Secular Turks Fear Immigrant-Fueled Islamist Wave
7th June 2022
At any dinner party conversation, the refrain is practically the same.
“It’s the immigrants,” someone will say.
“It’s the refugees.”
“There are too many.”
“Too many.”
“They are trying to change our culture.”
“This is my country – my beautiful country. They don’t belong here.”They sound like the dialogues you’d hear among white supremacists in America or Marine Le Pen supporters at the best restaurants of Paris. But they are among Turkey’s liberal, secular intelligentsia, unapologetically concerned about a growing Islamization of their country.
“If this makes me racist, then I’m a racist,” one woman told me.