There are serious issues between Greece and Turkiye regarding the Aegean and Cyprus. Greece, unlike other countries, is not only bringing these issues to international forums in an effort to protect it's own interests, it is wrapping them in irrational misconceptions to make them impossible to solve.

Greeks, when they look at us from the other side of the Aegean, visualise us like this: A country 5-6 times greater than Greece. Despite all her orientalism and incompetence, it is continuously growing economically. Being governed by military rule under the guise of Democracy. A ruthless country with no respect for human rights. It can not change because it is not a western and Christian country. It is ready to expand and even re-create the old Ottoman Empire. Ready to attack...

Editor:Creating an international crisis over an outcrop of rocks on the Aegean coast of Turkiye was one of the latest examples of this strategy.

This approach explains our relations with Greece to great extent. It would have been easier for Turkiye to deal with this approach if more irrational and even pathological aspects were not at play.

Greece was born from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire but it is a bit different from the other countries which did the same. Greece wanted to inherit the Byzantine Empire and archaeological nationalism symbol of Hellenism. It had lay claim to an undisclosed expanse of territory within the old Ottoman Empire. It felt incomplete without capturing at least part of Anatolia. But Turkiye stopped Greece from achieving this goal by launching a War of Independence and crushing Greek presence in Anatolia.

Greece considered this defeat as a sacrilegious insult, it still does.

Therefore, Turkiye should cease to exist for Greece to complete its identity. At this point, history becomes their ally.

Terrorists called 'Klept' had played very important role in national independence of Greeks. The opposing forces called 'Armatol' were fighting to stay under the Ottoman Flag. Eventually, Kelpts won the day thanks to the Western powers of the time. In other words, the unconditional Greek support for PKK stems from their own experience.

The hatred and fear of this country from Turkiye is best found in 'Letters to El Greco' by Greek author Kazancakis. The author equates Virgin Mary with Greece and Turkiye with Satan when he was meditating in a church as a child. He imagines these as the struggle of cosmic evil and good.

Christianity, polluted by remnants of old religions, considers evil outside the jurisdiction of God. Whereas Muslim people consider the devil as part of the cosmic structure. That's why we do not feel the need to take the good and assign the evil to others. Unfortunately, we do not understand those who do this. Is the problem impossible because it is cultural?

I went to attend a conference called 'Evolution of Turkish Image in 12 European Countries since the Declaration of the Republic' organised by Bosphorus University. I took all my reference books with me to confront the last speaker on the last day- a Greek scholar. This ended up being a pleasant surprise. The Greek scholar explained the Turkish image in his country almost in my words in above paragraphs. I could only congratulate him.

According to international psychology, these stubborn images formed by malignant prejudices, can not be removed by extensive publicity campaigns. The only way is for the image creator(Greece) to realise what is being done and slowly take measures to rectify it. This is beneficial for the spiritual well being of the Greek people. Highly complex bilateral issues can then be tackled more readily.

I wish to convey other observations relating to the subject:

'Image' is how a person or a country is conceived by other people. If this image is reflecting the total characteristics of a person or a country, then the 'image' becomes the 'identity'. Unfortunately no-one can conceive others that accurately, therefore 'image' is always somewhat different from 'identity'. In other words, all of us generate inaccurate images of others because of our prejudices, inaccuracies and incomplete knowledge. If the problem is inaccuracy or lack of knowledge, then informative publicity campaigns can help set the record straight. But if there are pathological factors shaping that image, then the problem becomes a case of 'malignant prejudice'.

People might say:" If your country(Turkiye) is doing things wrong for a long time and insisting on not correcting them, then the fault belongs to Turkiye, not to Greece"

An example of this behaviour can be seen between the two world wars. Anti Semitic lobbies in Europe used to claim that Jews were corrupting the societies they were living in. Some of these people were claiming that Jews were doing this by controlling the world finance system, while others were claiming that Jews were supporting communism and anarchy - even though the two streams of thought contradicted each other. Above all, Jews were bad, sick and ugly. One could not call them human, they could not change either because of their primitive and ancient religion.

Six million Jews were subjected to unbelievable persecution and later to genocide based on these irrational premises.

Again, some people may say: " The world has changed a lot now. We took lessons from the past. Conditions are different now" Anti Semitism is, according to one claim, 2000 years old. Yes, the lesson was terrifying but 50 years is too short for these cultural conditions to change. We can not say "Everything is different now". Because 3 million Turkish people have filled the vacuum left by the Jews of Europe and they are fighting the new racism as we speak. The ferocity of criticisms directed towards Turkiye indicates the revival of historical prejudices against us.

Nowadays, there are no such atrocities committed in Europe(except for Bosnia and Kosovo). On the contrary, there is a growing and uniting Europe which resulted in the creation of biggest economy in the world. The future looks bright. Political unification will eventually extend to military area and EU will be the most powerful force next to USA. Why should, then, this image projection mechanism start working again? Not even 50 years has passed after the worst holocaust in history, people are constantly talking about human rights and democracy, yet how do we explain the emergence of racism around the world?

Turkiye asked these questions to "Mind and Human Relations Study Center" at Virginia University. It is difficult to summarise the 47 page report prepared by the Center but I shall try:

The Center concluded that the success of EU policies resulted in the emergence of new racism. As Arbatov from Russia indicated, the collapse of Soviet Union left the West without a target enemy. The same situation happened during the unification of Germany recently. West Germany has been using this mechanism extensively prior to unification by projecting all of her internal faults such as inhuman violence and totalitarian tendencies to East Germany. Unification left her without a target. EU was asking for conciliation among countries which have been mortal enemies for centuries. This situation made it necessary for these countries to create new enemies and targets.

All of them collaborated to select Islam as the new target. The guest workers and refugees who happen to be the extension of Islam in Europe, became the new scapegoats to replace the murdered Jews and their internal old enemies. Emotional investments poured into the maintenance of national borders over the centuries suddenly became irrelevant, contributing to the emergence of racism. The "progressive" circles in EU advocated a united Europe based on ethnic and historical separation by quoting human rights and democracy. Conservatives saw this as a mortal blow to national identities. Therefore the abolition of national borders contributed to the massive increase in image projections towards the target groups.

Powers in Europe started emphasising that Muslim foreigners are unable to integrate into the society because of their religious and cultural differences, not because of the racism in the West. The Center in Virginia indicates this cultural integration excuse is generally used to camouflage the underlying racism.

Multiculturalism policies based on human rights, therefore, fail to succeed because it clashes with the racial projection needs of societies. Eventually, all problems are blamed on the country of origin of the Muslim minorities. These countries are accused of not being fair to the ethnic groups in their own countries. For example, Europeans claim that they are not racist against the Turks in Europe but the Turks themselves are racist against the Kurds. Therefore Europeans are acting as the advocates of Kurds to protect their multicultural rights. Using the projection mechanism in a passive way, the Turkish image is being eroded.

History has shown that sometimes highly distorted image projections are helped by the victims themselves. Let me give two examples:

Catholic Christians start a massive image projection campaign by blaming their own defects on Jews in Spain after the conquest of the lands from Muslim Moors in 1200s. Jews try to resist these pressures for a while but give in after a few hundred years. Some decide to accept Catholicism and convert in an effort to avoid persecution. The number of these Jews called 'Conversos' increase rapidly but all of a sudden something unexpected happens. Christians set up the Inquisition and start burning these people, blaming them of following their own faith while pretending to be Christians. The Spanish then deport all the rest in 1492 without giving them a chance to convert.

Second example relates to the events leading up to the Holocaust. Jewish author Hannah Arendt describes in his book 'Anti Semitism' that Jewish emancipation starts the sequence of these events. Jews gain the citizenship rights after the French Revolution. By 1800s, other European countries recognise the 'emancipation' of Jews. During this period, Jewish intelligentsia called 'Haskala' start to distance themselves from their religion, following the example of their Christian counterparts - thereby trying to unite with them in a secular/agnostic medium. Same unexpected thing happens and Christians start rejecting these people violently. Biological racism develops. Europeans claim that Jews can never become Indo-Europeans due to their racial defects.

In both cases, groups of Jews give up their religion and try to unite with the Christians. On the other hand, Christian ruling classes realise that by allowing this all of their own defects which they blamed on Jews, would reflect on themselves. This mechanism, called 'the Boomerang' effect is perceived by Europeans as a catalyst for their own psychological annihilation. Jewish opposition rises to new heights and ends up in Holocaust.

On a more personal scale, Theodore Lessing describes the lives of four young bright Jews who end up committing suicide in his book 'Self Hate'. These four denounce their religion and decide to become Christians. In this case, the group of Jews go through a mechanism called 'interjection' which happens to be the opposite of 'projection' thereby acknowledging the defects projected onto them by Christians. That way, they end up losing their identity and become one with the evil Jew image projected by the Christians - and end up committing suicide.

Likewise, Turkiye, after her application to EU with the claim of being a European country, is being repelled with increasing force by the member countries. The European prejudices are becoming more and more malignant. Unfortunately, some members of our own intelligentsia, having lost the will to defend our own identity, are advocating the views of the Europeans and asking us to change. But Europeans have declared on March 4^th, 1997 that Turk can not be a European because we have different religion and culture. Again, racism hidden behind a screen of cultural difference is more important than our democratic development. Europe is scared of letting Turkiye in, with the fear of her own evil projections upon us reflecting onto her - resulting in the failure of European unification efforts.

If this image is nurtured to such a malignant stage, then it will not go away even though we attempt to make radical reforms. Because those who project these images onto you, do not expect you to rectify these faults. They expect you to cure them of these tumours so that they won't have to project these faults onto you.

These people(Germans for instance) urge us to recognise multicultural rights to Kurds in our country while they themselves do not recognise the same rights for Turks in their country. Therefore, as they criticise us for our treatment of Kurds, they are criticising themselves for their treatment of Turks. But, we; under these heavy projections or under the influence of our so called intelligentsia, fail to see the underlying simple equations.

Europe finds it difficult to accept a country which has been the target of her projections. On the other hand, she can not desert this country altogether either - otherwise the appetite for a target will not be satisfied. This is why Europe can neither accept nor abandon us. The image of a barbaric, filthy, disorganised, fanatical, ruthless country like Turkiye eventually erodes to such an extent that Europeans decide that violence is commonplace in such a country. This type of society is considered capable of resorting to terrorism as a normal method of settling disputes. As a result of this ideology, European Parliament, in 1996, decrees that violence within EU borders will be considered as terrorism while it will be considered as political struggle in countries like ours.

Then fanatical predictions(similar to those for Jews before WW2) start appearing in newspaper headlines. One German meteorologist predicts Turkiye will be destroyed under severe floods triggered by greenhouse effect. Another doctor claims that Turkiye has the most suitable environment for the spread of AIDS. In countries where malignant image projections are unbearable(Germany, France, Holland and others), the target groups(Turks) eventually run out of energy to resist daily attacks. They end up accepting the underprivileged life in their ghettos.

The image projectors are not aware of their subconscious behaviour. The target groups fail to understand what is happening and try to defend themselves by saying ' we are not bad as you say we are' or 'we are humans too'. But these words fall on deaf ears because the other side is not aware of their attitude either. In the end, we think there must be something wrong with us if these people are insisting on it so feverishly.