Five cities in 24 hours with Süleyman Soylu

Esra Elönü began one of her articles on Süleyman Soylu with the words: "When you aspire not to the office of politics but to its boots, the footprint you leave on the lands where you live becomes your signature."

These are words that describe very well the approach he showed in the successive wildfire disasters on the Mediterranean and then in the floods on the Black Sea. I had also had the opportunity to follow closely the work he did in the field during the Elazığ earthquake earlier, and I had felt that I saw with my own eyes how arduous and how full of ordeals is the path to real successes in politics and to winning a genuine place in hearts.

The understanding that adopts politics not as a way of ruling but as a way of serving is in fact not newly invented. But because for a long time the path of politics in Türkiye was occupied by those who tried to dominate the nation, politics as a genuine form of action had been subjected to distortion. Instead of those who see it as a shirt of fire and try to fulfill its heavy responsibility, those who see a state post or a political office as a lucky bird and seek to become statesmen through it inevitably tear the state and the nation apart from each other. So it was in Türkiye for years. As politics is seen as a means of enjoying comfort rather than enduring hardship, a profile of statesmen very foreign to the nation emerges.

Because Recep Tayyip Erdoğan managed to turn this profile inside out, he also carried out a paradigmatic transformation in the meaning of politics. He saw politics as service rather than domination over the people. The people saw and confirmed that he lived that way, and gave him support, election after election, that they gave to no other politician. Many visible and invisible roads formed between him and the people. When you pass along these roads you get very tired, you endure hardship, but while tired you rest, and while enduring hardship you heal. From afar it looks like a sultanate, but from close up it is uninterrupted servanthood; you have no sleep, no rest, no eating, no drinking, no breath in which to reign for yourself. With your interest, your effort, your concern, your worry, your grief and your working hours, you have become wholly someone else's, that of the nation you govern.

This was the briefest expression of what I witnessed in my total of 24 hours accompanying Süleyman Soylu last week, starting in Ankara, passing through the disaster regions on the Black Sea, then through Şırnak and Siirt, and ending again in Ankara.

In the first stop of the marathon, which began as soon as we arrived in the morning from Ankara via Sinop to Bozkurt, while walking to the Disaster Coordination Board Meeting, he greeted the shopkeepers one by one like a forty-year friend, asked after each one's circumstances, chatted, and listened to their troubles. The close and warm relationship that Soylu, who lived in this small district for a month together with Minister of Environment and Urbanization Murat Kurum and Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Bekir Pakdemirli right after the disaster, built one-on-one with the shopkeepers is truly worth seeing.

We walked to the meeting in rain that intensified at times, getting wet and wearing yellow boots. But before reaching the meeting hundreds of people were addressed, and in the end no one who called out "Mr. Minister" complained of not being heard. I must express that I felt great admiration and respect at seeing all the requests that came in settled immediately with an extremely practical, get-it-done and solution-oriented logic, and of course with unbelievable patience.

This job can be done this well only if it is seen as worship. Frankly, I saw that Soylu sees and lives it this way to his very marrow. Yet approaching without belittling the perception of trouble of the one who says "I have a problem" is a great test and truly requires great patience. Because not every request that comes in is reasonable. One person expresses with an outburst that he never received the payment he had already received. When asked to check, he learns that the money was deposited in his account a week ago. Another says the tiles of his house have fallen off and demands that the state fix them. When asked, it turns out that he actually received money for his losses. When it is explained, "But dear auntie, we did not say we would both give you money and fix those tiles, we gave that money for that repair," the woman leaves, having understood and praying.

At the meeting, as the situation of citizens affected by the flood, the losses, the aid provided, and what was built in place of collapsed buildings are described one by one, Soylu cuts in and asks what happened to this village's school, that other village's fountain, yet another village's road and bridge. He makes one feel that he has not forgotten any promise he seems to have made in passing, and this ensures that things are done with great seriousness and discipline even in his absence. He does not dispose of matters with a single instruction; he keeps following up on the instruction.

Our expedition, begun here, continued afterwards in Ordu-Ünye with the opening of the "Eren Bülbül Special Education Kindergarten," built by a philanthropist. That school opening is an occasion; people find the Minister of the Interior and convey to him all the problems, big and small, of their provinces and districts. Even in the mere 15 minutes set aside for a meal in between, Soylu listens to troubles and resolves problems.

After the Black Sea, off to Şırnak. In our historic city, now a perfect area of tranquility thanks to the resolve in the struggle against terror, Soylu is received with no less interest and affection than in the Black Sea provinces. The occasion is the premiere of the film Akif, on which I also served as concept consultant and which deals solely with the story of how the Independence March was written. During this event the same things happen: troubles, problems and effective solutions.

Check-in at the hotel at 00.30, check-out at 05.00 to set off for Siirt-Tillo. Arrival by helicopter at Tillo to witness the Light Event, the elegant gift İbrahim Hakkı prepared for his teacher İsmail Fakirullah. Setting aside this witnessing, so heavy in its spiritual dimension, again an approach that listens to the problems coming from the people without any reluctance, with patience and interest, and brings an immediate solution to those it deems possible.

5 cities in 24 hours at a dizzying pace with no stopping, like five different worlds, but the unchanging thing is that understanding of servant politics put forth with such vast voluntariness.

It fell to us as well to relate a small part of what we witnessed on this journey.