Winner
Diverse in Unity
Turkish war novel takes aim at a hostile Europe
By Dan Bilefsky International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2005
ISTANBUL The year is 2010 and the European Union has rejected Turkey. Fascist governments have come to power in Germany, Austria and France and are inciting violence against resident Turks and Muslims. A vengeful Turkey joins forces with Russia and declares war against the EU.
Turkish commandos besiege Berlin, obliterate Europe and take control of the Continent.
Some critics will be quick to dismiss "The Third World War," a new futuristic novel by a 30-year-old Turkish writer, Burak Turna, as the wild imaginings of a conspiracy theorist and literary shock jock - and in many ways it is.
But the novel, which dominates bookstore windows in Istanbul, has sold more than 130,000 copies in two months and is rising on best-seller lists across the country. As Turkey embarks on what could be 10 years of tortuous talks to join the EU, Turkish observers say the novel's popularity reflects the growing wariness of Turks about a Europe that is increasingly wary of them.
"Turks are getting fed up with the EU's constant demands - and 'The Third World War' has tapped into that," said Sinan Ulgen, a Turkish commentator. He noted that the book's pithy, cinematographic style has helped it resonate with taxi drivers, government officials and housewives alike.
Turna is no fringe figure. His first novel, "Metal Firtina" ("Metal Storm"), became the fastest-selling book in the history of Turkey when it was published in December, a time of deep Turkish ambivalence about the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
That book is a fictional account of a U.S. invasion of Turkey that provokes a Turkish agent to detonate a nuclear bomb in a park in Washington, leveling the capital.
Overnight, the grungy former journalist and philosophy student became a chat-show celebrity, a cult figure among 20-somethings and an unofficial cultural barometer for his country.
Turna says that Turks' fear of U.S. domination, reflected in the popularity of "Metal Storm," is being supplanted by a growing Turkish ambivalence about Europe - an ambivalence that has lurked in the Turkish soul since after World War I, when Western European powers dismembered the Ottoman Empire.
He says he wrote "The Third World War" - "Üçüncü Dünya Savasi" in Turkish - to give Turks an outlet for their wounded pride about the EU's constant snubbing.
"Turks are waking up to two facts," Turna said at a café near Istanbul's bustling Taksim Square, where he was greeted like a rock star by young fans. "One is that everything told to the Turkish people by EU leaders is lies."
"Two, that a Muslim country will never get into an EU that doesn't want us," he said.
Turna is a self-confessed history and science fiction junkie, whose authoritative descriptions of U.S. military maneuvers in "Metal Storm" prompted some in Turkey to accuse him of being a CIA agent.
He says he began researching "The Third World War" by brushing up on 1,000 years of European history and concluded that Europe will inevitably reject Turkey and that the Continent will descend into chaos and war.
"Europe is based on a racist nation-state structure that has created world wars for the last 900 years," said Turna, adding that none of his works have been published abroad because of his incendiary themes. "Even if there are no guns, the EU's decision to turn its back on Turkey will create a cultural war between Islam and the West."
His novel pours scorn on the West in passages like one in which Russian and Turkish officers discuss how they will carve up Europe after defeating it:
"You are right, no matter what the consequences, a new European order will be established," interrupted Cemil Pasha, "and a new European Union will be formed, and this time the strength will lie with Eastern Europe."
The Russian general was pleased with this assessment. "I will never say no to Istanbul being the center of the new European Union. After all, I've been there myself," the general joked, "and I've seen the Bosporus - which was quite enough for me!"
Cemil Pasha said, "Such an outcome would please me. Then Western Europe would watch with grief the reconciliation between the Orthodox world and Istanbul."
The author has been spreading his "clash of civilizations" ideas on the Turkish chat-show circuit and in fiery speeches - titled "The World Order After the Dissolution of the EU" - to sold-out audiences across the country.
At a recent book signing event in Izmir, an Aegean port facing Greece, he began by asking the crowd of mostly 15- to 25-year-olds how many supported Turkey's joining the EU. Not a single hand was raised.
He says this is a Turkish backlash against what he calls the "anti-Turkish mania" on the Continent.
Sales of "The Third World War" have been helped by the fact that the book was published in August against a backdrop of rising nationalism in Turkey.
"Turks are a proud people," Turna said. "Countries like France think we are begging them to join the EU, but the reality is that we will just turn in on ourselves, become skeptical or just lose interest."
Turna acknowledges that his propensity for satire and hyperbole often gets in the way of the facts.
In "The Third World War," Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has become president of the United States and supports Europe's offensive against Turkey. He provides backing through a secret pagan society, the Brotherhood of Death, that seeks global domination and is meant to represent U.S. neoconservatives.
Turna confesses that his only trip to Europe was one visit to Munich five years ago, a fact that helps explain why "The Third World War" features baroque descriptions of Germany's beer capital but is spartan in its characterizations of the rest of the Continent.
His frequent travels in Asia, he said, have led him to conclude that Turkey's future rests in an "eastern alliance" rather than in the West.
Turna proposes that Turkey limit its relationship with the EU to a free-trade agreement and instead link up politically with China, India and Russia.
"India has 250 million rich people, China has a huge economy and middle class. Russia is flowing with cash. Why are my politicians wasting time in the corridors of the EU when they should be visiting and courting these countries, like the U.S. does?"
Just as Europeans are ignorant about the real Turkey, Turna argues, Turks are ignorant about the real EU. He blames the Turkish media and the political establishment in Ankara for portraying the EU as a panacea that will help make poor, agrarian Turkey flush with cash.
"There is not a proper debate on Europe in Turkey," Turna said. "It has become taboo to criticize the EU. The Istanbul elite sell the EU, while the rural part of the country has little understanding of what joining the bloc really means."
Pressed about the benefits that Turkey's EU membership drive has brought, including better rights for minorities and the liberalization of the Turkish economy, Turna acknowledged that the carrots and sticks of the EU process have been important for a country that has been plagued by instability. But he adds a caveat often heard in the salons, cafés and boardrooms of Ankara and Istanbul.
"What matters for Turkey is being part of a process that has accelerated political and economic change," he said. "But the process is more important than the endgame, and no one will shed a tear if the EU doesn't let us in 10 to 15 years' time."
So the young Turks plan to kill us all, nice
