The Rage-Maker
Maps of Turkey and portraits of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the modern republic’s founder, decorate the walls of Umit Ozdag’s office at the Victory Party’s headquarters in Ankara. One stands out. It includes Syria and Iraq, colored in green and red. Turkish cities with the highest numbers of Syrian refugees are colored in yellow, and pro-Kurdish areas in the east, dominated by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), are in purple.
According to Ozdag, yellow hordes of millions of Syrian refugees will eventually outnumber Turks in the country’s arid south, and the region will soon fall into a civil war exacerbated by the climate crisis. Meanwhile, a purple tide of Kurds from the east will attack Turkey, joining the red and green forces of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rushing to their aid from Syria and Iraq. The 61-year-old politician carries a smaller version of this map to his prime-time TV interviews, warning ordinary Turks of a “silent invasion.”
Ozdag founded his political party in August 2021. The Victory Party is the latest addition to a long tradition of ultra-nationalist movements in Turkey. But unlike its predecessors, it has adopted hostility toward immigration as its primary cause, introducing a new brand of far-right politics.
Following a similar pattern to Italy’s League, the Victory Party advocates for welfare policies for native members of Turkish society while reducing access for outsiders. But the party
