Turkish presidency releases video promoting Blue Homeland doctrine
The Turkish presidency has released a controversial video promoting the revanchist doctrine known as Blue Homeland, or Mavi Vatan, which aspires to give Turkey control over the waters of the eastern Aegean and the northern Mediterranean.
The video starts with a scene of two children being informed by military officers that their father was “martyred.” It then seeks to narrate Turkey’s naval history, from 16th century privateer Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha to the modern Turkish Navy.
In a tweet, Director of Communications Fahrettin Altun said that a video and an anthem were prepared on the occasion of the anniversary of the 1538 naval battle of Preveza in which the Ottoman fleet defeated that of a Christian alliance assembled by Pope Paul III.
Altun, who shared the video on social media, also tweeted the following lines of the anthem: “Oh world! Listen to me, I am the son of a martyr, of a homeland with the crescent-star, the blood of my ancestors flows through my veins, we die and take lives for the blue homeland.”
In the same video, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can be heard reciting verses from Arif Nihat Asya’s poem “Bayrak” (Flag).
Ben şehit oğluyum kulak ver ey dünya
Ay-yıldızlı vatanın evladıyım unutma
Ecdadımın kanından akar damarlarımda
Can verir can alırız mavi vatan uğrunaTüm deniz şehit ve gazilerimizin anısına… #PrevezeDenizZaferi pic.twitter.com/bL0MxniQT7
— Fahrettin Altun (@fahrettinaltun) September 27, 2020
