"Prince of the Seas" Barbaros and "Invader" Ataturk .. Does Erdogan revive the history of his ancestors?

Khalil Mabrouk - Istanbul

Turkish government television responded to the internal opposition to send troops to Libya, displaying old video footage of the founder of the modern Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, while he was fighting alongside the Libyan rebels against the Italian occupation.

In a report broadcast on its Arabic screen on Thursday night, the "TRT" channel called the opposition led by the "Republican People's Party" to "reflect on" a picture of Ataturk some 109 years ago.

Since the internal debate began about sending Turkish forces to Libya, both the government and the opposition have removed all their cards from them to reinforce their position, including the history and Ankara positions on similar issues.

While opposition leaders and their writers cited the position of the parliament that refused to send Turkish forces to fight in Iraq in 2003, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan likened sending troops to Tripoli by capturing Captain Khair al-Din Barbaros the sea at the head of the naval fleets to counter the enemies of the Ottoman Empire.

Barbaros - whom Erdogan cited - is well known to the Turks, and is dubbed the "prince of the seas" in school curricula. Stories are told of his career against Europeans and the imposition of a siege on French beaches in the 16th century.

But Turkish watchers see in the summons of the state television the pictures of Ataturk, along with the Libyan rebels, a deeper effect, and some considered it a "landing behind the lines of opponents."

Erdogan preceded the Turkish media to Ataturk's legacy in Libya, when he said in a television interview on December 22 that his country "will send its army to Libya and fight as Ataturk fought alongside the Libyans there."

The academic scholar of semantics at the University of Arles, Ayelek, believes that evoking Ataturk's biography has delivered - with absolute effectiveness - a message to the Turkish opposition by using a higher semantic symbol in its collective consciousness, which is the leader and founder of Ataturk.

And considered that this step removed many obstacles to confusion in front of the opposition audience in his exposure to the message, and mitigated the effects of pre-impression of the source of the message as a political opponent.

Jelik added in her interview with Al-Jazeera Net that this step "had a profound impact, as it gave comfort to the opposition supporters and their bases on the one hand, and embarrassed opinion leaders and their theorists on the other hand."

She pointed out that the Turks usually search seriously and passionately for any information they receive, and search engines on the World Wide Web documented their search more than 230 million times on the meaning of the term "comrade before the road" that Ahmed Davutoglu said in his 2016 departure speech.

Gillik also warned that the association of each research process with the image of Ataturk in Turkey "has a great impact, given that the image is the most important source of influence on the recipient, due to its connection with the sense of sight with direct contact with the brain, and because the majority of people - according to studies - are of the visual style that It is affected by the image more than any other sensory input. "

Turkish historical sources say that in 2011 Ataturk went to Libya with a number of Turkish officers to fight the Italian occupiers, and fought many battles, especially in Derna and Tobruk.

Military symbols
It seems to evoke Ataturk’s history as an inspiration in the conduct of battles and wars, as Turkish researcher and historian Cengiz Onal says he has “a unique place in Turkish culture and awareness.”

It refers to the Turks' appreciation of the war value of Ataturk in particular, during which they took the title "invader", which is the highest title in the rank and leadership ranks of Turkish societies throughout the ages.

Onal told Al-Jazeera Net that there is a special significance for Ataturk when invoking him in the military context, as he is the leader who protected Turkish soil from the Greek invasion, and from the allies who sought to occupy Turkey.

On Thursday evening, the Turkish Parliament, by a majority of 325 votes to 184, opposed a memorandum authorizing the presidency to send military forces to Libya to support the reconciliation government.

The mandate note will allow the presidency for a renewable year, to provide a variety of support, including sending military forces to Libya to support the Al-Wefaq government in the face of the forces of retired Major General Khalifa Hifter.