The state of the world as Queen Elizabeth II dies

When Queen Elizabeth II, for 70 years the Queen of Great Britain, on whose empire the sun never set, was sent off from this world at the age of 96, the state of the world is roughly as follows:

Harbingers of what might be called a Third World War are going about over the world. Things are heating up, and the leaders of countries, in intense diplomatic traffic, are trying to determine and strengthen their countries' positions or to draw them into a safe harbor. And it is not only the conflict between Russia and the US over Ukraine, which affects the whole world.

This conflict, of course, again forces the whole world to take a position, but beyond that, regional disputes that had been smoldering are also flaring up and turning into hot conflicts. Like the dispute between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Like the dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia, over which considerable time and a relative agreement have passed, and the chronic disputes between Türkiye and Greece. It may be thought that these disputes have also emerged as a search for an opportunity, within a new axis of alliance, inside more global disputes.

The fact that US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, amid all this trouble, rushed off to Armenia and displayed solidarity with the Armenian side regarding the latest clashes shows, whatever anyone says, only that the US has entirely lost the weight, seriousness and position of being a global actor. After all, at worst there is a dispute there, and in fact the Minsk Group, of which the US is also one of the co-chairs, accepted from the beginning that Armenia was an occupier in Karabakh and accepted in principle that this occupation had to end. In the end, they cannot hide the discomfort they feel that this occupation was ended not by their initiative but by Azerbaijan with Türkiye's support; they are in a flurry. The heads have shown from under the hats that Türkiye knocked off.

AT HOME IN GOVERNMENT, IN THE WORLD AN OPPOSITION LEADER: ERDOĞAN

Meanwhile, during the UN's annual meeting, each of the leaders of countries who attended tried to tell the whole world his own position, concern and vision from the podium. President Erdoğan's speech, in complete unity and consistency with previous years, showed that he is the only leader who has a line of his own in world politics.

His speech is a perfect expression of this line and stance. He spoke as the leader of a country that does not stop at criticism regarding world peace but also shows its own reasonable and workable solutions, and that does not stop at words but has done, and is doing, what it proposes. With the self-confidence that being in the right gives, he spoke from a high place, as a representative of a strong government in his own country but of the opposition in world politics.

Behind this speech was the right and the strength of being the most reasonable, most pro-peace and most peace-contributing party in the global conflict that continues.

There was the key role in the grain corridor, which eased the food crisis that affects the whole world because of the war.

There was the moral position of having proven oneself to have taken the most humane attitude in the world on the refugee crisis, which is a problem and a responsibility of the whole world.

While voicing his recommendations on all these matters from on high, he did not refrain from throwing in the faces of the world's richest and most powerful countries, the US first among them, their approaches that stoop to cooperating with terrorists against Türkiye.

THE ECONOMY AND POLITICS THAT COME OUT OF THE MOURNING INDUSTRY

On the day the UN meeting began, the funeral ceremony of the 70-year queen of England, the country on which the sun once never set, was being held.

We watched together how the funeral ceremonies, spread over nearly 15 days, had turned into an industry. According to one report, nearly 15 billion pounds of money circulated because of this funeral.

One should not expect a country like England to venture this much money without calculating, or indeed receiving, far more. Leaving aside the economic dimension of the Queen's Funeral industry, we saw how it also turned into a display of political power. The protocols to which all the world's leaders were subjected on account of a funeral show how far a state of pain and mourning can be exploited.

In fact, even from this funeral alone it is possible to form an idea of how efficiently (!) the British colonial logic may have worked in the field from their own standpoint. The British colonial logic, which can extract oil from a fly, tried to produce allegiance to itself from all the countries of the world out of its 96-year-old Queen's funeral, and to some extent succeeded.

The protocol to which the world leaders were subjected, being crammed onto a bus, cannot of course be put down to the requirements of funeral conditions. There even French President Macron, standing like a bus conductor, stripped of the dignity of any leadership or representative office, was openly snubbed.

Funeral conditions have a psychological atmosphere and situation, and this brings some extraordinary things with it. But from a politics of mourning kept up for nearly 15 days with protocols and ceremonies like this, an unparalleled economy and power emerges.

Normally, too, those attending a funeral are expected to accept certain protocols that have a cultural basis in relation to the funeral. Those who attend also know this and attend. Not attending a funeral is, in most cases, taken as an attitude or as indifference, negligence, that is, as shameful. This also varies with the relationship to the funeral itself or to its owners. But to use the funeral as a means of exercising power over those who take part in the mourning is a different intelligence altogether, a different mentality altogether: the exploitation of one's own mourning, a politics of exploitation.

Yet all of those who failed to see that politics and rushed to play the role cut out for them in that setting were representing their own countries and peoples. But Her Majesty is above all peoples and all nations.

No one can claim that President Erdoğan did not foresee this politics of mourning and the fait accompli game of allegiance that could come out of it. Indeed, because he saw it, he did not attend, also voicing the "conditions dictated." I thank him for showing the foresight not to fall, as the representative of his nation, into such a situation, which no one in Türkiye who knows himself and his nation could accept.

The Queen was, in the end, the head of England, and like all mortals she too died. Like everyone, she went to the place where she will give account of what she did in this world to our Lord who created everyone. He did not, of course, refrain from offering condolences to the people of England, and one should not refrain, but it was best to refuse to play this as a separate game of hierarchy and power, and President Erdoğan did so.