Do you have any project other than the language of hate?

The issue of irregular migrants is one of the greatest wounds not only of Turkey but of all humanity. In particular, it has become a wound that grows and deepens in parallel with today's increasing globalization, level of prosperity, speed of communication and transport, and comfort. Compared with 30 years ago, the number of people in the world who have been displaced and forced to live outside the place where they lived has doubled. Reports published by the UN Refugee Agency and the UN Migration Agency show that, of this migrant population, which reaches 282 million, 82.4 million consist of people forcibly displaced because of torture, conflict, violence, human rights violations and the threat of serious persecution. While most of these people are those displaced within their own countries by conflict and natural disasters, more than 34 million people today continue their lives in various countries as asylum seekers or refugees.

That the number of refugees increases as the level of prosperity in the world rises perhaps also shows, to some extent, a crime that the entire globe has taken on in the pursuit of reaching this level of prosperity. In fact, it is not only the number of migrants: many other pathologies, such as massacres, murders, suicides, drugs, the breakup of the family and homelessness, are also a consequence of the comfort we have attained within the civilization we live in. That instead of giving thanks we begin to feel irresponsible toward others is the greatest paradox of civilization.

It has in fact always been so throughout history. This indifference, irresponsibility, mercilessness and selfishness is also the harbinger of even greater catastrophes to come.

The approach of societies to such human issues in fact reveals both their quality and their greatness. No one desires the migrant, let alone the irregular migrant. In any case the migrant does not come by invitation, nor does he come willingly; there is someone pushing him, chasing him. He comes to your door in desperation for his life, and at that moment puts your humanity too to the test, at a moment you did not expect and from a place you did not expect.

The migrant issue is such a wound of humanity. While its cause is indifference and irresponsibility to begin with, the noise of those who incite an even greater irresponsibility, a more merciless attitude, a more inhuman mercilessness in order to respond to the problem that has arisen grates on the ear. As its political profitability is discovered, the issue is pressed even further. It is one of the easiest subjects for inciting people and turning their heads. This wound, which bleeds the more it is scratched, is in fact the wound of our own humanity.

Look at the state of those who, like great heroes, speak in the name of the country's interest, let alone national security, when the migrant issue comes up. Do they have any project of substance for the development of this country and the further advancement of this society?

What project, other than sending migrants back, can they offer? What can they offer to humanity, to this country and to this people other than singling out a group of people as a target and inciting feelings of grudge and hatred against them?

Yet there is no need for any political acquis to take up this language of hatred. The shallowest level of intelligence, a hooligan partisanship of the most fanatical kind, a superficiality as if watching what goes on in the world from Mars, is more than enough.

Those who have almost no agenda other than sending migrants away may perhaps think that it is only the government that they are making bleed by scratching a wound. But what they are making bleed is this society's very conscience, history, identity and character, their own very intelligence and level of politics. If they really racked their brains for this country's development, they could develop far better projects, contribute to this country's development, to a project in which migrants perhaps could return to their countries and those who remain could achieve a successful, peaceful and harmonious integration with this country, and be useful to humanity too. But when they act with the lust of coveting the easiest, but at the same time most harmful, thing for the opposition, while sinking themselves they are trying to sink this country and this nation with all its values too.

We watch with astonishment that those who until now have missed no chance to display hostility to Islam have begun to spew the resentment within them on the subject of migration too. Yet, like all problems, the migrant problem is not a matter of race, religion or nation but a matter of humanity, and what falls to the politician is its successful management.

Turkey has done its part on migration. It has done what it had to do. Of course it has also done what others too had to do but did not. Turkey's difference is that it has not run away from a responsibility from which everyone has fled, and this has been an expression of its greatness and loftiness. The migrant is a problem, but the politician's job is not to deny problems or to solve them in ways that lead to shame for humanity, but to manage them humanely. Turkey is doing this. It has not forcibly sent the people who sought refuge in the country anywhere until the conditions forcing them to seek refuge improve, but neither has it kept those who wanted to leave. Indeed, at least 40 percent of those who came have already returned to other countries or to their own.

For those who wish to go to the safe areas currently being established in Syria, livable and sustainable conditions, even cities, are being created, and work is continuing so that at least 500 thousand more people, integrated with Turkey in this way, can go and settle in these cities in the near future. In doing so it is very important to take an approach befitting Turkey's glory, spirit, history and character.

Those who offer Turkey no solution other than "sending the migrants away," above all in the name of nationalism or ultra-nationalism, and above all those who incite this in a way that gives rise to a full-blown language of hatred, have no connection whatsoever with this nation's history, values or glory and honor. When you dig beneath them, it turns out that they are a typical group that has always worked, with every kind of intrigue and enmity, to keep this nation from the path of becoming a nation.

Anyone who stops to collect his wits and think will see that there is no greater insult to Turkishness than this approach.