(ANKARA) – CHP Bursa Deputy Hasan Öztürk, regarding the statement of the President of Religious Affairs Ali Erbaş, “People have forgotten that they came from the Balkans, is there anyone whose hair stands on end when they hear the word ‘Arab, Arabic’?” said, “Let’s remind our Hodja once again from here that Ali Erbaş does not know history either, that the Balkan and Rumelian Turks are actually the Conquerors who went from Anatolia to Rumelia. Don’t forget, Hodja, as a result of 200 years of defending the homeland, there are still those left outside the borders of the National Pact in the Balkans, there are still Turks in the Balkans, there is still the sound of the ezan in the Balkans and Rumelia.”
CHP Bursa Deputy Hasan Öztürk reacted to the statement made by the President of Religious Affairs Ali Erbaş at the “Young Turkey Forum”, “People have forgotten that they came from the Balkans. Doesn’t anyone get goosebumps when they hear the word ‘Arab, Arabic’? Are there no actions in Turkey that will prevent even tourists from coming from the Middle East – I won’t give their names – who say ‘We will kick you out, we will send you away’? Racism is forbidden in our religion. Our Prophet says ‘Those who commit racism are not from us’.” Öztürk said the following:
“I listened to the answer given by the President of Religious Affairs Ali Erbaş, who participated in a forum recently, to a question about the Balkans and the Middle East many times. Why did I listen to it many times? Because to understand correctly. In his answer to this question, I concluded that Ali Erbaş kept Anatolia and the Balkans behind the Middle East, and even loved them less. Mr. Erbaş explained that Lawrence was entirely responsible for the separation of the Middle East from the Ottoman Empire, as if the basis for the Arabs’ war against the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of their own country was Lawrence’s. Of course, the ‘Turkish Century Education Model’ allocates 76 hours to the curriculum for the history of revolution and 77 hours for Atatürkism; it is not right to expect much in terms of historical knowledge from a mentality that allocates 572 hours to religious issues.
From here, I would like to tell Mr. President of Religious Affairs a little bit about the Ottomans and the Balkans. The Ottomans were a Balkan country. The Ottomans turned into an empire in the Balkans and those who made the Balkans a Turkish homeland, who spread and matured the saying “Elhamdulillah I am a Turk” throughout the Balkan and Rumelia geography were the Conquerors who came from Anatolia. Teacher, let’s put this aside first. During the decline of the Ottomans after 1699, they defended the homeland by saying “Elhamdulillah I am a Turk” and held the border line of the homeland with wars that lasted for more than 200 years. While the people of the countries you know today and the nations there, who were born in the Balkans, broke away from the Ottomans one by one, those who fought to prevent this break and defend the homeland were the Balkan and Rumelian Turks and their related communities.
If today there is still the sound of the call to prayer in Bosnia, the call to prayer in the Balkans, and there are approximately 15 million Turks and Muslim relatives, these were the Balkan and Rumelian Turks who made those places Turkish homelands. They had to return to their homelands with the shrinking of the Ottoman Empire. If you, my teacher, consider them to be more behind than the Arabs, if you consider them to be the ones who defend the homeland, if you consider them to be the same as those who say, “Thank God, I am a Turk”, if you consider these people with Arab Muslims as the ones who fought against the Ottomans, I have nothing to say. Let us remind our teacher once again from here that Ali Erbaş does not know history either, that the Balkan and Rumelian Turks are actually the Conquerors who went from Anatolia to Rumelia. Do not forget, my teacher, that as a result of 200 years of defending the homeland, those who remain outside the borders of the National Pact are still in the Balkans, there are still Turks in the Balkans, there is still the sound of the call to prayer in the Balkans and Rumelia.”
