Turkey: Wolf salute controversy continues after Euro 2024

Politics on the playing field? Some Turkish fans and footballers, as well as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, hoped to score political points during the Euro 2024 football tournament. This hasn't gone down well with everyone in Germany's Turkish community.

Turkish national player Merih Demiral sparked a heated debate when he gave a "wolf salute" after scoring a goal in the match against Austria on July 2.

Immediately afterward, the chair of the Turkish Community in Germany, Gokay Sofuoglu, told the German news network RND that "political symbols have no place on the football field."

'A thoughtless gesture'

Macit Karaahmetoglu, the deputy chairman of the German-Turkish Parliamentary Friendship Group, told DW that anyone who tries to provoke by giving the wolf salute is damaging German-Turkish friendship.

"It's no surprise that politicians are seeking to instrumentalize what was presumably a thoughtless gesture by a generally liberal-minded football player," he said, adding that Erdogan uses incidents like this to portray Germany as xenophobic.

Karaahmetoglu was also critical of certain elements in German political and public life: "They make use of opportunities like this to stir up resentment against German Turks in general and call their integration into question."

Right-wing extremist and nationalistic

Kemal Bozay, who researches extremism at the Center for Radicalization Research and Prevention at the International University of Applied Sciences in Bad Honnef, said he regarded the wolf salute as a demonstration of political power.

"First of all, it's the symbol of the right-wing extremist Ulkucu [Grey Wolves] movement. Secondly, it's the symbol of the Nationalist Movement Party [MHP]," Bozay said.

He said the greeting was often deployed at mass rallies or while chanting slogans to spread nationalistic and far-right extremist messages and that it also plays an important role in the mobilization of support.

Bozay acknowledged that wolf mythology is widespread in Turkish society but added that the far right has co-opted the theme for decades.

Discrimination against minorities

Turkey is an ethnically, culturally, and religiously diverse country. Consequently, people with Turkish roots who live in Germany and other European countries might be Kurds, Alevis, Armenians, Yazidis, Aramaeans, Arabs, Pontic Greeks, or Italians.

Official Turkish history often portrays these minorities as enemies or traitors. Consequently, the diversity of the Turkish community also carries great potential for conflict, as the wolf salute controversy has shown.

"I'm proud to be a Turk. When you're a Turk, you're at war not just with a country but with the whole world." This comment was made by the German-Turkish national player Cenk Tosun, who played for Turkey in the European Championships.

Ali Ertan Toprak, the leading representative of the Kurdish Community in Germany, responded with outrage. Football is not a war, he said; rather, it promotes understanding between nations. "The national player Tosun seems to think he's a soldier, not a football player," Toprak told DW.

Gray Wolves and Turkish identity

Ankara, however, rejected criticism of the wolf salute, defending it as a symbol of Turkishness. This comes as no surprise, as Erdogan has ruled with the Gray Wolves' support since 2016.

According to Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Gray Wolves have their origins in Turkey's far-right nationalist MHP. Another of Erdogan's partners is the ultra-right-wing Islamist BBP, which is believed to have been behind a number of political murders in Turkey.

The conflict researcher Sezer Idil Gögus, from the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, described the topic of Turkish identity as an integral part of "Erdogan's diaspora politics." This, she said, aims to establish close connections between Turks abroad and politics in Turkey — because overseas voters are very important for Erdogan and his party, the AKP.

Conflicts in the diaspora

Erdogan's attendance at Turkey's game against the Netherlands in Berlin's Olympiastadion on July 6, therefore, had great significance for Turkish domestic politics. Turkey lost the match 2:1.

According to the Office for Turks Abroad, there are 5.5 million people of Turkish origin living in western Europe.

"Conflicts and crises in the land of origin also affect the community in the diaspora," Sezer Idil Gögüs said. "People take these with them when they go to live abroad. The conflict between some Turkish and Kurdish groups in Germany is an example of this."

Gögüs stressed that these conflicts must not be seen as minority issues.

"It's not enough just to dismiss the wolf salute as a symbol of Turkey, and ignore all other aspects," she said, adding that people must understand and acknowledge what this gesture means for other groups from Turkey.

Referring to Kurds, Alevis, Armenians, and others, she warned: "When a group has been the victim of human rights abuses, and the other side ignores this, or trivializes it, it leads to further confrontation."

Extremism researcher Bozay agreed. He said he holds German politicians partly responsible for the escalation of the debate. In his view, far-right Turkish extremism has been neglected in Germany for too long, dismissed as "foreign extremism."