NeOtStraTurkBalk · Neo-Ottomanism? New Strategies of Turkey and the Impact of Foreign Aid to Post-War Cultural Reconstruction in the Balkans

Neo-Ottomanism? New Strategies of Turkey and the Impact of Foreign Aid to Post-War Cultural Reconstruction in the Balkans

The project sought to find out how foreign assistance in the area of civil society and cultural reconstruction following extreme inter-ethnic violence and state breakdown creates changes in the affected societies and how it is perceived locally. My case study was the aid from the Turkish Republic to Bosnia-Herzegovina in the context of the wider post-Yugoslav region. The empirical research addressed Turkish aid to the rebuilding of Ottoman-era monuments and other sites affected by war violence, as well as in the sphere of higher education. The project sought answers to the questions: How do interpretations of the historical legacy of the Ottoman Empire in the post-Yugoslav region correspond, or work in dissonance with the actual policies of aid of the Republic of Turkey as a major donor? , especially for post-war reconstruction projects in Bosnia-Herzegovina? What sort of changes in the political and public culture in the beneficiary countries can we observe as a result of Turkish contributions in the areas of culture, higher education and religious institutions, and what local responses do they yield? This project set the analysis of the impact of Turkish aid in the Balkans in the context of the revival of the concept and debates on Neo-Ottomanism in the region and globally. The influx of foreign assistance in the post-war post-Yugoslav region was pertinent and necessary in the aftermath of war violence, especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina: it also opened space for numerous instrumentalizations and manipulations in the still reigning ethnonationalist discourse. Both Serbian and Croatian nationalist discourses have presented the postwar aid coming from Turkey as Neo-Ottomanism, defined as a revival of Turkish “old, imperial” territorial, religious and cultural aspirations in the region. Hence, this project sought to rescue the case of Turkish post-war assistance in the region from the layers of nationalist hegemonic representations. It has done so by bringing forth, first, an original insight in the hitherto poorly studied segment of the post-war reconstruction in the post-Yugoslav space, namely, the impact of foreign aid and intervention coming from the Turkish Republic. It also sought to unravel the links between the fears of alleged Neo-Ottomanism, portrayed as an expansionist and ‘Islamization’ program of Turkey in the Balkans, and the current Islamophobic and anti-immigrant discourses of the populist political parties in the European Union. The main objective of the project is to map and interpret the aid policies of Turkey in the post-Yugoslav region against the examination of the concept of Neo-Ottomanism, as a relevant means of critically assessing the nationalistic interpretations of ethno-religious divisions in the post-was post-Yugoslav space. It also seeks to provide an impartial assessment of the aims and results of foreign assistance to the regions ravaged by ethnonationalist sectarian violence.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз