How Far-Right Populist Rhetoric Moved From Europe to Turkiye

The Turkish public’s discontent with foreigners residing in Turkiye has recently increased under the influence of the growing economic problems and the provocative stances of some far-right Turkish politicians and journalists such as Umit Ozdag, a member of the Turkish parliament and founder of the far-right Victory party (Zafer), which is a good example of the remarkably growing far-right in Turkiye, according to a report published by Deutsche Welle, the Turkish version, on May 20, 2022.

Experts believe that there have always been parties in Turkiye that can be described as far-right, but the Victory party is considered one of the most controversial internal political formations in Turkiye, which has a great similarity with the far-right populist parties that spread in Europe recently, and this is due to its focus on the refugee issue and the huge uproar about it in the media.

It is noteworthy that the Victory party is not the only far-right party that adopts xenophobic rhetoric, the Republican People's Party (CHP), one of the oldest and largest Turkish opposition parties, always promises its voters - if it wins the presidential elections scheduled for June 2023 - to deport the refugees within two years.

Not only that, but one of its members, the mayor of Bolu, Tango Ozcan, called for the water and electricity bills of foreigners to be raised tenfold, as well as preventing them from marrying, and presented a project in this context, but the Turkish courts did not approve of it.

The refugee issue has always turned from a humanitarian card into a basic political program for the Turkish opposition parties. However, the inflammatory rhetoric has recently become more hateful and anti-refugee, in light of a severe economic crisis in Turkiye, especially since the far right is intimidating the Turks from the refugees, claiming that they are making a silent invasion of the country.

 

Far-Right Incitement

The Turkish opposition has recently exploited all its political and media horns to market the idea that the daily problems, especially the economic ones, that Turks are suffering from are the natural product of the open-door policy pursued by the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in dealing with the issue of immigration, in order to achieve its goals aimed at undermining the government of the Justice and Development Party and trying to incite the people against it.

It is noteworthy that Turkiye hosts about 4 million refugees of various nationalities, most of whom are Syrians, a number that the Turkish opposition can see as a pressure card that opens its appetite to continue targeting the ruling party government and reduce its balance, while the date of the next elections approaches.

In order for the opposition to confirm its diabolical idea of breaking the government and defeating it politically, a lot of false news are spread about the extent of material support that refugees in Turkiye, the Syrians in particular, receive from the state treasury and the pockets of Turkish taxpayers, while the poor classes of the Turks suffer under the weight of need and continuous rise in the cost of daily living.

In addition to publishing fake photos and videos depicting these refugees as criminals who threaten security and peace within Turkish society, a propaganda that has found wide resonance among Turks, even those supporters of the Justice and Development government who have become fearful of the impact of these allegations on their party's chances of winning the upcoming electoral elections.

Criticizing the government from time to time because of some negative aspects in its handling of immigration and refugee policy is a normal thing that happens in any democratic country, as indicated by a report published by Syria TV, a Syrian opposition channel based in Istanbul, on May 09, 2022.

“But what is surprising is decorating hatred, imbuing it with the values of patriotism and nationalism, directing the street and charging it with hostility against civilian people who share the same society, and above all practicing this under the umbrella of politics and from a person who is supposed to be an academic and a parliamentarian like Umit Ozdag,” the report added.

Ozdag had been expelled from the far-right nationalist movement (MHP) in the past, then returned to it to later defect with Meral Aksener, and establish the Good Party with her in 2017, but he quickly turned against this party as well and headed towards establishing his own party in 2021.

It is noteworthy that Umit Ozdag’s party slogan is to expel the refugees in the event that his party wins power, especially since he belongs to a generation of immigrants who came to Turkiye a few generations ago, and the far-right academic on this point is no different from the Dutch far-right Geert Wilders, nor the French far-right Marine Le Pen.

Ozdag sees refugees as the cause of all problems, while Wilders and Le Pen see Muslims as the cause of all problems; all of them eventually use the refugee card to win votes from voters disaffected with the government and who want to hang their anger on any issue.

This was indicated by the Turkish media, Nagehan Alci in an article in Haber Turk newspaper in October 2021, saying: “In the Turkish political scene, we have never had a neo-Nazi party that has implemented the ideology of the far-right in the Western sense, and its main policy is anti-immigrant.”

“However, there is now a Turkish far-right party, the Victory party led by Umit Ozdag, which is like the AfD in Germany, the National Front in France, the FPÖ in Austria, and the Freedom Party in Austria. Fidesz in Hungary, and Golden Dawn in Greece,” she added.

Ozdag's incitement had even financed a short film against refugees under the title of The Silent Invasion. The Turkish authorities responded by announcing that a complaint had been filed against Ozdag because of the false information contained in the film, which had spread widely on the social media, whose idea is to imagine the Turkish landscape in 2034, and how cities like Istanbul were destroyed and taken over by the Syrians.

Although analysts have ruled out the winning of the Victory Party or obtaining many votes in the upcoming elections, the anti-immigrant rhetoric is now affecting the positions of the main parties in Turkiye.

On his part, Dr. Ilker Ayturk, Assistant Professor at Bilkent University, said in a statement to DW, the Turkish version, that “the Victory party is the new representative of the far-right in Turkiye,” explaining that “the far-right parties (radical) which are similar to those in Europe is a new phenomenon in Turkiye.”

Dr. Ayturk expected that “the popularity of the far-right party would increase and become more visible in opinion polls in the coming period,” noting that “the refugee issue will continue for a long time, and it is difficult to solve it in the short term.”

About the similarities between the Victory party and the far-right parties in Europe, political expert Dr. Murat Somer, a faculty member at Koc University, explained that “there is a similarity in the themes used by the far-right parties that they highlight and in particular the refugee crisis, which is the most prominent issue that these parties loom.”

Dr. Somer added, in his statement to DW, the Turkish version, by saying: “The rhetoric and the way the Turkish Victory party uses social media is similar to the style of the far-right parties in Europe, the most important of which is to highlight the feeling of threat and fear by showing foreigners that they are the cause of people's concern, rather than solving the problems of society.”

 

Political Card

The Turkish opposition, in the midst of its quest to win the upcoming elections, is exploiting the refugee file and ignoring several facts, that it seeks to completely erase, the most prominent of which is the economic crisis that the Turkish economy is currently going through is mostly due to the global crisis that the whole world suffers from as a result of the Corona pandemic that paralyzed the global economy, as well as some international powers, conspired against Turkiye and sought to subdue it by manipulating its economy, according to what Al-Jazeera Mubasher revealed in its report on May 13, 2022.

“The refugees supported the Turkish economy with more than $3.5 billion, which were invested in various industrial, commercial and agricultural sectors in Turkiye, and contributed to the provision of 120,000 jobs, of which the Turks had the largest share, according to the provisions of Turkish laws, which compel the employer to employ 5 Turkish citizens for every foreign citizen he employs,” the report indicated.

“These figures confirm that without these economic contributions, unemployment rates among Turks might have risen, the movement of buying and selling in the markets would have stopped, the Turkish economy might have suffered more than the crisis it is currently experiencing,” the report added.

“The seriousness of the transformation of the Turkish political scene has prompted politicians and intellectuals to warn against leaving the arena for the opposition, especially those belonging to the European-backed far-right, in order to spread its poison in the minds of simple Turkish citizens, because of this many negative effects on Turkish society, its social instinct, its human convictions, and its view of the other,” the report pointed out.

Under the slogan “Stop the campaigns targeting refugees and foreigners in Turkiye,” Turkish organizations, including IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation and the International Refugee Rights Association (UMHD), have warned against the transformation of racist and populist rhetoric against refugees into aggression by Turkish individuals and political parties.

The campaign launched by the two organizations aims, according to the statement published on May 09, 2022, to correct false information about foreigners residing in Turkiye, noting that “the contribution of Arab and Syrian investors to the Turkish economy is not, as some opposition media claim, that they are refugees receiving aid from the Turkish government.”

In turn, lawyer Ghazwan Kronfol, Head of the Free Syrian Lawyers Association in Turkiye, confirmed in a statement to Al-Estiklal that “the rise of the far-right in Europe has cast a shadow over far-right parties in Turkiye,” noting that “this may have a significant repercussion on the future of refugees and foreigners residing there.”

He added, “The far-right racist parties base their idea on nationalism or the purity of race on the different other, who in this case is the refugee,” noting that “the law in Turkiye is still not effective enough to curb this racist rhetoric.”

The lawyer pointed out that “the Victory party is one of the manifestations of racist extremism towards the other with different nationalities, and the ideas and behavior of the party’s leader, Umit Ozdag, resonate and seep into Turkish societal circles, which will have a very negative impact on Turkish society itself and on the refugees, and it will be reflected in various aspects of life in Turkiye, foremost of which is economic life.”

Mr. Kronfol warned that “Turkiye is one of the countries that depend on foreign investment and tourism, annually receiving millions of foreigners, and this racist behavior towards foreigners will push them to search for destinations other than Turkiye.”

“Is it possible for an Arab tourist to talk on the phone, and someone is said to him: Speak in Turkish, you are here in Turkiye?, while those racists do not dare to say the same to a French, American, or German tourist?!” he said.

“This populist rhetoric, saturated with hatred and racism, is not directed at all foreigners, but only at Arabs, and Syrians in particular. I think that a large segment of Turkish society is imbued with racist ideas towards foreigners in general, especially Arabs, due to the long cultural isolation, and lack of knowledge and communication with other peoples, under the pretext of the superiority of the Turkish race over the races of other peoples,” he added.

Lawyer Kronfol concluded that “Turkiye must work hard to modernize the concept of identity, promote policies of cultural and cognitive openness to different countries and societies, correct many educational curricula, and the development of laws that help put an end to populism and barbaric behavior based on a sense of the superiority of the Turkish citizen. Unless this happens, there will always be fertile ground for racism and the expansion of its areas.”