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Old 07-10-20, 08:53 AM   #1
Skybird
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Default Hagia Sophia about to get turned into a mosque

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53366307

In a culture like the islamic (Persian-Arabian-Turk), where symbol-heavy metaphorically enriched, braggy and flowery language and acting is trump, the importance of this cannot be overestimated. The destruction of Christain a nnd Jewish minority cultures int he Islamic woirld goes on since years and decades, the often menmtioned "tolerance" for these is nothiugn but myth and the legal status of such minorities always is discrmi8natoryx nd disadvanatgeougs, not at all equzal to the Islamic majprity aroud n them. But that a high temple of the ideolgocial arch enemy, the Christians, gets used as a mosque, is a symbolic triumph and a "victory" celebration that cements one's own claim to domi8nate anbd to subjigate and to brign defeat to the other. Wetserners tend to not understand this or to underrtate it. In the ME, many people understand this by instinct already.

The Hagia Sophia was buld and founded as a Christain basilica. After the fall of Byzantium, the victorious Osmans Turks turned it into a mosque. In the 1930, Kemal Atatürk, correctly seeing the symbolic relevance, turned it into a museum as a greetign message to greater secularism and laicism as well as a signal to Christian Europe wo which he wanted to move closer. In the past ten years Erdoghan has increasingly threatened to turn the original basilica into a mosque again, first to piss the West, and second as a reaciton to growing tensions with Russia who called for protecting historic orthodox Christian symbols in Turkey and even called for turning the musem back into a orthodox church, as which it has served much longer in history than as a mosque.


For Erdoghan it is not only to piss Russian and Wetserners alike, but to boost his fading fame again and to reiteratwe his claim to be the leader of the Islamic world. He also pleases the Neo-osmanic nationlists, for he is one of them and openly spoke and occasionally still speaks about the Islamic conquest of Europe (under turkish leadership) with non-military means. FMigration, both third country-migrants as well as Turkish nationals, to him is an according weapon.
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