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Istiklal Cad Kurabiye Sok No 13/3      Beyoglu / Istanbul - Turkey

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Osmanaga Mah. Kirtasiyeci Sok. Yesil Apt. No 23/2 Altiyol - Kadikoy / Istanbul  - Turkey

 Phone: + 90 538 546 35 02

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Press release by The Greens of Turkey for the increased Islamofobia in the World:

Islamofobia, which is basically evaluated under the term xenophobia, has become a fact itself and spread out the world, especially after the September 11 attacks.  The USA, which could not exist without a perception of an enemy, has chosen islam as another enemy and has turned it into a tool and an object of the global plunder. Besides, the western advocates of USA, willingly or reluctantly, have included themselves in this table to take their share from this plunder. At first, they all created the Islamic fear and after, they grew it bigger to be able to convince the world public or at least their own compatriots. As we all know, fear is a useful tool for all of its users to create or to maintain a power. If not, every wise western citizen already knows or should know that Islam is not all about Usame Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein.   

 The political Islamists, rooted in the Middle East, consider Islam as a weapon during their struggle for taking the power. The truculence and the ferocity they continue without considering any rule or any value (including the islam itself), show that they exceedingly fulfil their role given to them by the global-imperial war machines.

Hundreds of thousands of humans and muslims, who are agitated by the USA, continue killing each other in Iraq. So, in this panorama, we can not deny the reality that, political Islamists have been a component of the increased islamofobia in the world, despite the fact they are manipulated.

 Addition to all above, we must add that the superiority approach based in Europe, prepares an appropriate ground for every kind of discrimination including ‘Islomofobia’. As it is known, the Greens are for multiculturalism in all over the world and as the Greens of Turkey we offer a new model, which advocates the cultural, ethnic, religious, sexual and intellectual differences, diversity and direct democracy against all kinds of discrimination and against the islamofobia.

 One of the worries of the western people related with islamofobia is the Islam’s practises for woman. The facts like physical violence within the family or honour killings are rather a part of gender discrimination and they are also about social-cultural structure of the related society. The Greens of Turkey defend that the solution of the problems of woman comes from fighting against the gender hegemony.

  There is also islomofobia in Turkey as a type of discrimination. However, islamofobia is a European originated conception and Turkey’s conditions are very different than Europe.

In our country, the state hegemony has been the source of islamofobia, as it has been the reason for any kind of discrimination. However, it is not enough to explain what is going on by only expressing that fact, because things are more complicated in here. Our political actors begin their heroic speeches by saying that we live in a 99 % Muslim populated society (as if it is a very good thing to say).  Our religious and public authorities claim in a menacing manner as there is only one type of Islam and there is no other possibility, but everyone knows this is not true.

 Islam may only be one, but we can not deny the fact there are different practices and perception ways for it. In another sense, our political Islamists love to play the downtrodden role very much. They don’t want to show how they lean on the sect of Sunni majority and they don’t want to accept the existence of the millions of Alevi sect followers. And whenever they find a chance they cry like as if they are under discrimination.  However, the necessity of being against discrimination is recognising the belief and the idea of the other.

 As a matter of fact, the lands we live on have a very rich history of multicultural life. In Turkey, sometimes we find the source of discrimination around the state ideology as it happened in 6-7 September 1955 incidents, where sometimes it is seen in the daily politics done for rescuing the day, which increases the conflicts and closes the dialogue ways in the society, as it is seen in the turban and secularism arguments. However, the condition of resolving the conflicts comes from openness, dialogue and improving the situation of the civil society.   

Enlarging the common public spaces and opening them up for the use of everybody, causes the reducing of the efficiency of fear and discrimination.

 In addition to that and finally, the solution comes from questioning the state mentality, which is the basic source of discrimination, and building up a democratic and civil oriented Turkey which is ecological, social and which is for the political peace and multiculturalism. 

January 15, 2007