Political margins of sending the Turkish pilot into space

According to the international group Tasnim news agency, “the first Turkish flight to Space”, is a headline that many newspapers in Ankara and Turkish TV channels and news bases repeated. Because one of the occupants of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, which was recently launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida with the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, is a Turkish Air Force pilot named Alper Gezer Oji, who is now officially known as the “first astronaut”. Turkey” .

Most of the media under the orders of the Justice and Development Party of Turkey use exaggerated expressions about Turkey as a “space country” and announced that with the movement of this spacecraft , a turning point in history has been established and Turkey’s space travel has begun.

But critics have a different view of this story and say, sending a pilot into space as part of a business-tourism trip And by spending a huge amount of 55 million dollars, it is not similar to the claim of scientific success of Erdogan’s government. /Image/1402/10/29/1402102916003996929222704.jpg”/>

It is said that the Turkish astronaut was selected from among 36 thousand volunteers and besides studying in America, he spent a long time in the Air Force Turkey has served.

Of course, as much as Erdogan’s critics complain about the normality of sending an astronaut into space by spending a large budget on space tourism, there are also writers who consider it to be the first human landing. They consider the moon to be important.

Folia Suibash, one of the writers of Hurriyet newspaper and a supporter of Erdogan, wrote: “This is a historic and fateful step. Such a thing should not be joked with. We should not ignore the space adventure of our country. This is a start. It is very wrong to consider travel as tourism. On the contrary, it is a matter of dignity. In addition, our astronaut will perform 13 different experiments there, this is also a scientific mission. These are not simple projects or things for joking and mocking, but serious projects and let’s not forget that new doors have been opened for our youth”.

This Turkish analyst also said Hasan Hossein Esnoglu, a lecturer at Istanbul University’s Department of Astronomy and Space Sciences, wrote: “There is a Turkish flag in that spacecraft and it is supposed to be waved in space.” This is a very serious matter”.

Erdogan or Atatürk? The problem is this

“President” is a well-known title in Turkish political and media literature and everyone knows that the supporters of the Justice and Development Party, Erdoğan is known by the word “chief”. It seems that a part of the Turkish ruling party’s media think tank is trying to make Erdogan’s name overshadow Atatürk’s name.

As a result, based on an unwritten agreement, Each of the Turkish officials and ministers, when they talk about any issue, definitely use this phrase: “during the presidency of our historical president Erdogan”.

Even Professor Ibrahim Cullen, the current head of Turkey’s intelligence service and the former spokesman of the president, who is a scholar of the philosophy of science and is known as a scientist, always finds himself obliged to speak in such a way as to show that Turkey’s victory and progress are due to Erdogan’s leadership.

But in the first voice message transmitted by the Turkish astronaut from space, this tradition was abandoned and he said: “At this moment, the first Turk for the first manned space mission of Turkey Having gone to space, I want to start this moment with the words of our great Atatürk. The genius leader and founder of our Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, said: “The future is in the sky”. Turkish youth and the Turkish nation are in space. /1402102915544296829222654.png”/>

In a video message, he announced: “Turkey has witnessed a historical moment and has experienced one of the eras that is at the height of pride”. We started the second century of our republic, the century of Turkey, with a space mission. As the heirs of a civilization that has made unique contributions to the history of science, we are ready to re-implement our valuable mission in history. For the first time, we are sending a citizen to space to inspire our youth”.

What do the critics say?

Deniz Borsaliglu, one of the Turkish analysts and researchers, wrote about this issue: Promotional and epic show. So far, more than seven hundred people in the world have gone to space by paying a lot of money, and in fact, they have made an expensive commercial-tourism trip. Now we have also paid such money. Naturally, I am in favor of Turkey doing serious work on the scientific issues of space and sending astronauts. In a situation where the United Arab Emirates has taken such steps, Turkey should have done something a long time ago. Paying 55 million dollars to send a pilot into space is an action that we should evaluate more in the framework of the government’s political propaganda. You know that Erdogan always announces in his speeches, before the emergence of our party, Turkey did not have such facilities and it was us who did such a service. People have made jokes about these words and say, for example: Turkey didn’t have tractors before us, we brought them, Turkey didn’t have refrigerators before us, and our party brought the first refrigerator to the country! Now, based on the same logic, the government can say, look, we are sending a Turkish citizen to space for the first time! That too in a situation where there is little time left for the elections!”

The first Turk went into space 32 years ago

One ​​of the important issues about sending an astronaut from Turkey is the issue that the Justice and Development Party led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan intends to to fuel nationalist thoughts and announce that during Erdogan’s rule, Turks reached space. Chosen is a young man under the Turkish Defense Industry Organization who is originally from the Republic of Azerbaijan. Ankara has shown that it wants to partner with Baku in the areas of racial and ethnic propaganda. But the problem is that, really, the person sent from Turkey to space is not the first Turkish astronaut, and other Turks have already gone to space. Is: “If our issue is really sending a Turkish astronaut into space, it is good to know that for the first time, on October 2, 1991, a Turkish astronaut was sent into space. His name is Tokhter Obakrov. He stayed in space for 8 days and a stamp was printed in his honor. When he went into space, he was a citizen of the Soviet Union, and when he returned to earth, he was a citizen of Kazakhstan, and his country had gained independence! While he was in space, Kazakhstan declared its independence. In addition, no one had to pay a lot of money to send him, and he did not go to space as a tourist. He worked hard, passed the tests and became an astronaut, and then went into space to do scientific research. No one knows whether there are other Turks who have gone to space or not, maybe among the Turks who lived in the Soviet geography, other Turks have also gone to space”.

at the end It should be said, many evidences in the past years have shown that in Turkey’s political and social environment, every issue has the ability to change from its original format and become a political issue. It seems that the sending of Turkish astronauts to space is not an exception to this rule.

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