Africa's answer to Erdoğan

We continue our assessments of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's trip covering 4 countries in West and North Africa. These visits were a link in a series of visits made within the framework of the Africa opening that began in 2005. This opening forms one of the most important areas of Turkey's foreign policy vision as well.

These openings form an important leg of the foreign policy of a Turkey that does not accept being a passive and obedient subject of the hegemonic actors who arrange and rule the world as they wish, with partitions that not even a wolf would make, and that carries the claim of a new world. On this trip Erdoğan expressed this openly, and once more voiced his alternative to this order, which the five members run as they like, ignoring all the other members. The statement that the world is bigger than five has become the symbolic expression of all this critical discourse.

Africa is a geography that, if its resources were properly utilized, would amply suffice for itself. It is a geography that, if approached humanely, with equitable trade, would both gain itself and give those who come a great deal. Throughout history, when Muslims came to this geography for trade, they both added strength to the strength of Islamic civilization and made many regions of Africa one of the important basins of civilization. Today, when you look a little into each of the cities of Africa, which, because all its resources have been exploited and it has been left backward, is also supposed to lack a history, it is impossible not to be enchanted by the splendid examples of culture and civilization in its history.

To feel this a little, I recommend that you read what our colleague Taha Kılınç wrote in his Saturday column about the city of Timbuktu in Mali, one of the last stops of the President's visit. I recommend that you read what he related about what kind of center of culture and civilization it was in the pre-colonial periods. Let us give just a cross-section of Mali's history with this quotation, and you work out the rest:

"The most important feature distinguishing Timbuktu from the comparable Islamic cities of the period was the tremendous progress recorded in the book-writing sector. As conveyed in travelogues and period histories, books written in all corners of the Islamic world were brought to Timbuktu by couriers, and these copies, quickly multiplied by thousands of scribes employed here, were again distributed by couriers to important centers of learning...

In the most powerful period of the Songhai Empire (1520-1580), Timbuktu hosted 25 thousand students coming from all corners of the Islamic world. These students, on one hand working in the city's writing workshops, on the other hand received education in a broad range from mathematics to botany, from Islamic law to astronomy. The story is always told as a famous example pointing to the level of the education given: a scholar who came from the Hijaz wanting to become a teacher in the Timbuktu madrasas, after seeing the level of the students, mingled among them to take lessons."

This is the state, before European hands touched it, of the especially Muslim part of Africa, which Europeans today evaluate within the scope of "peoples without history" (see Eric Wolf, Europe and the People Without History).

Now, while a new world is being built, we must remember this history too. Do not worry at all, Africans have not forgotten this history.

So what answer are they giving to the call for a new world that they received with Erdoğan's visits?

Let us set aside the previous visits for now:

In this particular visit, at the first stop, ALGERIA's Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia stated that they wanted to carry relations between Turkey and Algeria much further in every field, and said that, with the stance it showed especially on Jerusalem and Palestine, Turkey had set an important example before the Islamic world. Meanwhile he recalled that "Turkey is 7th in Algeria's imports, and the trade volume between the two countries is approaching 4 billion US dollars." Ouyahia said, "As of 2015, Turkey has become the 4th country receiving the most projects in Algeria with a 3.5 billion US dollar investment. Our shared desire is to carry cooperation between Turkey and Algeria much further in every field. Our President Bouteflika shows the utmost sensitivity on this. As a reflection of this, we and our businesspeople must bring the relations between the two countries to much better points. In line with this vision, we must bring our relations from the normal, customary economic level to a privileged level," and thus responded with the highest positivity to our esteemed President's visit.

At the 2nd stop of the trip, MAURITANIA's President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz stated that he sincerely agreed with our esteemed President's words "a new world is being built, and in this world we want to see Africa as a founding actor," and that he was beside Turkey on this determined journey. Abdel Aziz, saying that he regarded July 15 as a plot by the circles trying to prevent Turkey from this journey, recalled that he was among the first to call our esteemed President that night and declare his support. Seven agreements were concluded between the two countries in Mauritania.

At the trip's 3rd stop, SENEGAL, President Macky Sall too stated that the agreements signed between the two countries would strengthen economic relations. Sall said businesspeople must put these agreements into practice. "Up to now, 28 different agreements have been made between the two countries. For Senegal to be self-sufficient in agriculture we need more cooperation with Turkey. Gold and phosphate mines are widespread in Senegal. Then for 2021 we have targets for oil and natural gas deposits. Turks can invest in my country by cooperating with Senegalese businesspeople in mining, construction, tourism, health and energy."

At MALI, the last stop of the Africa visit, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, in a speech that he began by thanking President Erdoğan, emphasized that although geographies distance them, Mali and Turkey are two brother countries, and continued as follows:

"Our meeting is of a kind that will go down in history. 8 agreements were signed between the two countries. These agreements will deepen and develop the relations between the two countries. President Erdoğan is an important leader. We know that he attaches great importance to the development and increased prosperity of Islamic countries. Indeed, there was a need in the Islamic world for a leader who would make his own voice heard and show leadership. This voice is now being heard. We too are by his side. We too will act in solidarity with Turkey. Erdoğan has won our trust, we are proud of you."