Ergenekon And The Wolf
How to spot a Turkish far-right extremist, using Nationalist symbolism you learned about from the TV
Where I live, the State Government is proposing a ban on “hate symbols” that will match similar bans in other parts of the country. Included in the ban will be such things as the Nazi salute and the Hakenkreuz symbol; the “hooked cross” that was appropriated from the ancient religious symbol called the Swastika.1
This got me thinking about other ancient or otherwise meaningful symbols that have been appropriated by various hate groups. Obviously the Hakenkreuz has to go on the list; what other symbols have been so thoroughly corrupted that nothing positive2 comes from displaying them in public? To be honest, I can’t think of any off the top of my head, but that’s just my ignorance; this article lists a few Australian far-right groups and the kind of symbols that might end up on the banned list. What does actually interest me is the history, the progression from Swastika to Hakenkreuz, from one deeply held meaning to another.
In Australia, the more racist your views, the more likely you are to wear an Australian flag around your shoulders while professing them loudly in public. This debate with rapper 360 on the ABC’s Q&A provoked international discussion of the topic. A big factor in the popularity of Australian-flag-as-cape is that it’s regularly worn as such by our right-wing Senator Pauline Hanson (seen on this blog before).
Similarly, the white-on-blue southern cross of the Eureka Flag, long a symbol of worker’s rights and the Unions, is now regularly associated with various far right groups. In this case, the declining power of the Unions against a hostile government must have played a role; but there is a common thread of various groups, whether left- or right-wing, co-opting the Eureka flag for their cause. The Eureka Rebellion has been such a powerful symbol in Australian culture, even referred to as “the foundation of our Australian democracy”, that arguing over its political legacy continues to this day.
I see some similarly powerful symbols portrayed on Turkish TV. Coincidentally, the blue-and-white colour palettes are very similar.
The oldest records we have of the early Turkic/Turkish peoples emphasise their connection to the wolf. In their foundation myths the wolf acts as guide and saviour, or even as literal ancestor.
The ancestors of the Göktürk tribes were said to be the offspring of an unnamed she-wolf, fathered by a boy she saved from death. A couple of different versions of this origin tale were recorded by contemporary Chinese historians, and combined3 it goes as follows:
The ancestors of the Türks lived on the right bank of the Western Sea. The Türks are a separate tribe of the Xiongnu. Their family name is Ashina. They formed a tribe that was independent of the Xiongnu, but later were attacked by a neighbouring state and all were killed except for a ten-year old boy. When the enemy soldiers saw that he was so young, they did not have the heart to kill him, so they cut off his feet and threw him into a grass-covered swamp. Here, there was a she-wolf who fed the young boy meat. He grew up and had relations with the she-wolf, who became pregnant. When the king of the neighbouring state learned that the youth was still alive, he again sent men to kill him. When they saw a she-wolf beside the young man, they wanted to kill her too. The she-wolf fled to a mountain in the north in the state of Gaochang (Turfan). There was a cave in this mountain in which there was a broad plain with abundant grass. This plain, which stretched out for hundreds of li and was surrounded on all sides by mountains. The she-wolf hid in the mountains. Here, she gave birth to ten sons. When they grew up, they went out of the cave and married women from the outside. They brought many children into the world. Each of these descendants took a family name and one of them took the name Ashina. He was the cleverest among them and became their ruler. In front of the gate to the camp they placed a standard with a wolf’s head on it, so as to show that they had not forgotten their origins.
However interesting they may be, the Göktürks come up less frequently in Turkish TV than the Oğuz, who were the branch of Turkish tribes whose descendants eventually founded the Ottoman Empire. We are just fortunate to have some early written records of the Göktürks, who like the Oğuz mostly passed on their histories orally rather than writing things down. Nevertheless, a few different accounts of the Oğuz history survive.
It’s the Oğuz version of the origin tale that was incorporated into the lore of the nascent Turkish Republic, upon the collapse of the Ottoman empire. The version set down by poet Ziya Gökalp in 1913 is the most famous, particularly for its influence4 on Atatürk, the founding father and first president of the Republic. Gökalp’s version, in perfect “destan” quatrains, is too long to quote in full;5 but if you watch enough Turkish historical dramas you’ll hear the story re-told, often by a blacksmith (for reasons that will become obvious).
Many of the elements from the Göktürk myth are shared by the Oğuz version as we know it; the persecution of a small tribe, the refuge in a hidden valley, the resurgence into the world. The chief difference is the role of the wolf: in the Göktürk story she was a nameless mortal ancestor, but in the Oğuz version the grey wolf is a sacred totem animal and spiritual guide. The succinctly relevant quatrain in Gökalp’s version is the following, where the grey wolf guides the way out of the hidden Ergenekon valley6 after 400 years of seclusion, to begin the conquest of nations (my translation):
Kurt bir delik buldu, gitti,
Bir demirci takip etti,
Ocak yaktı taş eritti,
Açıldı yol kapağımız!(The wolf found a hole, and went through it,
A blacksmith followed,
His fires burned hot, the stone melted,
Our blocked path is opened!)
The Göktürk legends above emphasised the importance of metallurgy and smithing to the early Turks, and the same goes here for the Oğuz. The blacksmith, noticing that the rock blocking the exit-path is mostly iron ore, literally smelts a way through to the outside world. The role of the wolf, here and elsewhere in the legends, was eventually honored on the first banknotes of the Turkish Republic.
In Turkish TV shows, the wolf often plays the guiding spirit role from the Ergenekon legend; see for example this trailer for ATV’s Destan (Youtube link). Usually, the wolf stands for strength and courage, especially against a stronger opponent such as a lion; or moral purity against a dishonorable opponent. For an example of the latter, see this clip from TRT’s Diriliş: Ertuğrul (Youtube link), where Ertuğrul proclaims:
“…Çakalların hükmü Kurt ayağa kalkana kadardır.”
(“…the reign of the Jackals lasts until the Wolf stands up.”)
Generally though, the wolf stands for simple Turkishness. I can think of no better example than this fantastic clip (Youtube link) from the first season of TRT’s Alparslan: Büyük Selçuklu. Viewers were introduced to Akça Hatun (played by Fahriye Evcen Özçivit) as a Byzantine spy, planted into the Turkish tribe to cause trouble. However, after viewing the above scene where she calls a female wolf to her and takes its milk7 for herbal medicine, the audience is completely reassured of where her true loyalties lie: she must be a Turk!
The wolf has many names in the stories: Gökbörü (“blue/sky wolf”) reflects the association with the Sky God Tengri, and hence with the sky-blue colour that matches the one on the Eureka Flag. Various names meaning “grey wolf” are also in use, such as Bozkurt, and Börteçine (loaned from the Mongolian name Börte Üjin, that of the first wife of Genghis Khan). Perhaps the most common of mythical wolf names is the one recorded as Ashina to the Göktürks; to the Oğuz this name is Asena.
The picture below shows Turkish politician and leader of the opposition right-wing İYİ party, Meral Akşener. Her followers call her Asena, which makes her political strategy painfully obvious; she is promising to guide the Turkish people where they need to go.
It’s not just her wolfish nickname that gives this away, but also the name of her party. İYİ means “good”, but all-capitalised like that it resembles another instantly recognisable symbol: the “bow and two arrows” official seal, or “tamga”8 of the Kayı tribe of the Oğuz Turks. Akşener is implying she has the right to rule, by associating her party with the ancestral line of Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire.
Diriliş: Ertuğrul, being a dramatisation of the struggles of the Kayı tribe pre-Osman, often features the “sky-blue flag” being treated with suitable reverence. The Kayı tamga remained in use throughout the Ottoman times, for example as the Turkish Arsenal Mark (see picture)
It’s important to point out here that the İYİ Party are relatively moderate in their nationalism. As Selim Koru reminds us in this post at Kültürkampf, the İYİ Party started out as a centre-right faction that split from the far-right MHP Party, only hardening their anti-Kurdish anti-left stance while jostling for position within the opposition “Table of Six” voting bloc.
In fact, nationalism is enshrined in the Turkish Constitution as one of the six principles of the founding ideology (Kemalism) of the Republic of Türkiye. It began as an straightforward rejection of the collapsed Empire: instead of saying “long live the Sultan” or “long live the Caliph”, Atatürk proposed the following motto:
"Ne mutlu Türküm diyene!"
("How happy is the one who says I am a Turk!")
In place of the struggles between semi-autonomous conquered “Millet” nations that made up the Ottoman Empire, the new Republic narrowed its focus to the Anatolian peninsula, where every citizen was legally defined as a Turk, regardless of ethnicity or religion.
Naturally, there are some with more extreme interpretations of Turkishness. Some resent those citizens who claim an identity separate to Turkish (e.g. Kurdish or Laz). Some deny the Turkishness of the Armenians in Türkiye, considering them as a wandering tribe without a homeland. Some resent the loss of the oil-rich former Ottoman territories, carved up as spoils among the victors of the First World War, and dream of a return to Empire. Some picture a Pan-Turkic Empire, with all Turkic-speaking peoples united in control of the rich resources of the former Soviet republics across the central Asian heartland. The most well-known, and most violent,9 of the ultra-ultra-nationalists are officially known as the Ülkü Ocakları (“Idealist Hearths”), or the Ülkücü (“Idealists”); unofficially, naturally, they call themselves the Grey Wolves.
Earlier this year, the German domestic intelligence agency (BfV) published the results of its investigation into the Turkish Ülkücü in Germany, concluding that "The far right constitutes one of the biggest threats to the liberal democratic order". They found the movement had 11,000 supporters across Germany, organised into groups that “consciously avoided using nationalist symbols, tried to comply with German laws, not to commit crimes, and not to be provoked by their opponents” while spreading their ideology to recruit new members. Blamed for violent incidents including arson of a synagogue, their neo-fascist beliefs were aired in private internet groups, along with images of themselves as armed fighters.
If Twitter still exists when you read this, then you can probably see the “bozkurt” (“grey wolf”) salute pictured. Additionally, the report notes the use of the “Rabia symbol”, while pointing out that this symbol is also used by unrelated groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. I guess the bozkurt salute is one that could end up on the naughty list in Australia too, along with the following flag:
How do you tell if your friend is becoming an Ülkücü? The report helpfully notes some particular Turkish TV series that extremists like to watch. These are Show TV’s Kurtlar Vadisi (“Valley of the Wolves”) from 2003, and Star TV’s Börü (2018). I’ve never seen either of these shows, but I note from the Wikipedia summaries that the lead female character in Börü is named Asena, because of course she is.
One final point: on the 14th of May this year, there will be elections in Türkiye. Based on the recent success of opposition “voting bloc” tactics, along with popular dissatisfaction with the handling of the earthquake relief by President Erdoğan, some commenters say there is a chance he could be voted out this time. In any case, the risk of political violence in Türkiye may be heightened in the months ahead, and sadly you may see the Grey Wolves mentioned again.
The word “Swastika” comes from the Sanskrit root “swasti”, meaning “well-being”. This may sound familiar if you’ve ever been to Thailand, where the standard greeting since 1944 has been สวัสดี “sa-wat-di” which comes from the same Sanskrit root. According to Wiktionary, “sa-wat-di” as a greeting “was officially ordained by the nationalist government of Field Marshall Plaek Phibunsongkhram”; an unexpected relevance to today’s essay.
The similar law in Victoria provides the following exceptions:
“A person will not commit an offence if they display a Nazi symbol reasonably and in good faith:
for a genuine academic, artistic, religious or scientific purpose
for a genuine cultural or educational purpose
in making or publishing a fair and accurate report of any event or matter of public interest, or
in opposition to Nazism or related ideologies.”
The quoted text is a composite of the versions from Golden, Peter B; "The Ethnogonic Tales of the Türks" in The Medieval History Journal, 21 (2): 291–327 (2018). References for the various translations are given therein.
Wikipedia quotes Atatürk as saying "Father of my meat and bones is Ali Riza Efendi and father of my thought is Ziya Gökalp".
You can read the full version of Ziya Gökalp’s Ergenekon (in Turkish) at Wikisource.
If that word “Ergenekon” sounds familiar, you may be thinking of a famous incident, that is such a juicy story I may have to write it up myself one day. For now, I cannot summarise it any better than Scott Alexander does:
“In 1996, Turkish police investigated a car crash. Inside the offending car, they found:
1. The deputy police chief of Istanbul
2. A notorious mafia leader with ties to the Grey Wolves militia group
3. A member of Parliament
4. A beauty queen
5. A fake passport linked to the man who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II
6. "Numerous" guns, including two submachine guns
7. Drugs
8. Several thousand US dollars”
Its quite a long scene, so if you want to skip to the milking for some reason, it starts at 56:54
English Wikipedia uses the word “tamga” for the seal, modern Turkish spells it as “damga”
In one incident among many, former Grey Wolf Mehmet Ali Ağca was convicted of attempting to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981. The Pope forgave him and arranged a pardon, securing his release from prison after serving 20 years of a life sentence.
It’s always good to read critiques that reference myth in relation to ideas about national identity. This seems to be somewhat uncontested terrain - who can possibly pick a fight with the idea of nation and win?! But like most concepts it’s a product of our collective longings and can all too easily turn sour as most writers thankfully realise!
Small nitpick: the election is on 14th May, not 23rd.