking about Turkey again'. After finishing whatever it was I doing, I joined him. From the Turkish side there was only Yasemin Taskin, correspondent of the Turkish newspaper Sabah in Rome. Otherwise, there was someone from the Catholic University in Milan, some expert on Pakistan, a guy, whose name I don't remember, born in Turkey but of which origin he is I have no idea, an Armenian woman with the surname Arslan, an Italian economist (she seemed really well informed, and talked quite reasonably) and audience which was just watching... They had a live connection to Murat Belge of Bilgi University, Istanbul. Everything said in the program in Italian was translated to English for him, he gave his answers in Turkish and his words were translated back to Italian. The first sentence, the first translation to Italian and it was not correct, so I lost my interest and belief in the program immediately.

Once again, I am no politician or politics enthusiast, so all I can report is how everything looked to 'a Turkish man on the street'. The 'Turkish side' did not exist. Whoever was chosen to represent the Turkish side was, in fact, on 'the other side', thus it was quite a 'one-sided' discussion, again. Nothing seemed to be resolved, nothing seemed to be clearer, they tried to draw a parallel between the Turkish army and Pakistani army (!!!!), which was opposed by, if I am not mistaken, the guy from the Catholic University in Milan, Murat Belge was himself as usual, Yasemin Taskin was left alone there to give the Turkish view (the cameraman was fixing the camera on her most of the time; she is quite attractive, to tell the truth), and before I fell asleep on the sofa nobody from the audience said a word.. I don't think they said any words at all afterwards either.

Hence, another pointless discussion on TV that caused only a discussion between me and my husband. Yes, me and my husband always have some kind of fiery discussion when we watch these things because he being from the west, although quite ignorant on our issues, thinks to know everything and has the right solution to all the problems, and me being Turkish and quite a nationalist (in his eyes) have to defend myself, my people, my history. I am so fed up being on the defensive side! It is not easy being a Turk outside of Turkey. We are like fish out of the fish bowl....

Day Opening - October 25