The Postmodern Pontus Syringe

States determine their security strategies, development plans, industrial and agricultural production, employment, education, and economic, social, and cultural projects in line with their national interests. Long-term cultural policies are formulated by taking into account founding codes, lessons learned from history, and future design. Care is taken to build common denominators of social sensitivity on fundamental issues.

Do you think Turkey's national cultural policies are determined in the direction described above? I wish we could answer this question positively. Let us answer the question through the series Taşacak Bu Deniz (This Sea Will Overflow), which is currently being broadcast on the state television channel TRT. But first, let's talk a little history.

With the Armistice of Mudros of October 30, 1918, imposed as a preface to the Treaty of Sèvres, the end of the road seemed to be in sight for the Turks, who were defeated in the First World War. The Allies, led by Great Britain, tasked Greece as the hitman to force the Turks to accept Sèvres. The goal of the occupation that began in İzmir on May 15, 1919, was the revival of Ionia in the Aegean and Marmara regions, and the Pontus state in the Black Sea region!

A segment of the Ottoman Orthodox subjects in the Aegean region would approve of the occupation and take sides with the Greek Army through the Asia Minor Defense Organization structure! The Orthodox Greeks, who were Ottoman citizens in the Black Sea region, also armed themselves to establish a Pontus Greek State under the protection of Greece and began ethnic cleansing against the Turks in the region.

The victory of the War of Independence would turn the dream of the Conquest of Asia Minor into the Asia Minor Catastrophe; the invaders would be cast into the sea from the place where they first set foot in Anatolia on September 9, 1922, and the Pontus uprising would be suppressed! With the Lausanne agreement reached between the Turkish and Greek delegations, a Mutual Exchange would be carried out, with Muslims (Turks) in Greece, except for the population of Western Thrace, migrating to Turkey, and Orthodox (Greeks) in Turkey, except for Istanbul, migrating to Greece.

Although the victory of the War of Independence, the suppression of the Pontus uprising, and the implemented exchange ended the occupation of Anatolia, it would not be enough to extinguish Greece's dreams of Ionia, Pontus, and Constantinople! The political ambitions of the other side of the water toward Anatolia are currently being continued through cultural activities disguised as innocence, such as television series, motion pictures, literature products, conferences, etc. If you ask how, let's move on to the examples.

The Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM), with a general assembly decision taken on June 8, 1995, declared that Greece's extension of its territorial waters in the Aegean from 6 miles to 12 miles would be considered a cause for war (casus belli). Later, it was stated in statements made on various dates that Turkey's determination on this issue continues.

Is Turkey, which considers any potential attempt by Greece to upset the Lausanne balance in the Aegean as a cause for war, taking precautions against the neighbor's insidious efforts to evaporate the historical memory and national sensitivity of the Turkish nation, and against social engineering activities aimed at extending its cultural territorial waters by hundreds of miles, or is it playing along in a state of deep negligence?

The answer to the question is painful. Turkey, whose consciousness is blurred by "State Alzheimer's," which dulls national sensitivity, historical memory, and sense of direction, cannot develop preventive cultural policies because it cannot read the strategy of the other side of the water to expand its cultural territorial waters and create a Hellenophile climate in our country.

Let us underline that the portrayal of Greek/Greek characters in recent television series as today's Apollos who have just descended from Olympus is aimed at replacing the national sensitivity formed by historical experiences in our common consciousness with Hellenophilia. The consciousness-dulling perception drugs injected through perfect Greek/Greek characters placed in television series such as Yabancı Damat (Niko), Kırık Kanatlar (Hristo), Tatlı Hayat (Yorgo), Vatanım Sensin (Leon), and Hatırla Sevgili (Teo), and in motion pictures such as Yüreğine Sor, Aşk Tesadüfleri Sever 1-2, and Suyun Öte Yanı, prove what we have said more than enough.

Let us bring the subject to the final proof of our argument, the TRT 1 production Taşacak Bu Deniz.

In the first episode of the series, we see Eleni, the daughter of a Greek doctor couple, as the top graduate of the Athens University Faculty of Medicine. The parents cannot attend their daughter's graduation ceremony due to the patients they are going to operate on. The father, who is preparing to enter surgery, loses his life due to a heart attack. His wife, Melina Miryano, is such an idealistic doctor that she turns her back on the corpse and enters the operating room, saying, "My husband is dead anyway, I have patients inside to keep alive!"

When Eleni reads the letter left to her godfather, the Priest, to be given to her in case of the doctor father's death, she learns that she is not the child of the Greek family, that her mother lives in the Furtuna village of Trabzon's Sürmene district, and that she was sold to the Greek doctors by a relative of her mother after birth. Eleni will come to Turkey without wasting time, become a dual citizen, obtain a diploma equivalence certificate, and be appointed to the Furtuna Village Health Center to find the trail of her mother!

The other doctor at the Health Center, Oruç Furtuna, is the son of the Furtuna family, the powerful family of the village. There is a long history of bloody rivalry between Furtuna village and the neighboring Koçari village. The two village populations are in constant conflict due to the blood feud between the leader of Koçari Village, the region's livestock king Adil Koçari, and the local tea king, the Furtuna family. Adil Koçari, whose father was killed by Şerif Furtuna, is counting the days until he gets out of prison to continue the blood feud where it left off.

Although it is slightly hinted to the audience that Eleni is the product of the youthful love between the Muhtar of Furtuna village, Esma Furtuna, and Adil Koçari, the facts will emerge in the later episodes of the series. In the series, when it is understood that Eleni, who was raised with Greek education and culture, is pure, clean, and has high medical knowledge and skills, came to search for her mother, Furtuna village turns against the doctor. Eleni, who is left hungry, thirsty, and homeless, and is attacked, will have her life threatened. Let's cut the summary here and get to the essence of the matter.

The Furtuna and Koçari villages described in the series are far from civilization and the culture of democracy, as if they are living in the feudal period before the Republic. In Furtuna and Koçari villages, where contemporary values, law, and public authority do not visit, the landlords living in flashy mansions and riding luxury vehicles are the types who set the rules of the patriarchal structure and tribal order. Rights are not secured before the law, but with guns drawn and fired at each other at every turn, and all kinds of pressure and violence applied to the opposing party are considered natural. In short, even though the events in the series take place today, the audience is presented with a medieval picture where the owners of money and power crush the powerless. Trabzon is reflected with a tribal/clan sociology that does not match or overlap with today's reality.

Alongside the grumpy, aggressive, lawless people of both villages, Eleni, who is presented as a model person of civilization, tolerance, respect for the law, and superior moral values, is reflected as a living example of Greek/Hellenic culture, education system, manners, refinement, humanity, and honor.

Let us underline that the one-sentence short message of the long series is the contrast between Eleni, who is a faithful Christian and kneaded with Greek/Hellenic culture even if she is ethnically Turkish, and the Turkish characters from Trabzon. Let us also expect the irresponsible responsible parties to provide an answer to what the awards given to the producer and screenwriter of the Greek/Hellenic cultural syringe, which is pumped into our subconscious through the series broadcast on the state television TRT every Friday, mean.