Gravitas Plus: Erdogan's quest for Islamic domination

hello and welcome to gravitas plus i'm palki sharma padhya and i'm here to talk to you about turkey once a model for the islamic world now reduced to a military power project not too long ago turkey used to be a modern and secular state an islamic republic with a progressive approach thanks to the policies of mustafa kamal atathur the father of modern day turkey a reformer who brought his country at par with the european world he replaced arabic with the latin script the islamic calendar with the western calendar mosques were under state control faith was a private matter christians and jews could freely worship their gods in turkey turkish men were forbidden from wearing a headgear turkish women forbidden from wearing headscarves but the turkey of today is very different now turkey is ruled by a leader who wants to take his country back to its ottoman ambitions he wants to run it like a modern day sultan the name of this leader is recep tayyip erdogan he has controlled turkey for 17 long years first as prime minister and now as president in these 17 years he has made turkey an autocracy and installed himself on moral high ground president erdogan preaches the world on what's right and what isn't but does he practice it himself let's burst his bubble the turkish president claims to practice strict muslim values and lead a humble life this is his humble abode a 1 000 room palace built at a cost of 615 million dollars 1 000 rooms erdogan's home is 30 times bigger than the white house in washington he travels the world in multi-million dollar jets tailored to his preferences his wife amin arduan the first lady of turkey carries handbags worth at least 50 000 us dollars on these foreign trips and since we're discussing foreign trips let me also tell you a bit about erdogan's style of diplomacy exceptional he traveled to washington dc in 2017 he was greeted by protesters erdogan was furious so much so that he unleashed his bodyguards on them they punched kicked and choked demonstrators as the turkish president watched if he could pull that off on american soil imagine what he does to dissenters in turkey well you don't have to imagine we'll tell you in 2016 turkey witnessed the bloodiest coup attempt in its political history the turkish military which believes that its core mission is to keep turkey secular launched a coordinated operation to unseat an increasingly divisive and dictatorial erdogan soldiers and tanks rolled down the streets a number of explosions rang out in ankara and istanbul turkish fighter jets dropped bombs on their own parliament for a moment it looked like the coup would succeed but it failed erdogan mobilized the public via social media tens of thousands of his supporters hit the streets they defeated the coup leaders in a matter of hours but they had no idea what was about to follow erdogan got a hundred and sixty thousand people detained for questioning one lakh sixty thousand out of these 77 000 people were jailed on charges of terror this included military personnel police officials journalists teachers academics activists lawmakers judges and prosecutors according to turkey purge a website which tracks turkey's post coup crackdown more than 500 000 people have been investigated since 2016. 96 000 people have been put behind bars one lakh fifty thousand people have been dismissed from their jobs some three thousand schools and universities have been shut and a total of 189 media outlets have been shut down in turkey four years since this massive crackdown and erdogan feels that he's entitled to do as he wishes so he's converting museums and cathedrals into mosques the conversion of haya sophia was just the tip of the iceberg the turkish regime is undertaking a series of conversions churches museums music cinema culture almost everything is being islamicized then we come to the minorities in turkey they're under attack ethnic kurds that make up one quarter of turkey's population are being suppressed in all sorts of ways the kurds cannot write university dissertations in kurdish in some parts it is illegal for parents to give their child a kurdish name several kurdish cities along turkey's border regions have been destroyed without the slightest protest from the international community and that's not all today's turkey is chasing new conquests even if that involves complete violation of international law president erdogan is following xi jinping's playbook of expansionism turkey is provoking its neighbors by claiming disputed territories and waters it is currently engaged in a fierce face-off with greece they found new energy deposits in the eastern mediterranean sea turkey wants all of it the turkish president wants to reclaim the lost glory of the ottoman turks and he wants the world to witness it the turkish propaganda machine is producing tv shows that tell you a lot about erdogan's approach his thought process the prime minister of pakistan considers erdogan his role model so he invites the turkish president to islamabad to give lectures to india on how to treat minorities in february 2020 this year erdogan addressed a joint session of pakistan's parliament he tried justifying islamabad's cross-border terrorism and kashmir he accused india of making kashmiri suffer and this was not the first time he did something like this the turkish president has never wasted an opportunity to question india's secular credentials let me give you another example the same month february 2020 communal rights had rocked new delhi there was violence from both sides do you know what the turkish president said he called india a country where the massacre of muslims was widespread a country which will fail to make global peace a possibility a country which calls itself strong because of its large population but is not how does the indian foreign ministry respond to all this it issues statements how do we indian citizens react we question indian actors for meeting the turkish first lady i'm sure you remember these images they caused quite a stir in the indian media there was a lot of political grand standing but i must show you something else a tweet by the indian ambassador to turkey he retweeted these images and called the meeting a quote special moment and for the actor in question he called him india's cultural ambassador to turkey the point i'm making is quite simple the turkish president is no friend of india he won't stop meddling in india's internal affairs india has the second largest number of muslims in the world and erdogan wants to be seen as the leader of muslims across the world he has made islam the center of turkish politics and the guiding light of turkey's foreign policy the prize he wants in return is for turkey to replace saudi arabia as a de facto leader of the islamic world he is running a carefully crafted campaign to achieve this dream

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Keywords: wion, wion news, world, world news, international, international news, latest english news, gravitas plus, gravitas plus latest, palki sharma, palki sharma upadhyay, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ottoman ambitions, islamic politics, erdogan's islamic politics, Ottoman dream, erdogan's Ottoman dream, gravitas news

Id: ozzisQ1QPTA

Length: 7min 30sec (450 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 19 2020