On Martyrs' Day.. Criminal Ottoman mentality is rooted in Neo-Ottomans

The Ottoman Empire is one of the countries that most committed massacres against the peoples of the region, including Arabs, Kurds, Syriacs, and Armenians.. Despite the passage of many years, these massacres are still continuing by the neo-Ottomans represented by the Justice and Development Party and its allies in Turkey.

The Levant fell under the Ottoman occupation from 1516 until the end of World War I in 1918, and with the arrival of Turkish nationalists, led by the Union and Progress Party to power in 1908, they worked to impose nationalism and the Turkish language on all other nationalities living under the Ottoman occupation, committing the most heinous massacres.

After 1914, and after the appointment of the Minister of the Navy, Jamal Pasha, as commander-in-chief of the Turkish forces in the Levant, he tightened his grip on the Levant, imposing taxes, compulsory recruitment, and the Turkish language, and the matter got worse after the Ottoman state refused to implement the decisions issued by the Paris Conference in 1913, which required the participation of the Arabs in the war. governance, and their enjoyment of autonomy within the Ottoman Empire at the time, and its continuation with its chauvinistic policies based on imposing control and plundering wealth, in addition to the Turkification policies of the linguistic and cultural heritage, especially in the Levant (Syria and Lebanon) and Iraq, which led to revolution, especially among the categories of intellectuals, politicians and sheikhs who demanded the withdrawal of the Ottoman occupier.

As a result, Jamal Pasha issued death sentences against a number of intellectuals and patriots from Damascus and Beirut in a mock court in Mount Lebanon. From Al-Burj Square in Beirut, which was later called Martyrs' Square, and in Al-Marjeh Square in Damascus.

Then Jamal Pasha was killed in the city of Tbilisi in 1922 AD by an Armenian named Estefan Zagkian, in retaliation for the massacres committed by the Ottomans against the Armenians in 1915, as part of a broad movement known as Operation Nemesis (The Punishment).

With the arrival of the Justice and Development Party to power in Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the officials of this party spoke openly about what they called the restoration of the glories of the Ottoman Empire and that they are the new Ottomans, as they worked on the same mentality based on expansion and colonization and killing anyone who tries to stop their projects in the region.

In Syria, with the start of the Syrian crisis, Turkey occupied many Syrian regions as of August 2016, when it occupied the cities of Jarabulus, Al-Bab, and Azaz, and then completed that on January 20, 2018, when the Turkish occupation state launched attacks on Afrin that continued until March 18 of the same year until the city was occupied,  during two months, Turkey committed 12 massacres against the residents of Afrin, while policies of the killings and demographic change are still going on there.

The Turkish occupation continued its approach of killing civilians, during its attack on the cities of Serêkaniyê and Girê Spî / Tal Abyad, in October 2019.

Scenario similar to execution of intellectuals in NE Syria

In a manner similar to the Ottoman state's execution of intellectuals and opponents, the Turkish occupation state is constantly targeting civilians, in addition to targeting representatives of the peoples who have contributed to achieving stability in NE Syria, with the aim of intimidating the peoples of the region and pushing them to surrender.

Perhaps the bloodiest massacre during the Turkish occupation's attacks on the city of Serêkaniyê was the targeting of a civilian convoy on October 13, 2019 with direct bombardment, which led to the martyrdom of 13 civilians, including journalists, and the injury of more than 70 others.

Likewise, the massacre committed by Turkish mercenaries against the Secretary-General of the Future Syria Party, Hevrin Khalaf, on October 12, 2019, on the M4 international road between Tal Tamr and Ain Issa.

Turkey continues to target the regions of NE Syria with drones, artillery and missile shells, and threatens to occupy new Syrian regions during the year 2022 alone resulted in the martyrdom of 119 citizens, including 15 children and 58 fighters, and the injury of 292 people, including 48 children and 23, while 59 members of the Damascus government forces lost their lives and 91 were wounded.

29 schools, 4 health centers, 10 mosques and religious temples, and dozens of oil, electricity and gas stations, communication networks and service facilities were also targeted, even banned weapons were used twice.

The head of the Syria First Party, Salman Shabib, spoke about this, saying: "The truth in essence is still the colonial Ottoman policy. The policy of suppressing and persecuting peoples and confiscating their rights is the same with some formal modifications, especially during the era of the Justice and Development Party, which considered itself the legitimate heir to the Ottoman era.

Shabib added that "the goals announced by Erdogan's government are to revive the Ottoman Empire at the expense of the peoples and neighboring countries, especially Syria and Iraq, and to occupy large areas of the Syrian land that include hundreds of cities and towns, and to impose a systematic Turkification process on it, especially the processes of demographic change, all of which restore the ancient Ottoman history with use new means and capabilities."

In turn, the Egyptian writer and political analyst, Ibrahim Shaaban, expressed his deep sorrow at remembering the memory of the executions of intellectuals by the Ottoman Empire on May 6, which is known as Martyrs' Day every year. He said: "It is a sad occasion, but it has many connotations."

He explained, "The Ottoman state, which dominated the Arab region for several centuries, was extremely ignorant, underdeveloped, and unjust. Unfortunately, until this moment, these atrocities have not been properly chronicled in the dark Ottoman Turkish empire."

 Shaaban pointed out that "the memory of Martyrs' Day remains a vivid day in the conscience of Arab intellectuals, not only because it is the day when the blood of a number of great Arab intellectuals was spilled at the hands of the Ottomans, but to remember these hateful policies and crimes that do not expire by statute of limitations. It must be revived on a large scale and compensation demanded for the families of the martyrs, their families, as many colonial countries in the West, such as France, Italy and Belgium, did in their colonial practices in Africa.

Shaaban paused before the day of May 6, 1916, in which Damascus and Beirut witnessed the execution of 7 prominent Arab intellectuals and nationalists by the Turks, including Prince Omar Al-Jazaery, the grandson of Prince Abdel-Qader Al-Jazaery, the writer Rushdi Al-Shamaa, and the poet and writer Shafiq Bey Moayad Al-Azm. The poet Rafik Rizk Salloum, and the thinker and journalist Abdul Hamid Al-Zahrawi. And the execution of 14 members of the intellectual elite in Beirut, where the list included the writer and journalist Abd al-Ghani al-Arisi, the thinker Salim al-Jazaery, the author and poet Omar Hamad, the poet and journalist George Haddad, and others.

He continued: The list includes a large number of senior Arab intellectuals, between 1915-1917, a policy implemented by the Ottoman Empire, Jamal Pasha, with extreme arrogance and aggression to manage the failure of his campaign against Egypt at the time, the defeat of the Ottomans in World War I and the dissolution of their empire. Where this butcher dragged more senior Arab intellectuals to the gallows, in an effort to abort the Arab national movement, in both Syria and Lebanon, and to stop criticism and demand the exit of the Ottomans.

He pointed out that, unfortunately, the Turkish authorities continue the same policies of colonialism and genocide against the peoples of the region, especially NE Syria and Iraq, and against the Kurds.

Despite the bloody history of the Ottoman occupation and Turkey's current crimes, which were not limited to Syrians only, but also included Libya, Iraq and Armenia, where Turkey and its mercenaries committed war crimes against the peoples of these countries through its direct intervention in the war and the use of Syrian mercenaries to evade responsibility for the crimes it commits in the name of these groups, however, some regimes and authorities tend to reconcile with them.

In Syria, despite the hostility that lasted for years between the Turkish occupation and the Damascus government, and the policies practiced by Turkey through which it sought to overthrow the regime in Syria and turned the country into a safe place for terrorists and foreign fighters, Damascus is under Russian pressure on the one hand, and to preserve its own interests on the other hand negotiates with Turkey to normalize relations.

Likewise, Egypt and the Gulf states worked during the past months to launch a path of normalization of relations with Turkey, which threatened the stability of these countries and supported terrorist groups there.

The Egyptian politician, Ibrahim Shaaban, spoke about this by saying: "He does not really find any disagreement between this mentality that prevailed at the time of the Ottomans and today in Turkey, just as reconciliation with this mentality is not justified. Unfortunately, the Turks, especially during Erdogan's era, did not whiten their arenas and their faces. With the Arab countries, unfortunately, the policies of arrogance still top their actions in the region.The struggle must be unified

The Syrian writer Salman Shabib addressed a message to the peoples of the region, saying: "What is required to confront this aggression and the renewed Turkish ambitions on a permanent basis is the awareness of the people,and unite their struggle and resistance in all available forms to thwart the aggressive Turkish projects." We as Syrians, whatever our positions, have additional national tasks represented in working to liberate our occupied land and thwarting all Turkish plots to annex it.

a.k

ANHA