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Excuse me? This pissed me off, and so did the responses to it. So let me clarify what *actual* Turcophobia is, not this nationalist "turkeyphobia" nonsense...
I'm a Turk. And I'm a leftist. I take actual Turcophobia very seriously. "Turkeyphobia" is not a thing, except in the mind of this white guy named Justin who claims to support Turks + Arabs in Idlib, now apparently in Azerbaijan, but really just sh*posts on behalf of the US/CIA.
"Turkeyphobia," in his mind, is antagonism toward the Republic of Turkey. Actual Turcophobia, however, is a coherent racist ideology that has justified campaigns of ethnic cleansing and genocide of millions of civilians for being Turks or having a cultural proximity to Turks.
"Turkey" is a state, a capitalist nation-state. "Turk" can refer to a nationality, ethnic group, or a category of cultures that have linguistic ties. "Turc" invokes the historical fantasy of the Turcophobic imagination. They decide who or what we are, not us. Hence the spelling.
People in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh for some) defending themselves from the President of Azerbaijan's war crimes, fearing acts of genocide is *not* Turcophobia. Denial or celebration of the displacement of 600K Azeri civilians in the early 90s is. There's a difference.
Kurdish people in Turkey rising up against the oppression of the Turkish state, the Erdoğan regime, or racist behavior from the average Turk is *not* Turcophobia. Suggesting that Turkey is a liability to NATO, rather than the other way around is. There's a difference.
Questioning US/CIA propaganda about the exact nature of China's oppression of Uyghurs is *not* Turcophobia. Justifying racist profiling policies, denying Han chauvinism, and celebrating a "People's War on Terror" is. There's a difference.
When the Bulgarian state committed the largest act of ethnic cleansing in Europe since WW2 by expelling most of it's Turkish population, that was Turcophobia. It's not "turkeyphobic" to critique the Turkish State's opportunistic relationship with BG Turks. Or similarity to Kurds!
When Serbian nationalists referred to Bosnian Muslims as "Turks" justifying their murder + displacement with dubious claims of "Ottoman collaboration" or privilege, that was Turcophobia. It's not "turkeyphobic" to critique Turkey/NATO's war crimes against Yugoslavia in 1999.
When several million Turks were massacred in acts of genocide as the Ottoman Empire collapsed + millions more were displaced that was Turcophobia. It's not "turkeyphobic" to demand recognition of Armenian Genocide or analyze current events with 1915 in mind. Armenophobia is real.
I take Turcophobia seriously as a racist ideology that's shaped history w mass murder. It poisoned the politics of the region + also victimized the non-Turks living under the perpetrators' regimes. The same murderers who killed Turks in the 20s killed Jews + Roma in the 40s.
I take the danger of Turkish chauvinism equally seriously for the same reason. The disingenuous concept of "turkeyphobia" leaves no room for the terrifyingly violent and dangerous realities of Armenophobia and Kurdophobia in the Turkish State and diaspora.
These "phobias" are important to understand and destroy. They provide useful frameworks for analyzing the world because they are *material structures* that intersect with military industrial complexes, geopolitics, capital, borders, ideology, culture, power, law, identity etc.
The disingenuous claim of "turkeyphobia" exists only in the realms of geopolitics + abstract ideas, the two arenas of struggle where the average working class person of the region is most powerless. Aside from being disingenuous and racist, it's also demobilizing +depoliticizing.
Just like Zionism is anti-Semitic bc it conflates the whole world of Jewish experience(s) with the State of Israel, and invalidates all Jewish experience(s) outside of it, on behalf of some goyim in Washington, this BS concept of "turkeyphobia" does the same to 100million+ Turks.
And yes, I know that's a troll account who people only know about bc right-wing social democrats give him attention, but we should know by now that trolls on the "fringe" can do a lot of damage when "serious" people boost them e.g. Trump, Ronald Regan, Charlottesville, Macron etc
