Islamophobia in the Balkans

It was a sharp shock for Greeks when someone on Twitter noticed the word “Turkofagos” on the rifle of Brenton Tarrant, the man charged with murdering dozens of Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, last month. Literally translated, it means “Eater of Turks.” Historically, it was an honorific bestowed upon fighters who distinguished themselves in the Greek 1821 revolution against the Ottoman Empire.
There is a darker meaning, however, lurking behind the term, a meaning that Greeks have long been keenly aware of—and of which the New Zealand terrorist clearly was, too. It traces to the very birth of the Greek nation, when the revolutionaries didn’t just fight the Ottoman army—they also committed brutal ethnic cleansing against Muslims and Jews. In those times, a “Turk” wasn’t just an Ottoman soldier: It was anyone who wasn’t a Christian. The darkest aspects of the term Turkofagos have more recently been resurrected by far-right and nationalist groups as they apply the term to honor any killer of Muslims.

To read more click here: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/01/the-balkans-are-the-world-capital-of-islamophobia/

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