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Turkish Ultranationalist Group on the “Hunt for Armenians” in France
- _Microft 6y agoDo these "Grey Wolves" [0] still exist then? I had no idea. I remember seeing a movie long ago [1] but not its story. It was either about them or the turkish mafia. I'm glad that we had this process of coming to terms with our past here in Germany [2]. While not everything is rosy for sure, we are basically aware of our past while not being overly affected by it anymore in the sense that old grudges or unsolved conflicts would still exist. It must have been not easy for earlier generations here at all and it is still a recurring topic in history classes in german schools but I think we are in a good place in this regard now. Must suck to never have dealt with the past (think: Armenian Genocide [3], look for "Turkey denies that the word genocide is an accurate term for these crimes") and have that stuck in your society. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves_(organization) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves_(organization) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Wolves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Wolves [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergangenheitsbew%C3%A4ltigung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergangenheitsbew%C3%A4ltigung [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide
- luckylion 6y ago> Do these "Grey Wolves" [0] still exist then? Yes. They are also quite sizable in Germany where they are officially organized and about 20.000 members strong. To get an idea for the size: German far right extremists are estimated at about 30.000.
- tpush 6y agoWhere do these estimations come from?
- _Microft 6y agoThere is a source for 18000 members in 2017 in the Wikipedia article [0], see footnote 11. The "Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung" [1] is a reputable source. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves_(organization)#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves_(organization)#Ger... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Agency_for_Civic_Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Agency_for_Civic_Educa...
- sebmellen 6y agoAnd that with only ~9% of the population (which is already quite a lot — 10 million). See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks_in_Germany.
- ardacinar 6y agoWell, not as much of an organization. Ulku ocaklari is the successor organization. Although it shares the same ideology as with its historical counterpart, it is considered mostly harmless. Generally due to the sheer incompetence of the organization). However, there are far too many individuals/groups (Equivalent to Mafia in Turkey, ultranationalist gangs in Europe) that sympathize/share views with said organization. And those guys are definitely not "mostly harmless".
- Seanambers 6y agoSo, here we have one minority out hunting for another minority in the middle of Europe. Incidentally muslims out looking for christians. I can't think of anything good to say about this at all from any perspective.
- TakeMeTo38 6y agoDiversity is our greatest strength!
- agumonkey 6y agoI get what you're saying but on an important topic, let's keep HN a place to have more valuable conversations. I let myself make snarky comments on some topics to be honest but for sensitive political matter it would be better not to play this way.
- TakeMeTo38 6y agoAny time I present my views here in good faith as a racially conscious White man, I am soon flagged and banned. I agree it would be nice, but there are very few places where it is possible nowadays to not enthusiastically support the destruction of White nations. HN included.
- _Microft 6y agoWhile I understand that this is a sarcastic comment, I actually think that diversity is our greatest strength. Others seem to wonder how we could thrive despite people speaking out against the state, the concept of traditional families being put in question by sexual freedom and other liberal ideas, I think we thrive because of them. We do not put invisible societal cages around people, we encourage them to be what they are and let them realize their full potential while elsewhere, people are doing busywork to do as society expects them to do. (This is exaggerated - of course there are also a lot of things that societally unacceptable here but it does not seem as limiting as elsewhere.)
- enriquto 6y ago
- nisa 6y agoGrey Wolves are also popular in Germany. There are serious reports that they make efforts to infiltrate politics / army / police forces. It's simple: These are fascists.
- lancebeet 6y agoThey seem to have at least some influence in the Turkish community in Sweden as well. The former Swedish minister for housing Mehmet Kaplan was ousted for having association with them.
- inglor_cz 6y agoI think the right word is "infiltrate". Not just army and police, but sports clubs, refugee centers, city halls, everything. It is the long arm of Ankara and if they were Russians or North Koreans, they would have been proscribed by the German authorities a long time ago. Unfortunately, their dangerousness was not recognized early enough, so they were allowed to expand. What to do with this cancer now, that is the question.
- nisa 6y agothanks, fixed it.
- wsc981 6y agoErdogan is a dangerous man. He once recited an Islamic poem including the lines [0]: > "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers..." I am sure Germany has to be very careful in dealings with Erdogan, since Germany has such a large amount of Turkish migrants and thus they could quite easily destabilise the country. A few years ago in The Netherlands the Turkish people started large scale protests due to a Turkish minister being denied entry. The Turkish people clearly identified themselves as Turks first and foremost, since they were carrying the Turkish flags during their protests [1]. Turkey maintains a strong kind of grip on its Turkish citizens abroad using state-funded Diyanet mosques [2] and allowing dual citizenship [3] - children born from Turkish countries living in a foreign country receive the Turkish citizenship by default. --- [0]: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/-the-minarets-are-our-bayonets- https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/-the-minarets-are-our-ba... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Dutch–Turkish_diplomatic_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Dutch–Turkish_diplomatic_... [2]: https://www.dw.com/en/erdogan-in-germany-what-you-need-to-know-about-ditib-mosque-association/a-45676937 https://www.dw.com/en/erdogan-in-germany-what-you-need-to-kn... [3]: https://www.government.nl/topics/dutch-nationality/question-and-answer/can-i-renounce-my-turkish-nationality-if-i-haven-t-completed-my-compulsory-military-service https://www.government.nl/topics/dutch-nationality/question-...
- kamikazeturtles 6y agoReminded me of the Armenian groups that hunted Turks in the 70s and 80s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Turkish_diplomats_assassinated_by_Armenian_militant_organisations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Turkish_diplomats_assa...
- luckylion 6y agoThey didn't hunt "Turks" though, they assassinated Turkish Diplomats. That feels more like Mossad hunting Nazis after the Holocaust.
- mercurial 6y agoI don't think any of the people they assassinated were even alive at the time of the Armenian genocide, so it's really not comparable.
- sofixa 6y agoOkay, Mosad hunting Neo-Nazis and Nazi apologists.
- luckylion 6y agoMy point is that they were attacking representatives of the state that has committed genocide against them (and hasn't undergone meaningful reformation since + denies it to this day), not random people that are ethnically Turks. That's a gigantic difference, one is targeting a state, the other is targeting an ethnic group.
- kvgr 6y agoWell we better start stripping them of citizenship and export them back to countries they fight for... In the whole Europe.
- gen_greyface 6y agoThat'd be generalizing the threat, and isn't the right thing to do.
- sharken 6y agoSo, what is the right thing to do ? Turkey feels less and less like a European country as the days go by, and public behavior like this should not be tolerated.
- 3131s 6y agoPunish the specific individuals, obviously, even if there are hundreds of them.
- luckylion 6y agoIn what way though? Should Turkish ultranationalists be deported to Turkey? Sounds like that's what the comment was suggesting.
- kvgr 6y agoWhy not? If I went to turkey and start to show everybody cartoon of muhamed I would probably be stoned. Why we cannot deport people who symphatize with genocide?
- inglor_cz 6y agoOrganizations like Grey Wolves deserve a crackdown and their members deportation. If they love their neo-Ottoman sultan so much, they should enjoy the great Peace and Prosperity he built in Turkey proper, including the Glorious and Strong Turkish Lira. Not live among the unbelievers and pay with their dirty Euro. Membership in Grey Wolves should be considered on par with membership in neo-Nazi structures. No reasonable country would suffer foreign neo-Nazis building structures right under their noses.
- sourc3 6y agoFascists are out for ethnic cleansing while the world turns a blind eye. Sounds familiar?
- sercankd 6y agohttps://twitter.com/SPashayef/status/1321571524235698178 https://twitter.com/SPashayef/status/1321571524235698178 "The marches followed violent clashes earlier Wednesday, when a group of pro-Armenian demonstrators blocked a motorway near Vienne, and clashed with members of the Turkish community. According to police, clashes with knives broke out, and four people were injured, including a 23-year-old man who was hit with a hammer." Read before spreading your xenophobia against Turkish people.
- bonzini 6y agoYou mean against people that have been denying a genocide for 100+ years?
- sercankd 6y agoWhat are these events related to Turkish Government denying genocide? Does it justify what happened to unrelated people after 105 years?
- bonzini 6y agoTurkey is not denying only the Young Turks' role in Armenian genocide, but also the pogroms against Armenians in Baku that are a direct cause of the current situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. Mutatis mutandis, somehow I don't see the German government sending drone attacks to Israel.
- sercankd 6y agoArmenian Genocide has nothing to do with current Azerbaijan v Armenia fight, what are you even talking about?
- bonzini 6y agoYou mean Azeri (who are ethnically Turks) do not deny the Armenian genocide as well, and the Turks are not particularly interested in helping out Azerbaijan because the other side is Armenia?
- agumonkey 6y agoA few things are striking me: - Turkey spent like decades denying any harm done to Armenians in general. Then for ~no reason at all, and not even in a place where Armenians are especially visible, a group of Turks decide to hunt some in the streets ? absurd squared - That's yet another barbaric racist movement coming back from the past. Neo Nazis rallies in the US were a sad surprise after 45th PUSA election but now Turks ? .. if this is a social fever thermometer, it seems the fever is there.
- cblconfederate 6y agoTurkey and its brotherly nation, Azerbaijan are currently at war with Armenia trying to ethnically cleanse the Nagorno-Karabagh region. Tragically, US politics have overshadowed this war.
- ulucs 6y agoMaybe Armenia should not be illegally occupying Ajerbaijan territory if they don't want to be forcibly kicked out. This is simply war against occupation.
- speeder 6y agoThis, Crimea, and a ton of other places near Russia, have "occupation" because some stupid random URSS leader gave random territories away to random governors, because the logic was: "it is all part of URSS anyway". So Nagorno-Nakahbath: It been Armenian for THOUSANDS of years, there are structures there that are Armenian and 2000+ years old, also the place is full of the earliest christian churches (that were also armenian). People that say Armenians must leave there because it is not theirs, are either ignorant of how the place became part of Azerbaijan (URSS gave it to Azerbaijan to appease Turkey) or are just anti-Armenian. Crimea is a similar situation, kinda. The land been historically Tatar, but Russia invaded and took it in 1700something, it since then been a major Russian military area, when URSS had a Ukranian president, he gave Crimea to Uktraine, again thinking it wouldn't make a difference, not thinking URSS wouldn't last forever.
- mkl95 6y agoThe only explanation I can find to why these organizations can grow openly at certain European countries while their neighbours prevent it, is that some people at intelligence and law enforcement agencies are enabling it, and maybe local politicians as well.
- agilob 6y agoFear of being accused of racism or islamophobia, being fired from job for such accusation. Happened many times.
- cblconfederate 6y agoBeing fired is the least of concern for french people. Ghettos in big cities, off-limits communities and crime are settled reality. I have multiple french friends who chose to move outside of Paris for this.
- agilob 6y agoI moved out from Bristol UK for similar reasons.
- cycomanic 6y agoI call bull. In pretty much every country in Europe as a politician on the right you can votes when pushing antiimmigration and islamophobia. The reason about not cracking down on the grey wolves is the weird relationship between Europe and Erdoğan. It is also worth pointing out that the grey wolves have strong history of working with rightwing/fascist groups in Europe, which makes sense as they themselves are essentially fascists.
- luckylion 6y agoLook at the Rotherham scandal where police and politicians shielded "asian" rape gangs for years (allegedly) out of fear of being perceived as racist. Turkey's geo-political role in the US empire (and subsequent NATO membership) plays a role, but it's not the primary driver.
- v4dok 6y agoThe EU(Germany)is so preoccupied with its economic ties with Turkey to understand that it's losing its strategic depth because of its inaction against it. Right now, Turkey is at war with almost all its neighbors, it's crazy that we are still turning a blind eye to it
- tuvan 6y agoTurkey is not at war with any of it’s neighbors.
- cblconfederate 6y agoApart from actively occupying cyprus, fighting Syria and iraq, fighting armenia and violating nearby economic zones, yes, there s no war, thank god
- tuvan 6y agoOk... as a Turkish guy who despises how the people in charge are destroying all the foreign relations I understand your point. But you don't need to exaggerate and say we are at war with all of our neighbors, there is no war, the situation is bad as it is. Like it or not, people were literally burning their neighbors alive in Cyprus and entire west was watching. They've been in peace for 40 years now because of Turkish intervention. Cyprus war ended 46 years ago. Turkey isn't fighting Armenia at all. Iraq and Syria doesn't exist, they are broken beyond repair thanks to US and EU and Russia. It's the people that matters and there is a reson why we have 10 million Syrian refugees.
- sofixa 6y ago> Like it or not, people were literally burning their neighbors alive in Cyprus and entire west was watching. They've been in peace for 40 years now because of Turkish intervention. Cyprus war ended 46 years ago. "in peace" about as much as the Korean peninsula is at peace. Turkey is illegally occupying Northern Cyprus, and that's it. It's not at war with the actual Cyprus, but you can't pretend everything is even remotely fine. Turks were brutally removed from most of the lands they brutally installed and settled themselves on. Population exchanges like after the Greco-Turkish war should have been done with all neighbors to avoid such nastiness in the future.
- golemiprague 6y agoIt seems like slowly there are more and more non technology related articles, I find it a bit annoying. I enjoy political heated fights as much as anybody else but I come to HN to get away from it and focus more on technical stuff.
- grezql 6y agowow reading these comments I for a moment thought I was on TheDonald or Breitbart comment section.
- retardedwest 6y agoHahh hackernews became another echo chamber of westerner stpids, trying to attack an ethnic group they hate and alienate, by ignoring the stuff same-religion ethnic group they feel closest to do. those armenians attacked a group of people at their "peaceful" protests now they will pay for price of their "peaceful" actions. don't do stupid sht, don't get attacked by another people. spreading propaganda even in tech news website is pathetic.
- 3131s 6y agoGreat! Another important topic of discussion derailed by HN's garbage algorithm. It's #20 now but you can always tell when a post is doomed to oblivion by comparing the upvotes-to-time ratio to other posts on the front page. Unless the mods save it, this should be gone in a few minutes. I don't like the ideas in most of these comments so far, but I still don't want to suppress this discussion. Let people show themselves for who they really are and what they really think, for good or bad, because we're never going to make any progress unless a discussion can actually happen.
- tim333 6y agoThere are other forums where politics is the thing.
- sebmellen 6y agoWhen I submitted this, I didn't think of it from a "political" perspective. To me, this issue transcends politics and reveals a part of human nature that is beyond the definition of politics. I thought it would prompt an exploratory discussion of the matter and of human nature. Unfortunately, many events which in reality exist with or without politics (like race-based hatred) are tagged with the political label. This also makes these events harder to discuss in an objective manner because an element of partisan thinking enters the fray: "does my party support this or not?" vs "do I believe this is right or not". EDIT: There have been many front page posts about the genocide of Uighur Muslims in China. Is that considered political as well?
- sheepdestroyer 6y agoOf course the topic of Uighur's genocide is political. It's even -extremely- so. That you seem to not percieve it so underlines your misconception that any issue linked to the human condition could possibly not be. "Everything is political" should not surprise you, it's not a new concept.
- sebmellen 6y ago
- fmajid 6y agoThe Gray Wolves murdered Hrant Dink and are simultaneously a fascist and terrorist organization that both the Turkish military and Erdögan turned a blind eye to. They must not be allowed to operate in France. There have been incidents in the US as well, like multiple cases of arson on Armenian churches in San Francisco.