Turkish centre-back Merih Demiral, who scored both goals against Austria that gave his team a place in the quarter-finals of the European Championship, has sparked a storm that has mobilised the authorities of UEFA – they have opened an investigation against him – and of Germany – they have accused him of promoting “far-right” and “racist” ideas – while the Turkish government has summoned the German ambassador to protest what they consider a campaign against their star player motivated by “xenophobic” feelings. The reason for the controversy is the gesture the player made to celebrate Turkey’s victory over Austria: the symbol of the Grey Wolf.
The gesture – a wolf’s head made with the hand – is based on Turkic mythology, according to which the she-wolf Asena protected a young survivor of a battle who, after recovering, would go on to found the first of the great Turkic empires in Central Asia. However, in 1970s Turkey, the sign became the hallmark of far-right paramilitary groups linked to the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) who clashed with left-wing militants in the streets and carried out hundreds of murders. These groups were commonly nicknamed “Grey Wolves” because of the hand gesture they made.
“Symbols of the Turkish far right have no place in our stadiums. Using the European Championship as a platform for racism is completely unacceptable. We hope that UEFA will investigate the case and consider sanctions,” wrote German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser on the social network X formerly known as Twitter. The Turkish government, for its part, recalled that, in one of the reports of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, “it is stressed that not all people who make the Grey Wolf symbol can be considered far right.”
Austria has banned the symbol since 2019, France has debated “banning the Grey Wolves” and Germany’s secret services are keeping a close eye on them because Turkish protesters identifying with the symbol have repeatedly carried out acts of vandalism and racist attacks against, for example, members of the Armenian community.
The problem is that the Grey Wolves do not exist, or at least not as an organisation. They are rather a loose movement, an ultra-nationalist ideology that spreads across various parties and organisations.
The main one is the aforementioned MHP, the current government partner of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. And there are organisations linked to this party, such as the Home of Idealists, which is present throughout Turkey and among the diaspora of Turkish emigrants, which is very numerous in countries such as Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. But the IYI party, a nationalist centre-right party and one of the main opposition parties, or the openly xenophobic Victory Party (ZP), also subscribe to this ideology. The fragmentation of ultra-nationalism in Turkey across the political spectrum, instead of dividing and weakening its forces, has caused the opposite: it has multiplied. In the last elections, in fact, these parties accounted for nearly 25% of the votes.
Erdogan himself has made the gesture at several political rallies, as have leaders of the centre-left opposition, seeking votes from supporters of this ideology, which has ultimately ended up normalising a gesture traditionally linked to the far right and ultra-nationalism.
It is therefore likely that Demiral did not even stop to think about the uproar his gesture could raise. This despite the fact that just one day earlier, in several cities in Turkey, thousands of people had attacked the neighbourhoods of Syrian refugees, stoning their homes and burning their businesses, shouting “We don’t want refugees” and making the Grey Wolf symbol.
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