The theater and backstage

Yasin AktayBy: Yasin Aktay*

Almost all details of the assassination of Russian Ambassador to Turkey, Andrey Karlov, were first published in the social media second by second, and then were presented to everyone’s sight. There is no doubt that this presentation is closely related to the communication and media conditions of the world where we live. But it is even more certain that the planner and perpetrator of the assassination designed and practiced his own plan on how the assassination must be reflected as part of the assassination package.

All details of the assassination really took place before everyone’s eyes; but in the meantime, the backstage of the play, which was staged during the assassination, as well as its intention and target, blatantly comes to the light.Of course, it was not just an assassination. Beyond an action aimed at killing the Russian ambassador himself, there was a show that calculated the meaning and effects of this action and tried to add other things to it in order to achieve these effects. Certainly, this show, which tried to deceive watchers but could not conceal the fact that it tried to do so, deserves to be evaluated in terms of performance of the performing arts alone.

This assassination also created an example of showing how today’s world is much riskier than before for such demonstrations that observe political targets. Because this demonstration, which foregrounded the show and pushed the incident aside, clearly revealed the intention, the goal and the perpetrator of the act. For this reason, it turned out to be a complete fiasco for the perpetrators. Beyond a fiasco, it led to the actualization of the opposite of whatever was targeted with this show.

The aim was to deteriorate Turkey’s relations with Russia, but from the very first minute it showed that Russia had very well seen the intention of this act. We witnessed developments and statements that Turkish-Russian relations would not be affected by this incident, and even, they would be positively affected if necessary.

As opposed to expectations, the meeting between Turkey, Russia and Iran about developments in Syria, which had been scheduled for the next day, was not canceled, but revealed an optimistic outcome for a solution beyond expectations. After that meeting, we can say that we are in a more positive point toward the settlement in Syria today, because in principle it is true that Syria’s neighbors who are directly affected by the country, instead of countless non-regional players, are involved in the future of Syria.

In fact, it would be truer that only the people of Syria decide their own future. It is absolutely desired that no other country, including Turkey, be in a position to decide on the future of Syria. Unfortunately, although Turkey has insisted on this since the beginning, it was not possible to rescue Syria from these external interventions.

At a point where the international politics makes insecurity dominant today, it is still a big and resolving approach to reduce the number of players and limit it to regional players alone. We should not consider the fact that Turkey or Russia are exposed to such an attack together in this process to be completely irrelevant.

I think one scene of this demonstration, every minute of which took place in front of every kind of media, sheds light on today’s international politics: The scene where the assassin is on the foreground and the victim on the background shortly before the assassination. In this scene, there is confidence that someone, who stands in front, has in someone who gives the impression of a bodyguard standing behind him. But that confidence is based on a mask which is fake enough to claim his life in the next few seconds.

It is a simple deception performance that the murderer attempted to fulfill the role of a radical Islamist by making a show to cameras again immediately after pulling the trigger. Fortunately, it soon became clear what the actor was trying to do. But we have not experienced a process that could so clearly reveal whose scenarios terror organizations like Daesh and al-Qaida, which attracted the whole world’s hatred and hostility toward Muslims by playing the role of radical Islamists in Syria, Iraq and many other parts of the world, play.

Only their victims, 99 percent of who are innocent Muslims, know that they do not represent Muslims, but the enemies of Muslims and act on their behalf. Today, the victim of Daesh or al-Qaeda terror is never the U.S. or Western countries, but Muslims alone.

These organizations are paving the way for western countries to occupy the Islamic world. As a result of these occupations, they are paving the way for completely destroying their modest world, where they somehow recovered after the colonization. They are just killing Muslims, and they are allowing the Westerners to come and kill more Muslims in masses under the pretext of fighting them.

Today’s international relations are a complete theater like the assassination of Andrey Karlov. Nothing is as it seems and everything is happening in an atmosphere of show. The things that are done are different, while the impression that is being imposed on us regarding what is done is quite different.

The U.S., Turkey’s ally in NATO, came to Syria to overthrow Assad, but it started fighting another enemy which it found on the way and which was proposed by Assad, and was unable to cope with it, and asked help from the PKK terror organization, which is its ally but Turkey’s enemy, in the Syrian territory. It also knew the PKK as a terror organization; therefore it baptized it by dressing him in a JPG cloak.

Meanwhile, everything does not go as they want. Incidents do not always take place within the limits of a scene where everything can be predicted and controlled, like a theater. There is a horizon, a power, an account, and an absolute proprietor of that power and account, beyond their horizon, strength and calculation.

 

*Yasin Aktay is the vice chair of the ruling Justice and Development (AK Party) in Turkey.

(Published in Yeni Şafak Turkısh newspaper on Saturday, Dec. 24,  2016)