Migrant Victory Parades for Turkey’s Erdogan in Germany Spark Diversity Fears for Progressives

BERLIN, GERMANY - MAY 28: Local Turkish people celebrate along the Kurfürstendamm avenue,
Omer Messinger/Getty Images
Peter Caddle

German politicians have been left fearing the consequences of diversity after migrant parades celebrated the re-election of Turkey’s Islamist president took place in the country.

Numerous elected officials within Germany have expressed concern at the parades, which celebrated the victory of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey’s presidential election on Sunday.

Erdoğan is increasingly seen as an adversary of the European Union by many, with the Turkish strongman often coming at odds with European powers over his increasingly close relationship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and for frequently blackmailing the bloc with opening up the floodgates of migration.

Progressives across the continent would have also likely ben perturbed by the Islamist Turkish president’s victory speech, in which he vowed to protect the country from alleged attempts by the “pro-LGBT” to “infiltrate” Turkish society.

According to a report by German newspaper Bild, however, Erdoğan’s re-election was met not with despair from the country’s Turkish population, but with jubilation on German streets, with “tens of thousands” taking to the streets to celebrate the foreign politician’s victory while waving Turkish flags.

Many of those taking part in such celebrations were part of Germany’s sizeable Turkish minority made up both of migrants as well as the children and grandchildren of migrants, among whom Erdoğan’s popularity is higher than within Turkey itself. Turkish citizens living in Germany have the right to vote in elections back in their homeland, and have previously overwhelmingly backed Erdoğan’s Islamist nationalist government.

Such displays of jubilation have left many progressive German politicians on both the left and right deeply uncomfortable, with some finding it difficult to square the idea that ethnic Turks in their country could support an adversary of Europe and European values despite many of them being German citizens.

“I find the images of motorcades extremely disturbing,” centre-right MP Serap Güler — herself descended from Turkish migrants — remarked, adding that there must now be discussions on how to “change” the views of the Turkish diaspora in the country.

Another politician with Turkish heritage, Green Party minister Cem Özdemir, meanwhile took to Twitter to express his frustration, describing the celebrations as rejecting Germany’s democracy.

“The [parades] are not celebrations of harmless supporters of a somewhat authoritarian politician,” he claimed. “They are an unmistakable rejection of our pluralistic democracy and evidence of our failure under them.”

“Are we prepared for the fact that ultranationalism & fundamentalism will now be spread even more strongly in this country by new imams from Ankara?” he went on to ask.

Meanwhile, politicians in the United States appear to be continuing as planned diplomacy-wise, with President Joe Biden approaching Erdoğan shortly after his reelection to broker a deal expanding NATO.

To date, Turkey has blocked Sweden from joining the Western military alliance in part due to its previous allowance of Quran-burning protests, something the Islamic president views as unacceptable.

However, Biden is now seemingly pushing for Erdoğan to accept the country’s ascension to NATO in exchange for the U.S. greenlighting the sale of F-16s and aircraft upgrade kits to Turkey.

The U.S. government, however, has insisted that no quid pro quo deal is being offered in this regard, though numerous officials seem confident that the chance of the sale being agreed would rise substantially if Turkey allow Sweden into NATO.

Follow Peter Caddle on Twitter: @Peter_Caddle
Follow Breitbart London on Facebook: Breitbart London

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.