The embassy bombing in Turkey; this is a possible sea change.

[DonCoquixote]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/02/us-turkey-usa-bomb-claim-idUSBRE91107R20130202

Now, of course, Embassy bombings in the Mid east are nothing new. However, there is a sea change here that is ignored.

The group that did this is a Marxist group;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21305950

Look at this pic:
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/02/16818679-report-turkish-far-left-group-claims-responsibility-for-us-embassy-attack?lite

Notice: hammer and sickle. NO KORAN QUOTES, No hint of kinship with the Ben Ladin style jihad, and according to the BBC, they are MARXIST, which is to say ATHEIST, which is to say they are exactly the people that Islamic Fundamentalists would hang on the gallows, right next to the Zionists.

Why is this a possible sea change?

ONE: It is NOT Jihad, but old-fashioned Marxism

Normally, terrorism, in particular anti-Western terror, gets mixed up with religion. It is hard to tell where the Theology and the Social science begin and end, which makes for a lot of distortion and static. The theology is overemphasized, especially as it is a distraction from the social misconduct of both Western and Mid-East politicos. This has not such distortion, this is simple anti-western Marxism, of the old school, the same sort that will hang the Mullahs right next to the Zionists, that will covert Mosques to government buildings, ala the old Soviets. It also removes the idea that suicide bombers need a religious reason to do what they do; these folk are NOT expecting 72 virgins. This can mean that marxism is back as a player, which is especially sticky, as China and Russia are trying to ditch their old hammer and sickle outfits for Capitalist riches. However, that does not mean that Moscow and Beijing would not like to see some sympathetic voices that are neither Yank Puppets or Mullah puppets.

TWO: Where Turkey goes, Europe may follow.

As the EU has been taken over by Austerity-loving Germany, and as the UK is pondering leaving, that means that there are going to be a LOT of angry Europeans that feel that they have been taken for a ride. Greece is already a powderkeg, and the nearby Turks could light a fuse. There are many that would love to find a path that is NOT warmed over American austerity, but that is also not the Jihad. There is a void left by the Soviets, and the Marxists, especially the beret wearing Maoists, would love to fill that void. Take a look again at the photo; is it any accident that he is striking a che Guevara style pose, complete with a beret and banners that look like the USSR circa 1960?

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. "Greece is already a powderkeg, and the nearby Turks could light a fuse"

A return of the Ottoman Empire, so to speak?

[Chathamization]

10. More like

a return of the Byzantine Empire.

[Buzz Clik]

2. So, Arab Spring is giving way to Marxist Spring?

It will be interesting to watch.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. The group has been active in turkey for decades

Last edited Sat Feb 2, 2013, 03:55 PM - Edit history (1)

This has far more to do with internal Turkish politics than any sea change. They have been on the run from the army for literally decades. Iirc a former leader was killed in London a couple weeks ago.

[cascadiance]

8. This strikes a bit home personally for me when I experienced terror in Ankara in the 70's...

.. when I was a young kid living there... There were a lot of Marxist Red Brigade style of terrorists then that were part of the activism that started with the Red Brigades in Europe (Baader Meinhoff, etc.).

There were a number of bombings around then when I lived there. We had martial law and had to be bussed home early from school one day when an Israeli diplomat was assassinated then. A school friend of mine heard gunfire nearby his house then.

And my 7th grade teacher's (my favorite teacher there) boyfriend was one of four American airmen who were kidnapped by these groups then, who fortunately escaped. His captors were apprehended and executed later.

So pardon me in not "welcoming" this change. Those were troubling times then, and I hope we are more constructive now in our efforts to get more reform in our governments than some of the red brigade factions were then with their actions.

I only lived a block away from the British embassy there, and the British consulate bombings back in 2003 in Istanbul bugged me then too. Those and other bombings there killed a lot of people then, and had Syrians involved with the terror then. I wonder with the recent events in Syria if some of the same people are involved this time too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Istanbul_bombings

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Take the "change" with the OP

As you posted, this is old.

[patrice]

4. Unless you know the specific political lineage of each and every actor, how do we know that wearen't

just looking at another masque?, this "Marxist" one to provoke reactions from American Exceptionalists who are weakened and dis-spirited by our domestic politics (SoS Kerry + Sec Def Hagel) and the decline of F*x Ewes as it sheds that winking American Exceptionalist prick-tease, SP.

[David__77]

5. DHKP isn't a new phenomenon.

I'm sure that this is "armed propaganda" against the ramped up US-led NATO presence in Turkey and its use as a launching pad for aggression against Syria.

[starroute]

6. The latest violence in Egypt is also more secular/political

The Black Bloc has made an appearance, anarchy symbols and all. And much of the current upheaval is explicitly anti-Muslim Brotherhood.

On the other hand, given the growing power of Golden Dawn in Greece, we could be seeing a revival of good, old-fashioned Commies vs. Fascists. And do we really want that?

[Steepler0t]

7. this is a Kurdish splinter group thars been around.

Greek resistance to capitalism is anarchist. I cannot see black block working with hardcore authoritarian 20th century marxists.

[TeamPooka]

11. Europe has not followed Turkey's lead in anyway since 1918 nt

[cascadiance]

15. The regimes prior to Ataturk's era, etc. certainly have a lot of things nobody wanted to be lead on

... with the horrible history then of the Armenian genocide amongst other things that was very contentious and remains so...

But it can be argued that Ataturk in his final years before his death in the era right before WWII, provided some leadership to many in Europe and other parts of the world in providing many Jews from Germany refuge from the Holocaust, which many did in exchange for helping him westernize the country that much more, improve Turkey's education to become more a part of the 20th century. This is a reason that up until the Mavi Marmara / Gaza flotilla incident and subsequent downturn of relations some years back that both Turkey and Israel had been pretty good allies with this history that Turkey provided in helping those of Jewish heritage then. That is also why the significance of Turkey's involvement in that recent incident is perhaps more significant than many here even realize who don't know this bit of history.

[malaise]

12. Why Marxism is on the rise again

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/04/the-return-of-marxism
<snip>
Class conflict once seemed so straightforward. Marx and Engels wrote in the second best-selling book of all time, The Communist Manifesto: "What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable." (The best-selling book of all time, incidentally, is the Bible – it only feels like it's 50 Shades of Grey.)

Today, 164 years after Marx and Engels wrote about grave-diggers, the truth is almost the exact opposite. The proletariat, far from burying capitalism, are keeping it on life support. Overworked, underpaid workers ostensibly liberated by the largest socialist revolution in history (China's) are driven to the brink of suicide to keep those in the west playing with their iPads. Chinese money bankrolls an otherwise bankrupt America.

The irony is scarcely wasted on leading Marxist thinkers. "The domination of capitalism globally depends today on the existence of a Chinese Communist party that gives de-localised capitalist enterprises cheap labour to lower prices and deprive workers of the rights of self-organisation," says Jacques Rancière, the French marxist thinker and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII. "Happily, it is possible to hope for a world less absurd and more just than today's."

That hope, perhaps, explains another improbable truth of our economically catastrophic times – the revival in interest in Marx and Marxist thought. Sales of Das Kapital, Marx's masterpiece of political economy, have soared ever since 2008, as have those of The Communist Manifesto and the Grundrisse (or, to give it its English title, Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy). Their sales rose as British workers bailed out the banks to keep the degraded system going and the snouts of the rich firmly in their troughs while the rest of us struggle in debt, job insecurity or worse. There's even a Chinese theatre director called He Nian who capitalised on Das Kapital's renaissance to create an all-singing, all-dancing musical.

And in perhaps the most lovely reversal of the luxuriantly bearded revolutionary theorist's fortunes, Karl Marx was recently chosen from a list of 10 contenders to appear on a new issue of MasterCard by customers of German bank Sparkasse in Chemnitz. In communist East Germany from 1953 to 1990, Chemnitz was known as Karl Marx Stadt. Clearly, more than two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the former East Germany hasn't airbrushed its Marxist past. In 2008, Reuters reports, a survey of east Germans found 52% believed the free-market economy was "unsuitable" and 43% said they wanted socialism back. Karl Marx may be dead and buried in Highgate cemetery, but he's alive and well among credit-hungry Germans. Would Marx have appreciated the irony of his image being deployed on a card to get Germans deeper in debt? You'd think.

[cascadiance]

13. It can be argued that the more "Islamic" party that is in charge of Turkey are better "capitalists"

... than the Kemalist party more tied to the military that had lead the country up before they took charge recently. Turkey economically had improved a lot under that party over the last decade or so since the downturn that happened after the first gulf war.

So, that might have something to do with more of the dissenting elements in Turkey now not being more "Islamic" at their core and perhaps more leftist, if they feel that neither of these two parties are working for their interests, and with the economic downturn, those interests of many downtrodden Turks, when the more right wing militarist party or the more islamic party in control don't seem to be working for them in this climate.

As one of the more westernized country down in the middle east, it's not to surprising that they are returning to the kind of activism that was heavy back in the 60's and 70's.

[aquart]

14. Since China has abandoned Mao to spin in his grave, I don't see traction for Maoism.

It couldn't make it to a second generation on its own turf.

[arely staircase]

16. one bombing by some dudes calling themselves marxist does not a fourth international make

i have yet to see groundswell, much less a sea change, in the direction of marxism on the world political stage.

[FarCenter]

17. Greece? Marxist? I thought that the facists were on the rise?

[pampango]

18. Indeed, the fascists were out in force again today in Athens.

Chanting anti-Turkish and anti-American slogans, more than 5,000 supporters of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party marched past the U.S. Embassy in Athens on Feb. 2 to to commemorate a 1996 island dispute that caused a crisis between Greece and Turkey. Many of the marchers held burning torches and hundreds of motorcyclists brought up the rear in what was a peaceful demonstration, the Associated Press reported.

The 1996 incident involved Imia, two uninhabited islets off the Turkish coast whose ownership is disputed by Turkey and Greece. Nationalists from both countries planted flags on the islets, and a military confrontation between the two nations was only averted after U.S. intervention.

Three Greek navy officers died when their helicopter crashed during a reconnaissance mission in the area, some said to Turkish fire, but the incident was covered up by both countries to prevent escalation of the crisis. Withdrawal of the Greek flag was seen by nationalists as a shameful capitulation.

A likely clash, or even war, was averted when U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke, working by telephone, conferred with Turkish and Greek officials who refused to speak directly to each other. A deal was reached to return to the “status quo ante”—i.e., differing views on sovereignty and no military forces on the islets. Greek and Turkish officials provided assurances to the United States that their military forces on and arrayed around the islets would be removed, with the U.S. agreeing to monitor the withdrawal. The fundamental territorial issue has remained unresolved since that time.

http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/02/03/golden-dawn-marks-1996-imia-crisis/

[cascadiance]

20. It's rather ironic that the earlier tensions around Cyprus and Greece/Turkey was EU membership...

... for Turkey that had Turkish Cypriots feel like some forces in Europe were aligned against them in a partisan fashion when they were talking in places like France against Turkey's movements to legalize women wearing head scarves in public for what they perceived as problems with growing Muslim power there, and not just for economic or other more "practical" reasons. BTW, no matter how we see Turks depicted in culture like movies such as the Yellow Submarine, wearing the Turkish Fez (the conical red hat with black sash) has been illegal for a long time now too as a part of Ataturk's secularization of that country.

Now it seems rather ironic that Greece's economy might force it to withdraw from the EU, putting it in the same boat as Turkey is in now. Not sure what that translates in to where things are going politically in these two countries, but perhaps it is having a factor in diverting away from more of the religious differences and putting more emphasis on the economic problems of both countries and others around that area, which might have the leftists be more active now (as well as the fascists in places like Greece too).

it is interesting that arguably the "leftists" or at least a new party of the middle class just got significant new membership of the Israeli parliament with the elections last week that took away a lot of power from Netanyahu and the Likud. I think perhaps to the OP's point, there perhaps is a shift now away from religious differences in that region, and more of a focus on the oppression of those who are well off versus those who aren't there, whether that translates in to some extreme "Marxists", or a new "middle class" party in Israel's power, and perhaps even fascists in Greece that are frustrated in similar fashion, but directing their hate frustration towards their hates more instead of something that constructively deals with the real problems.

[LeftInTX]

19. I tend to agree with other posters

This is an internal problem with Turkey.
It has been going on for awhile.

I don't think this group is organized enough to be a "sea of change"
Turkey has a fairly strict policy when it comes to terrorism.
It tends to keep pretty good intelligence files on terrorist groups within it's borders.

This is probably a fringe group.