The Yemeni Renaissance under Ottoman rule

Yemen is a country where one of the most important links of the Arab Revolutions, whose tenth year we have left behind, took place. With the overthrow of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had ruled the country alone for more than 30 years, the national consensus and consultation process that began was approaching a certain point when it was subjected to a very different counter-revolution or coup process. The Houthis, who until then had been living in a certain harmony with the country's general course, carried out a coup against the national consensus process, which was proceeding partly with Iranian support and partly through the different games of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and against the legitimate administration.

This coup, which took place 7 years ago, was in fact to constitute the first step or pretext of the big blow. The "Operation Decisive Storm," led by the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the name of opposing this coup and Iranian intervention in Yemen, and initially welcomed by all the Yemeni people, is the real cause of the situation Yemen is in today.

The present situation in Yemen has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and to hundreds of thousands leaving their homes. Some of those who emigrated have settled in Türkiye and formed a significant Yemeni Community. While maintaining their ties with their own country in the most intense way, this community has also made very important investments in Türkiye. In terms of population character, Yemenis are known among the Arabs for being the most hardworking, investing and mercantile. With these qualities they are pioneers of important investments in Türkiye.

The Association for Solidarity of Yemenis in Türkiye hosted a very important event in Istanbul last weekend. It launched the book form of the historical research that Ali Bin Carullah bin el-Ziyb, one of Yemen's important historians, has carried out for over 35 years. The book, which speaks of Yemen having lived its golden age in the Ottoman period, is in a sense a thank-you to Türkiye, which opens its arms to them under today's conditions as it did in the past.

It is a work that exemplifies very well that history is truly the remembering and rewriting of the past in the light of what is lived today. The book, which demonstrates with numerous documents and examples that under Ottoman rule Yemen produced the most beautiful, most effective political, architectural, institutional and cultural works of civilization in its history, has in fact become one of the most meaningful and most scientific works given against the thesis that the Ottomans exploited the Arab world.

THE OTTOMANS KNEW YEMEN AS A HOMELAND. A HOMELAND IS NOT EXPLOITED, IT IS DEVELOPED

That this answer is given by the Arabs themselves, by Yemenis, is of course very meaningful. Let me repeat here what I said in my speech at the book's launch meeting:

"The Ottomans looked at Yemen, or wherever they went, with the eye of a homeland, and did not distinguish any piece of land they made a homeland from Istanbul. Can a country be colonialist toward its own homeland? The attitudes and behaviors of colonialist traditions are plain. Since they never look at the places they colonize with the eye of a homeland, they look at its people and its land only as an object to be exploited to the marrow. The Ottomans brought so many services to the most remote lands of the homeland that even the criticism was made that the state neglected Anatolia in favor of these homeland lands"

Upon these words of mine, the words of a Yemeni who stepped up in front of the Turkish Flag there and took the floor in fact showed in the most striking way from where and how we should look at history and the present. Holding the Crescent-and-Star flag in his hand, the Yemeni gentleman said the following to those in the hall:

"Do you think this crescent-and-star flag is only the flag of the people living in Türkiye? Do you think there is little of our blood in the blood that dyed this flag red? In this flag there is the blood of all of us. In Yemen, in Çanakkale, here and there. The Ottomans did not exploit Yemen, they developed it, and we too regarded its existence as our own existence, we became partners with our blood"

History repeats itself, and Türkiye looks at Yemen today no differently from how it looked at it yesterday, and others today do the same things as they look at and behave toward it.

A real hero in the age of high technology: Özdemir Bayraktar

In the age of high technology there is actually no heroism.

Heroism is determined by the fighting capacity of human power and the performance with which it displays this capacity through courage and determination.

T

echnology, the concept or reality itself, is something that works against heroism.

Since wars are fought with technological means, the outcome of wars is determined not by heroes but by technology.

Even so, no one has any doubt that what Özdemir Bayraktar did to produce this technology and dedicate it to Türkiye was itself a great heroism.

Everyone who knew him and witnessed any segment of his life admits and appreciates that, in his way of life and his way of devoting himself to his profession, his work and his country, he fits the definition of a hero without exaggeration.

He made technology production, which could never be imagined for Türkiye, possible and attainable for Türkiye.

What he put forth on this path is something far beyond that of an ordinary professional, even of a talented businessman who does his job very well.

It is quite clear that the most important motivation determining a superhuman effort was his faith. Where there is faith, nothing is impossible.

Not only himself, but also all his children he made believe in the path he believed in and set on that path

Özdemir Bayraktar

did not hold back from his work until his last breath and attained the mercy of the Truth.

But he left both his own children and the model he put forth with his own way of working, his faith and his labor as a role model followed by young people with admiration and emulation.

By this means, a

sadaka-i cariye

that is not granted to every mortal, we can see that he will continue his goodness and his effectiveness. On this occasion let us also express a testimony of ours after him.

In recent times in Türkiye there has been no role model for the new generations stronger, more positive and more impressive than what he represented, especially through his children.

Against the model of youth that attempts to be motivated with the labels "Generation Z," aimless, purposeless, characterless, hedonistic,

his model can quite well be possible and quite well be guiding.

While expressing, after his passing, my gratitude for what they brought to Türkiye with these qualities, I pray to Allah for mercy and offer condolences to his family and to all of Türkiye.