Turkey Looks to Islam for Rain

Turkey has long been known as the crossroads of the world, an ancient land where Ionian Greek philosophy was born, where Cyrus the Great battled the King Croesus for supremacy, where Alexander the Great won his first battle against the Persian Empire and where, according to Plutarch, Julius Caesar spent thirty-eight days as a prisoner of the Cilician Pirates, only to return and crucify them upon his release.

There's so much history in Turkey, it's impossible to know where to start and even more difficult to separate one's fascination for that past from the complexities of the present: The anger that Turkey's minorities (Kurds and Armenians) have for their government, the necessity of the west to keep Turkey as an ally (and out of Iraq), the tug of war between the growing Islamic population in their manufacturing center and the freewheeling populations of their cosmopolitan coastal regions.

A situation that has now grown more complex after what is being called an act of God (that is, in reality, an act of man):



This is not a simple drought. It is an absence of precipitation coupled with record temperatures and water-source-overuse from agriculture that has resulted in extreme rationing with water supplies cut off from the population for days at a time.

The Mayor of Ankara has suggested his constituents take a vacation to other parts of Turkey while 750 of the cities' Mosques gather the faithful to pray for rain:



This is a population that is already torn between growing Islamic adherents, competing secularists, and right wing nationalists who have raised alarm bells across their country following the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink:



And then there are the Kurds who comprise a significant portion of the population, many of whom try to live in peace, but with a small, growing percentage of their youth joining the US/EU designated terrorist group, the PKK, currently encamped across the border in the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. Link.

All of which points to an increasingly complex Turkish national identity. A secular nation with a growing Islamic population, those Turks from many backgrounds who demonstrated in support of the assassinated Armenian-Turkish journalist who had criticized them, a secular military that had threatened a coup last spring if an Islamic Foreign Minister was appointed president, an oppressed Kurdish minority with an outlawed terrorist faction, who, for the first time in twenty-six years, has just had twenty pro-Kurdish politicians elected to parliament:



But now, the party of the aforementioned Turkish Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, whose nomination for president sparked protests that filled their streets with secularists afraid of his Islamic connections (coupled with the threat from the secular military if he didn't withdrawal), has won the majority in the recent elections and Gul has just announced that he will again stand for the secular post. Link.

This is a cause for concern. In a country where so many have turned to religion to pray for rain, the secular military, the Kurdish and Armenian minorities, and the extreme nationalists may all see themselves at a growing disadvantage. That's not to say the country will digress into violence. Turks are a cautious people who have many reasons to form coalitions both within and outside their borders. But it does bear notice that such a strategic nation -- one that is still the crossroads of the world -- is undergoing intense resource pressures through climate change that could impact both their geopolitical and secular status quo.

Posted by The Environmentalist

Hm, betcha they got a call from HRH King George I of Amurka with a helpful suggestion............