The process of “clash of civilisations”, which has always emphasized its importance for our country, has become more evident with the war between Hamas and Israel. The Dutch elections, opinion polls in Western countries and events in Ireland were other signs of the culture war last week. All these developments are full of short- and long-term lessons for our country. Let us first look at the issue from the perspective of the current crisis in the Middle East.
BRICS, Arabs and Israel
In the war between Hamas and Israel, Western countries presented the appearance of a common front around Israel without any losses. Although the Arabs and the Islamic world formed a group and turned to the BRICS group to request support, they were unable to obtain any support from that front other than public statements of good faith. In the published joint statement, there was not even a call for a ceasefire, only a humanitarian pause was mentioned, and this did not even attract the attention of international public opinion.
The absence of strong solidarity between Arab and Islamic countries regarding Gaza is another matter. But the point that draws attention here is that in today’s world, the old ideological polarization has completely disappeared, and different civilizational circles have come to the fore instead. Thus, the Palestinian issue, which was embraced by the Communist Bloc and the world throughout the Cold War, has now inevitably changed its content.
Although some people cannot follow the change closely enough, it is clear that there is no longer polarization between East and West in the world. Thirty-three years ago, the socialist camp was an ideological alliance proposing a new world order. The “wars of national liberation” will reach their final solution within this framework with the transition to the socialist world order. Similar struggles, including the Palestinian issue, were meaningful steps for the left in this process. For this reason, Palestine was a topic “respected by half the world” and had a universal content that transcended religions and cultures.
Today, the situation is not at the center of “imperialism and wars of national liberation” at all. The reason for this is not only that Russia and China, from which Arabs expect support today, have now abandoned the goal of socialist world revolution. The Palestinian struggle, at least from the perspective of the Gaza Strip and Hamas, gives the world the image of a “global jihad” that would take the first step by destroying Israel rather than a war of national liberation. Hamas’ charter, programme, legal system, organizational structure and existing relations in Gaza reveal that its struggle has a religious content, and they themselves confirm this. This has reduced the number of his supporters, at least in non-Muslim majority countries.
Who supports Hamas?
Although political Islamists believe their own propaganda that there is strong sympathy for Hamas in the world, the reality is not what they think. They overestimate groups such as left-wing, right-wing, and LGBT groups that attend anti-Israel rallies in Western countries. Their motive is to oppose the regime in their country, not to support Palestine. Basically, they have nothing in common with Hamas.
The Hamas “cause” suits the interests of some anti-Americans who act on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but this is temporary and not strong advocacy. Those who support him loyally can only be those who more or less share the same views and principles as him. For this reason, those who truly stand uncompromisingly with Hamas are led by Tehran, and there is one or two countries around it.
When it comes to the essence of the issue, the point to be emphasized is that ideological polarization in the world is gradually replacing cultural cleansing. For example, the BRICS group, which was seen as an alternative to the West, did not take an anti-Israel position in the last war, because the members of this alliance did not have any cultural connection to Palestine, with the exception of Iran.
Chinese leader Xi, who met Biden just a week ago, is someone from a completely separate and different world and has extensive economic ties with the United States. The cultural environment in the Far East is very different from the Middle East as well as from the West.
For Russians, who are Christians and Europeans, even if they are Orthodox, political Islam is a matter of survival, and in essence the creation and expansion of the Russian state is a product of opposition to Arab-Islamic culture. In addition, relations with Judaism and Israel are very important for Russia, and Moscow has a very particular view on the status of Jerusalem.
As for India, the other cornerstone of the BRICS group, this country, the giant of Asia, was already at odds with Israel because of its internal religious wars and its problems with Pakistan. It is impossible for those who have not cared about what has been happening in the world for 40 years to understand this new situation and who have stopped their minds not to give up their old dreams and ideals after the Cold War.
Who shows the cards again?
In the world, the cards are shuffled again. The positions, proximity and spread of countries in the world are changing. Of course, while this process is shaped according to the natural flow of events within a historical perspective, some conscious dynamics also play a role here. Frankly, the truth is that global forces that push countries toward certain positions according to their views and interests are the ones that are effective in shuffling the cards.
Samuel Huntington in his book “The Clash of Civilizations”“World politics, which had become unstable with modernization, was reshaped on the cultural axis.” writer. According to this theory, people and countries with similar cultures grow closer to each other. Old alliances defined by ideologies and relations with great powers are giving way to new alliances defined by culture and civilization. Political borders increasingly coincide with cultural borders, that is, ethnic and religious borders inherited from ancient civilizations. Cultural communities are replacing Cold War blocs, and points of conflict on a global level are increasingly appearing on the borders between civilizations.
huntington, “During the Cold War, any country could be non-aligned, and this was very common” He says “Likewise, it was possible to move from one camp to another, as was sometimes the caseThe country’s rulers may have preferences based on strategic interests, balance-of-power calculations, and ideological choices.
“In the world we live in todayHuntington saysCultural identities in particular identify commonalities and contrasts between countries. During the Cold War, any country could be non-aligned, but today none can be devoid of identity. ‘Which camp are you in?’ The question has been replaced with a more substantive inquiry: ‘who are you?’ All countries must answer this question. This question, on the basis of cultural identity, is what will determine the position of countries in the world, and their friends and enemies.(French Edition, 2021, pp. 177-178)
The first thing that should come to your mind when reading these lines is not whether the theory of the “clash of civilizations” is “true” or not, but rather whether it is accepted and applied by the power centers in the world. Because many of the developments we have witnessed in recent years have not only largely confirmed Huntington’s words, but have also enabled us to witness the efforts of world powers to accelerate this process. One example given by Huntington in the new edition of his work should interest us closely: “The European powers have clearly declared that they do not want to see an Islamic country like Turkey at the heart of the European Union.“(p. 178)
Do we want to be excluded?
A strong trend that we have witnessed in recent years in our relations with the West is the increasing exclusion of Turkey. This is a sign that Huntington’s theory is being implemented step by step. Political Islam is no longer an ally used by the West against the communist bloc, as was the case in the Cold War, but rather it has become a force that must be marginalized and used as a “useful enemy.” While this is the case and the objective positions are clear, the reaction of some circles in Turkey, for some reason, has been to encourage attempts to exclude and isolate the West. There was a sharing of roles in the form of collusion, so while one party wanted to exclude, the other gave exactly the reactions they wanted. A country with a very old state mentality should not easily fall into these traps.
I believe that Turkey’s status in the Arab-Islamic world is not, in fact, due to the deeply rooted secular culture of its people, even though the majority of them are Muslim, in addition to its close social and neighborhood relations with the West. In any case, there is no environment in the Islamic world that is ready to give Turkey a privileged “position.” In other words, we do not have a situation where we can say “let us be among ourselves, let us be leaders” as some believe, and there are countries in our region such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt that claim to be the leaders of this world. Further in the distance are Pakistan, a nuclear power, and Indonesia, which has a large population.
Since some global circles see difficulties in distancing Turkey from the West and sending it to the Islamic world due to the social composition of the country’s population, they may want to populate the country with Afghan, Syrian and Pakistani populations in order to overcome this obstacle. . They may use the conflict between Hamas and Israel as an excuse to increase hostility toward the West among the public through intense propaganda. The state’s primary duty on issues such as disinformation should be to prevent it. Otherwise, Turkey, isolated from the West and left at the mercy of countries such as Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and organizations such as the political Muslim Brotherhood, has no future.
Foreign policy cannot be determined by emotional attitudes or decisions made as a result of partisan propaganda. Not separating from the West does not mean extreme or strict support. It is possible to maintain existing alliances through a respectful, consistent and balanced foreign policy that can combine our country’s history with the principles of the Republic, but also with a largely independent foreign policy.
Easy bitch strategy
There are multiple groups from different cultural worlds who intend to make our country easy to swallow. The sole purpose of these circles is to isolate our country and leave it alone before launching its final attack. This issue should be carefully studied with the increasing dose of inflammatory speeches and campaigns regarding Palestine.
odatv.com
(Tags for translation) Turkey