Turkey celebrates 558 years of illegal occupation of Constantinople
While Americans were celebrating Memorial Day and remembering those who had given their lives in defense of our freedoms, wanna-be EU member Turkey held a celebration of an entirely different variety – 558 years of their illegal occupation of the Christian capital city of Constantinople. The city (renamed by the Ottoman occupiers as Istanbul) was sacked by Sultan Mohammad II on May 29, 1453 in what is now known as the Byzantine nakba (or, catastrophe).
One eyewitness described the scene:
Nothing will ever equal the horror of this harrowing and terrible spectacle. People frightened by the shouting ran out of their houses and were cut down by the sword before they knew what was happening. And some were massacred in their houses where they tried to hide, and some in churches where they sought refuge. The enraged Turkish soldiers . . . gave no quarter. When they had massacred and there was no longer any resistance, they were intent on pillage and roamed through the town stealing, disrobing, pillaging, killing, raping, taking captive men, women, children, old men, young men, monks, priests, people of all sorts and conditions
The Kuwaiti News Agency noted this weekend’s celebration:
Thus, Istanbul saw today another glorious day with thousands of people who have their hearts throbbing with the city’s historic triumphal entry having flocked to Esmat Pasha Stadium in the nearby Kocaali city, while chanting the old songs of conquest which revived the feelings of thousands. These acts of remembrance revived the nostalgic feelings of thousands who recalled again Sultan Mohammad, the Conqueror, Sheikh Aq Shams Al-Din, Ulubatli Hassan, and Abu Ayoub Al-Ansari, may God be pleased with him, and so the joy turned into a gala with fireworks launched in the middle of the program and at its last. Then, a group of Istanbul’s youth have carried, amid calls of Allahu Akbar, stating Allah is the Greatest, as well as the military music a wooden ship signifying the ships which Mohammad II made his soldiers carry from the western coast of Bosphorus…
And who was behind this celebration of half a millenium of illegal occupation? The Turkish government.
The celebrations marking this historic event were held under the sponsorship of Istanbul’s Metropolitan Municipality with the participation of a big number of Turkish officials, and at their forefront came Istanbul’s governor Hussein Ahbeuni Mutlu, and the city’s mayor Kadir Topbas who laid a wreath at the unknown memorial in remembrance of those who fell at the battle field.
It should be noted that less than a century ago non-Muslims were still the majority in occupied Constantinople notwithstanding the illegal occupation by the Ottomans. That’s no longer the case. Perhaps Israel should set as a precondition for negotiations with the Palestinians the return of Anatolia to the Greeks, Armenians and Jews? The issue should at least be raised in anticipation of another Turkish flotilla about to be sent to Gaza.
Here is a short video detailing the siege and sacking of Constantinople, and the slaughter and enslavement of the Christian population of the city.
As much as I’d like to see Constantinople returned to the Greeks, Turkey took it by right of conquest. Likewise, we took half of Mexico by that same right.
Israel would be better served to viciously mock the Muslim world by emphasizing the fact that its very existence is a testament to the right of conquest as there is virtually no Islamic territory in that region won by persuasion.
I think the point he is making is that it is stupidly hypocritical for the Turks and Prime Minister Erdogan to criticize Israel for the “Judaization” of Jerusalem when they are celebrating the exact same act. What do you call the Hagia Sophia?
Muslims are never wrong – about anything, and the concept of fair play, as far as I can tell, utterly unknown to them.
Why bring up ancient history when Turkey is right now engaging in the very recent military occupation and ethnic cleansing of Northern Cyprus. Does anyone even talk about that or the mainland Turkish ‘settlers’ there? Where is the flotilla for that? Where is the ‘right of return’ for Greek Cypriots?
Read your history and you will discover that a significant portion of Mehmet II’s forces of consisted of Christian mercenaries. His chief of artillary was Genoese. Not to mention what the Crusaders did to Constantinople. Things are just not as simple as what some simple-minded people would like them to be.
We have read our history and that STILL not the point. The point is eternal wafqs and what’s good for the goose is good for the gander and “right of return” and who’s doin’ the bitchin’.
Get it? WE agree with you, THEY don’t. Double standards, double think.
Mehmet II needed to conquer Constantinople to invade Europe.
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea…
This is a ridiculous article or posting by a neo-Nazi Hellenist. Turkey didn’t celebrate 558 years of “illegal” occupation of Constantinople. Istanbul as it is now known is a Turkish city. By your logic, then the Italians have been occupying Rome for over 2000 years because the people who use to be there originally where not Italians. By your logic then Israel has been occupying Palestine for almost 62 years because the land was Arab from approximately 0 AD (when the Romans kicked the jews out) to 1949. By your logic then the Americans have been illegally occupying America for 200 plus years because the land use to originally belong to the Native Americans. What a shameful post and article, Istanbul is now Turkish and there is no reason why Turks should not be proud in their heritage and accomplishments. And finally, the fall of Istanbul was during a war so yes wars won in that way and as a final note, the reason the city fell to the Turks was because the crusades sacked the city 200 years prior killing many of the christian orthodox inhabitants and weakening the Byzantine empire. Good luck and read some history and go to Church less often its making you dumb.
You can lead some people to a cocktail but you can’t make them drink.
Or think.
You just plain don’t get it.
All the (demonstrably absurd) accusations concerning Israel’s treatment of so-called “Palestinians” are quite valid to make against the Ottomans and their modern descendants, for their treatment of non-Muslims. It’s a simple matter of putting a mirror in front of an anti-Semite.
Until the Turkish government will allow me to reverence an icon of Christ in the Hagia Sophia, and to make the Orthodox sign of the Cross upon myself, without fear of imprisonment, all the words spoken and ink spilt about the “Palestinian right of return” is just hot air, trees killed for nothing, sound and fury signifying only the ignorance on the part of the words’ speakers and writers.
I’m so happy to see you defending the Israeli borders of June 10, 1967, by your selective defense of the right of conquest.
And of course you’d defend any invader who would now conquer Istanbul, rape and plunder the inhabitants and rename it Constantinople, if they could just hold on to it for 558 years?
5. John
“because the land was Arab from approximately 0 AD (when the Romans kicked the jews out) to 1949″
Israel was still majority Jewish after the Romans kicked the Jews out of Jerusalem in 67 AD. They left enough Jews for a large scale revolution against Rome 60 years later (see “bar kochba”). After that, the majority of the Jewish population was outside but there were still Jews in Israel.
The Arabs didn’t get there until 650 years later, and never had an independent country, kingdom, or nation there.
Let’s not get carried away. I do agree that AKP, regardless of the merits or lack of merits to the claims of the Palestinians, should not have injected itself into that mess. It’s all about votes and pseudo-secret Arab money to build crazy canals, nuke plants on earthquake faults and damming every damn river in the country.
There is an old and true saying: where the Ottoman Turk has walked, no grass will grow again.
Israel’s problem is that it has not made its claim to its land on the simple fact of conquest by war. It instead, being enamored by “International Law” and the new “United Nations” has allowed its claim rest on UN Resolutions. Remember Sarah Palin’s question: “Why does Israel always apologize?”
Anyway, allow the Turks their victory parades, and allow the Israelis their victory parades, as the Americans have their victory parades.
One other question: why on earth do we hear over and over again about the Palestinian “Right of Return”, and never hear of the Jewish “Right of Return” to (say) Baghdad and Alexandria and Warsaw???
ahhhh.. there’s nothing like being one of the most hated people in the world, and everyday wonder,”what the heck have I done to deserve this?”
I know what Jews felt for centuries in Europe, I know how a German felt throughout the twentieth century, I know how a citizen of the Soviets felt whenever he left his country and how any Arab has been feeling since forever and especially now, in the US. And STILL, certain un-evolved multitudes go on believing that we’re any different from one another!
Send your minds’ eyes to the next galaxy sorry ants and look from there for a moment… it’s all but a dot.