Politics at home, politics in the world

Turkey is a country established on the remnants of an empire after paying a very heavy toll under severe and prolonged war conditions. Perhaps out of necessity, the most important lesson drawn from the experience of these harsh war conditions was an almost obsessive level of meticulousness and cautiousness when it came to preserving what remained in hand.

Indifference and even apathy toward global developments was a policy Turkey adopted in the post-war era, but it actually represented a condition for emerging from World War I or the War of Independence as an independent state. Turkey's establishment was conditioned upon not exercising its social influence, international capital, or power over the countries in the Balkans, Central Asia, and the Middle East, or even over all the world's Muslims and Turks. Turkey would be left alone to the extent of its indifference. The motto "Peace at home, peace in the world" was not a preferred choice, but a principle that drew the boundaries imposed upon Turkey. The official policy formed within this framework gradually turned into an official ideology in which this principle was internalized.

In the process that transformed this principle into an official ideology, Anatolia—surrounded by seas on three sides—became a "prison" surrounded by enemies on all four sides. Its neighbors—all of whom, until yesterday, formed parts of the very same whole—turned into states, and even nations, that were "intrinsically enemies." In truth, this was an ideology that conflicted "in essence" with an official policy seeking peace in the world, because its entire discourse relied on a cold war construction capable of reigniting any kind of conflict with neighbors at any moment. There was only one policy this discourse allowed in practice: introversion. Steering clear of all relations if possible, adopting a foreign policy that approached any neighborly relation with extreme hesitation, in the spirit of "modest living, trouble-free head." Meanwhile, an approach that put existing problems with our neighbors into a deep freezer—deeming living with those problems safer than displaying any will to solve them—came to determine official policy.

Official policy became the name of a photograph of certain problems or situations that was frozen and rendered valid once and for all times. It would be fine if the world stayed as it was captured in that single photograph, but what reality has ever remained bound to a picture? If you perceive official policy as living inside pictures, you soon find yourself left entirely outside the world. When we "pictured" and took too seriously a saying like "The Turk has no friend other than the Turk"—a phrase that should not be uttered even in a fight—we naturally lost our ability to analyze the reasons for the friendships we lost. We failed to see that this very attitude was itself extremely unsuitable for winning the friendship of others. After all, who would want to befriend someone who prides themselves on viewing everyone around them as an "enemy"?

In the name of peace in the world, we thought we could manage by falling out with everyone and turning inward. That was not the case. Naturally, when we turned inward under the influence of these emotional traumas, we did not treat ourselves very well either. One who cannot secure peace with those outside cannot secure peace with those inside. The psychological rule of turning inward applies here as well. Even within the integrity of a country that had become entirely Muslim-Turkish and ought to be trusted in every respect, we never found it difficult to discover traces of enemies on all four sides. One day communists, another day Armenians, yet another day Kurds, reactionaries... Thus, it gradually became increasingly difficult to secure peace at home as well.

However, "formalizing the situation" by freezing problems, relationships, and initiatives was actually the source of all the problems. We froze and "formalized" our issues without even attempting to discuss them with anyone with whom we had a conflict. Naturally, the main source of the problem is that all policies that became formalized turned into a source of power and rent for certain individuals. It is clear that those who feed on the relationships frozen by these pictures will never want any problem to be resolved. We learned from the coup diaries that this was the very policy explicitly articulated by "official" mouths regarding the Cyprus issue: "The best solution is non-solution." Non-solution is, of course, a solution not for the country or the parties involved, but for those who profit from this situation.

Today, within Turkey, we are experiencing a process of politicization in which the once-taken pictures of all problems are being re-examined. The fact that it is somewhat painful stems from the discomfort of those who view non-solution as a source of gain. But Turkey has discovered that it cannot make an inch of progress without reviewing these old and outdated pictures and retaking new ones more frequently. The way to achieve this has been, and will continue to be, through making politics increasingly more effective.

Foreign policy pictures extending from the EU to the Middle East, and from the Caucasus to Armenia today, are being retaken one by one through elegant political performances, and each time Turkey comes closer to peace—both at home and in the world—from which it had drifted quite far away.

President Abdullah Gül's decision to visit Armenia was a courageous decision that extracted Turkey from one of these pictures in which it had been trapped. It is undoubtedly a step with its own risks, but like all risky steps, its yield will be immensely fruitful.