Proverbs are expressions of profound social experiences. They contain the power and wisdom of knowledge gained over centuries and millennia. This also applies to the proverb so often used: ‘Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are.’

Recently, the international press also picked up on what has been intensively discussed in Turkey for more than a month: the confessions of the fascist and gang leader Sedat Peker. In nine videos Peker - himself an avowed supporter of the pan-Turkish Turan ideology, who spent several years in prison as a member of Ergenekon - has once again brought the true face of the Turkish state to light. He has pinpointed which deputies, government members and state bureaucrats have raped women, organized drug trafficking in Turkey or supplied weapons to IS and Al-Nusra in Syria in recent years.

What is particularly interesting about Sedat Peker's confessions for the international public is that he also holds up a mirror to the governments of Germany, England and the USA. What words can be used to describe people who maintain close relations with rapists, murderers, drug dealers and Islamists? So when Angela Merkel or Heiko Maaß travel to Turkey or receive Erdogan and Cavusoglu in Berlin, what words can be used to talk about them?

Sedat Peker talks about an 21-year-old young woman from Kazakhstan who was raped and murdered by a Turkish state cadre. He mentions a marina in the southern Turkish tourist hub of Bodrum, through which tons of drugs are brought into Turkey from South America. This list could be continued almost endlessly. Exactly with this Turkey - a state structure consisting of fascist gangs, which hide their true face under official-sounding party names and office titles - for several months now German government representatives and the EU have insisted on a `positive agenda`. In a few days Erdogan will meet Angela Merkel, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson at the NATO summit in Brussels and secure their support for fascism and war in Turkey. Most especially, he will insist on getting even more military and economic support for the Turkish occupation of South Kurdistan. For despite chemical weapons, thousands of airstrikes and the use of Islamist mercenaries, the Turkish attacks there, which have been ongoing for six weeks, are making slow or no progress.

So if Angela Merkel's friends are gangsters, rapists, murderers and drug dealers, what is the German Chancellor? To put it a little more generally: If the nature of the Turkish state is such, what about the state culture of its close partner Germany? A brief insight into Abdullah Öcalan's assessment of the historical relations between Germany and Turkey may help: "A similar practice to that of the so-called 'White Turks' can be observed at the same time in nations (state nations, nations developed by states, and states that emerged on the basis of nationalism) that were late to become part of Capitalist Modernity - especially Germany, Italy, and Japan. The bureaucratic cadres of the ‘İttihat and Terakki’ movement also wanted to form a state out of Turkish nationalism. In doing so, they understood their German partners from World War 1 and their German nationalism and militarism as their foundation. They were not only very similar or congruent with Nazi nationalism, but were practically among its founding members. When Hitler started the Jewish genocide, he directly admitted that he was drawing on the experience of the Armenian genocide committed by the ‘İttihat and Terakki’ government. " If one follows Abdullah Öcalan's assessment, one can thus diagnose an essential similarity between Turkish and German state culture. The willingness of Angela Merkel or Heiko Maaß to regard members of the Turkish gang system as their partners and friends is thus the current expression of a long historical tradition. Of course, this criticism could also be formulated for the many other states and governments that maintain close relations with Turkey.

If we recall once again the proverb mentioned at the beginning, we can come to the following conclusion: If you do not want to be condemned and ostracized by society, you should choose your friends wisely. After all, what society can accept being ruled by people who call fascists, murderers, rapists and drug dealers their friends?

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