One of the greatest Turkish sayings says, “History is nothing more than repetition.” In fact, every culture has a saying with this meaning, as a result of humankind’s mutual experiences. Perhaps, the constant repetition of everything shows us how undeveloped the creature called human, which we consider to be the most magnificent being sent to the world by favoritism, actually is. After all, horses have been being horses without making any changes for tens of thousands of years. Mosquitoes, seagulls, and deer, they all continue their existence just as they started. If human history, created by human hands, is nothing but repetition, we can say that we are not so different from mosquitoes after all.
Historic enmity to the East, the cradle of civilization
Why did we need this long introduction? Because considering the troubles the West caused to the Middle East, we remembered that history repeats itself. Let’s remember with the Battle of Troy, how the Western aggressors wiped out the Trojan civilization in Western Asia. Let’s recall that in the 300s BC, Alexander the Great wreaked havoc across the entire Middle East, including Persepolis, as revenge against the Persian Achaemenid. We would run out of space trying to list countless Western attacks in the last 2000 years.
Troy, one of these historic repetitions, is quite important for us. In the Trojan War, there were Achaeans who attacked from the West. In 1915, it was again the British and French, coming from the West, who attacked the Turks in Gallipoli. Agamemnon was the commander of the Achaean forces in Troy. One of the most important battleships of the British navy in the Dardanelles was also named Agamemnon. Do you think it’s a coincidence? Three thousand years after Troy, Mustafa Kemal stopped the Western Crusader armies from attacking Çanakkale in 1915. Therefore, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who defeated the Greek army in Dumlupınar during the Great Offensive, would say, “We have taken revenge for Troy.”
The spirit of Troy from “Fatih” to Atatürk
Some historians write Mehmed the Conqueror said the same words 500 years before Atatürk’s Troy revenge. Mehmed, who closely followed the Western world since his years as Shahzadeh, knew Troy in great detail. In 1462, during the conquest of Mytilene, he went to Çanakkale, where the remains of the Trojan City were, and he observed the remains and the general region. Knowing all these Troy narratives, Fatih said, “… we have taken revenge from their descendants for the bad deeds they repeatedly did to us Asians.”
Didn’t President George Bush remind us, just 20 years ago, after the Twin Towers attack in 2001, by stating that they had launched a “new Crusade” to remind us of this Crusader mindset, which the intellectuals, writers, and rulers enamored with the West in the East had forgotten thanks to their admiration for the West?
Very pious but very dumb crusaders
Many Western historians conducting philosophical analyses of the Crusades clearly express how much of a disaster they brought upon the nations of the world. The most important out of all is Sir Steven Runciman. Against the glorified and praised image of the Crusaders in the Western world, the following analysis provides instructive insights:
“The victories of the Crusaders are victories of faith. However, faith obtained without wisdom is a very dangerous thing. According to the ruthless laws of history, the whole world pays the price for the sins and foolishness committed by individuals. In the synthesis process that has long been formed between the East and the West, from which our own civilization emerged, the Crusades are a very tragic and destructive chapter. Among the Crusaders, there was a great deal of courage but very little honor, a great deal of piety but very little understanding. And the Holy War itself is a long-standing intolerance committed in the name of God. This is already a great offense against the Holy Spirit.”
The day of nightmare in Istanbul: April 12, 1204
One of the dates that best explains the hatred of Western Crusaders towards Eastern culture and people was April 12, 1204. On that day, the Crusaders besieging the city breached the walls and entered Constantinople. Part of the city was already burning. One witness recalled that day: “Since our arrival, this was the third fire in the city. In these fires, more houses burned than in the combined total of the three largest cities in France.” The plunder in the city was of a scale unprecedented in any European city until that date. Historian Gibbon notes that the income from the plunder in Constantinople was seven times the annual income of England at that time. The Orthodox Churches suffered the most damage in this plunder. Crusader soldiers entered the churches with carts and stole everything from chandeliers to tables. They melted down all the gold and silver artifacts and sculptures in the churches and took them away. The plunder was so extensive that even years later, Norman children living in cold castles in the north of Europe used stolen sacred objects from Byzantium as toys. Perhaps calculating that they would return to Venice after the plunder, the Latin Crusaders declared a prostitute they found near Hagia Sophia as Queen and even ruled the Byzantine throne for a while. However, deciding to stay, they appointed both a new Emperor and a new Archbishop, and for 60 years, Byzantium remained under Latin control.
Today’s crusade: Massacre in Palestine
Western imperialism, nearing its expiration date, seems to be attempting to treat its internal economic, cultural, moral, and humanitarian decay by wholesale attacking the East. They are in a state of folly, trying to maintain Western hegemony using all available means, from Vietnam to Indochina, Afghanistan to Iraq, Syria to Ukraine. Now, they are attempting to evict the Palestinian people, the original owners of the so-called “promised lands,” which they have occupied under oppression for 75 years. The United States and European countries, who remain silent in the face of all the torture inflicted by Israel, or who shed crocodile tears and try to deceive the world with the roles of “good cop-bad cop,” are the true owners of this new wave of Crusades. Only the names of the leaders change in this process. Instead of Frederick Barbarossa, Richard the Lionheart, or Bohemond, now Netanyahu, Biden, Blinken, Macron are constantly leading this new attack.
There is a reality that these new Crusaders seem unable to learn even from the history they have written themselves: for 3000 years, the East has always emerged victorious in every Western attack. So, the ones who have the last laugh are not the blood-stained commanders of the Crusaders, but always the Saladin of Asia. It will be the same in Palestine, without a doubt!