Column: A century ago, we collapsed they rose, now we are rising, they are collapsing

İbrahim KaragülBY: İbrahim Karagül*

It is now time to focus outside the country, not inside. It is time to look at other countries, other geographies, much beyond our borders, as much as we have focused on inside Turkey and the nearby region. This obligation is the result of our going beyond the dream of being a single-member country and pushing the limits of a medium-scale country as well as moving crises and clashes and, as a matter of fact, chaos, beyond our region.

There have been intense efforts, especially in the last decade, to push Turkey into a tight corner. All known methods were tried in this context. It was exposed to the use of force, far beyond moral boundaries, in order to condemn it to a certain axis and to take it over. Because Turkey challenged a new 20th century imposition.

It had declared it would not become a front country, a contractor, be condemned to alliance relations, or enter into unilaterally dependent relations ever again. This was a situation that those who had our country under control since its foundation were not used to. They were expecting it, but they had not predicted such a courageous and determined challenge.

It was immediately after this determination was revealed that the all-out attack was launched. A vast range of scenarios ranging from terrorism to coup, financial interventions to social clash scenarios were tried. Fear was marketed, exhaustion was served, projects on state-community mistrust were tried.

Every opposition circle within Turkey was activated against the state, country, nation and this historic walk. Only very few states could have resisted such heavy pressures. All of the countries around us lost this war. But Turkey was not only a country, only Anatolia or only a republican history. It was at the center of gravity of the world’s political history, it was one of the history-making elements. It could not be taken over so easily.

At such historic turning points it introduced powerful leaders, powerful social solidarity, powerful political actions. The same happened again. This was President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s mission in history and it was fate. This was the political struggle given in the last decade and this was our nation’s fate. Historical turning points were very painful. The same happened again. But these turning points would have determined the next century, two centuries, three centuries rather than a few years.

Turkey was shaping those three centuries. This is how big the fight is. The leaders and supporters of this fight as well as those who lost their lives and paid a price for this fight were just as big. We have now reached the last stage in this fight. We are at the brink of the critical threshold – or we are maybe even about to overcome it. The moment we reached this point, disasters started to emerge in many regions of the world. The U.S. started to quarrel among itself. The European Union is in a process of collapse. Build-ups have started in East Europe for the clash between the U.S. and Russia. Words of “war” are now being used in the Pacific fight between the Atlantic axis and China.

Who knows, what we call historic turning point is probably not limited to Turkey’s own struggle. While Turkey is on a rise and the obstacles standing in front of the rise are being eliminated one by one, the world is being dragged into another conflict.

When we were on a collapse during World War I, they were on a rise.

A century has passed. Now, while we are rising, it seems as though some are collapsing.

Perhaps this also is a fate.

 

*Ibrahim Karagül is a Turkish writer and journalist. He is the editor-in-chief of Turkish Yeni Şafak newspaper.

(Published in Yeni Şafak Turkish newspaper on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017)