There is a fuss regarding the greeting that Turkish footballer Merih Demiral brought. But why not regarding something much worse: cowardly administrators are happy to spend your tax money on the far-right Grey Wolves. That writes Zihni Ozdil.
‘Millions of guilders in subsidies go to front organizations of the extreme right-wing Turkish movement Gray Wolves.’ According to the newspaper Fidelity in 1997.
‘Is the board prepared to stop this subsidy(s) immediately, now that it has become clear that these organisations are affiliated with the Grey Wolves and are not working in an integrating manner?’ asked the SP in The Hague in 2003. The answer from the mayor and aldermen:
‘The municipality provides a subsidy to the Turkish Cultural Foundation in The Hague for socio-cultural activities that promote integration into The Hague society (for example language lessons, computer courses, sports). The position of an organisation on matters that primarily concern the domestic affairs of the country of origin does not, in principle, play a role in the assessment of a subsidy application.’
Over the past thirty years, numerous policy documents have appeared justifying the Dutch government’s support for far-right, racist, fascist Turkish nationalists. Even revelations had no effect on this.
In 1997, journalists Stella Braam and the late Mehmet Ülger wrote a book regarding the presence of the Grey Wolves in the Netherlands. Their journalistic research revealed in detail how many front organisations of the Grey Wolves are active in the Netherlands. And how they receive support from the Dutch government in various ways.
Unprecedented indifference
To be on the safe side, I would like to emphasize that there is no naivety or ignorance at play here. As the response of the Hague council to the SP in 2003 makes crystal clear, Dutch administrators know very well that they are supporting extreme right-wing Turkish (front) organizations.
Unprecedented indifference is the driving force here. They are perfectly happy to use your tax money to give the Grey Wolves the proverbial weapons to poison generations of Turkish-Dutch children with their ideology of hate. Let them drown, they say in civil servant jargon.
Because Braam and Ülger also walked along municipalities with their findings. To ask why they continued to subsidize Grey Wolves. They also got the answer, quite literally: ‘Leave those Turks in their own culture.’
Great and mighty
And make no mistake. The subsidies continue to this day. Take for example the shocking report from the Doorbraak website from 2020.
Some of the conclusions:
‘Our research shows that Grey Wolves organisations in the Netherlands are still very good at finding their way to municipal subsidies and have a perfect command of the institutional language that municipalities are sensitive to. Their letters and emails to municipalities are full of terms such as “integration”, “participation”, “emancipation”, “dialogue”, “social cohesion” and “mutual understanding”.
‘In doing so, they still manage to persuade many municipalities to submit their requests for subsidies or other forms of support, and they manage to conceal their extreme right-wing and ultra-nationalist ideals well (…) It is striking that many municipalities do not adopt a principled position towards local Turkish Federation Netherlands branches (Grey Wolves).
‘These are authoritarian, anti-democratic and ultra-right organizations. The municipalities also lack alertness, even when there are clear indications that these are organizations with a dubious ideology. For example, officials from the municipality of Rotterdam saw an image of a wolf in a club room.’
In Germany, things aren’t much better, to say the least. There too, the Grey Wolves were given decades of support, including through umbrella organisations, support from the German government.
The tax money of the German citizen has been a great success for Turkish fascism. According to the German secret service, the Grey Wolves the largest and most powerful far-right organization in Germany.
How does that work in those heads?
Well, I hear you think, why are you writing all this down now, Dr. Özdil?
That, dear readers, has to do with the European Football Championship. After a goal once morest Austria, Turkish footballer Merih Demiral gave the Grey Wolf salute. You might call it a kind of Turkish equivalent of the Hitler salute.
The German government reacted with shock. Under pressure, UEFA ordered an investigation. And Demiral has now been suspended for tonight’s match once morest the Netherlands.
I won’t mince my words and honestly admit that this makes me incredibly grumpy. How does that work in those German and Dutch heads? If Demiral gives the Grey Wolf salute in the stadium, he is punished. But if he gives the Grey Wolf salute at the subsidy counter, he gets plenty of free tax money?
I can no longer stand this unbearably empty hypocrisy and fake morality. So much so that I now simply stand behind Demiral one hundred percent. As long as Germany and the Netherlands subsidize the Gray Wolves, the good man has every right to bring the Gray Wolf salute everywhere in both countries.
It is to his great credit that he does not ask for a subsidy for it. In doing so, he shows himself to be much more classy than all those cowardly administrators who knowingly and willingly give away your hard-earned tax money to extreme right-wing Turkish organizations.
I’m even on the verge of almost giving the Gray Wolf salute myself out of recalcitrance.
Almost, I don’t write that for nothing.
It’s not that I’m a Turkish Nazi.
