"Changing oneself" as a politics: Arab–Turkish Social Sciences Congress-2

Close to 200 papers were presented over three days at the Arab-Turkish Social Sciences Congress, held under the leadership of the Institute of Strategic Thinking. Papers were presented on many subjects, from presentations on the reflections and cultural effects of Turkish TV series in the Arab world, to education and administration in the Middle East, literature and culture, globalization and multiculturalism and their effects on the Arab-Turkish world. In addition, democracy in the Middle East, the state of political and economic ethics, the contexts of art and civilization, Arab and Turkish modern or classical thought, family, culture, media and social change were addressed in the dimensions of theoretical and case studies.

The Congress, held as a true feast of social science in the meeting halls of TOBB University, provided the occasion for a genuine meeting of Arab and Turkish academics. In this meeting, the diversity of the social scientists' academic interests and the differences and similarities in their approaches to subjects gave rise each time to unique feelings. Researchers determined to understand their own societies and the whole world, who have done very valuable work in this direction, expressed again and again through their papers the Congress's most widely shared wish for the formation of a new social science discourse.

Meanwhile, the fact of how cultural differences can also produce differences in understanding when approaching many subjects showed itself again. For example, what kind of personality is reflected to the Arab world through the heroes of Turkish series... According to the papers presented on the effects of the Turkish image on the Arab image through Turkish series, an interesting identification is recently being established between the series heroes, with all their positive qualities, and the persons of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Abdullah Gül and Ahmet Davutoğlu. Moreover, this identification is established by strangely separating them from the series heroes' other characteristics. While the same series are probably watched and perceived in Turkey with an entirely different eye, among Arab viewers the codes of this series can be decoded and consumed in an entirely different manner.

In fact there is a naive inference in Turkey too that whatever kind of housewife or hero type the series draw immediately finds its counterpart in real life and directly affects life, whereas in reality people can clearly distinguish between their real lives and the series heroes. Although the heroes or typologies in TV series show their effects, it is not one-to-one but through very different ways, with a kind of fairy-tale effect. In this respect, although the typologies in the series are coded with other intentions, they can also have very opposite effects. Dr. Emel Güler Yılmaz, one of the Turkish participants, made this warning, saying that it should be known that a broad-minded man like Adnan Bey would be very hard to find among Turkish men as presented in the series, and that no Turkish woman puts on her jewelry when going to bed as shown in the series. Meanwhile, we learn from the Arab participants that these series can have an entirely different effect. Most people are aware that these series do not adequately reflect Turkey, and the difference between these series and the real Turkey is a matter of complete curiosity and astonishment.

In a significant portion of the papers we heard at the Congress, especially on international relations, we see that the concepts developed by Davutoğlu for Turkish foreign policy have been turned into terminological concepts. "Soft power," "historical, cultural and geographical depth," "Strategic depth," the "zero problems policy" and many more concepts have today become concepts thought about and debated for the social sciences in the Arab world. A remarkable literature has already formed around these concepts.

At the same time, we see that Turkey as a model of social, economic and democratic development for the Arab-Islamic world in general has been adopted as a full subject of academic study. Unfortunately, it is not possible to say that Turkish scientists have so far responded adequately to this interest. More specifically, the AK Parti ranks among the foremost subjects of research and debate as a model for all Islamic movements in the region. Despite the AK Parti's Islamist background, its prioritizing service to the people and human rights and freedoms instead of Islamizing the state in its understanding of politics is evaluated as an alternative model of Islamist politics. As for Arab Islamism, a two-sided obstacle before its politics is frequently underlined: First, neither the AK Parti's strong self-criticism in its own development nor the change it lived as an "ijtihad" has a similar in Arab Islamism. Second, even if Arab Islamists wanted to make such a change, the regimes they live in operate with an authority that would render such a change meaningless and ineffective.

However, that this second reality should not be seen as an excuse was again stated openly by one of the Arab Islamists. His reference was again the AK Parti's style of politics. According to him, you cannot wait for regimes, systems, despotic states to change themselves, and you cannot hold back from changing yourselves because they do not change themselves. The AK Parti did not wait in resignation for the state in Turkey to change itself; it first changed itself, then, as the counterpart of the change in itself, forced the state to change.

Truly, this too can be formulated as the real formula of healthy politics. This was what Etyen Mahçupyan had earlier expressed in the context of Kurdish politics: Politics is a form of action that very often begins with taking the first step yourself instead of expecting steps from others or from the state.

Forcing others to change by changing yourself without waiting for others to change...