"Arabs love not the Ottomans but today's Turkey"

Public diplomacy has recently become a much-valued effort, aimed at managing in a favorable direction a country's perception among the peoples of other countries. In Turkey, too, the Public Diplomacy Coordinatorship attached to the Prime Ministry, headed by İbrahim Kalın, was established and became operational in the middle of last year. The aim is to accompany Turkey's growing influence at the international level with sound and strong promotion and perception management.

One of the activities carried out within this framework is to bring in world-renowned figures of thought, art and the media so that they can get to know Turkey up close and gain a direct impression of it, and to create an environment in which they can share their thoughts. Last week, within this program, the famous Egyptian journalist Fahmy Howeidy was invited. After giving a conference in Istanbul and interviews to some journalists, Howeidy delivered a conference in Ankara at the Institute of Strategic Thinking (SDE) titled "The Reflections of Turkish Foreign Policy in the Arab World."

Truly, in both his interviews and the conferences he gave, what we saw was less Howeidy's getting to know Turkey than how much Turkish politicians and the Turkish public need to see themselves from the perspective of people like Howeidy. Thus it became clear that public diplomacy has a dimension no less important than presenting Turkey as it is: holding up a mirror to itself through the guests it invites.

Howeidy joined Egypt's famous semi-official al-Ahram newspaper in 1958, left it of his own accord two years ago and began writing in al-Shorouk. His articles are published simultaneously in 8 different newspapers and address the entire Arab world. The depth and mastery of his analyses make one feel in every respect that he amply deserves this. He follows and sees Turkey both from an Arab point of view and from a general perspective. Indeed, his outlook is not limited to Arabism. His cool-headed realist approach to international relations is as strongly reflected in his outlook as his democratic, human rights and Islamic sensibilities.

What Howeidy said about Turkey's foreign policy is the kind of thing that all of us may like to hear. There is no need to mention them; they already appeared in the newspapers. But in my view his remarks on things he underlined and which we do not see very well from Turkey were far more important. Although the "Turkey's role as leader of the Arab world" was emphasized, in my opinion, to a degree that would be uncomfortable for the audience he was addressing, he took these words with understanding. He said that with Erdoğan's outburst at Davos, he amply deserved this role, and that Turkey, especially with the Mavi Marmara incident, had quickly repaired the rift it had earlier created in the heart of the Islamic world in the Israel and Algeria cases. A Muslim statesman who says no to Israel and the West was a figure the Islamic world had long yearned for, and this figure has been filled by Erdoğan.

These are all things that are said often. But the words that should really be taken seriously are those on how Turkey's return to the Middle East or the Arab world is perceived as an "Ottoman return." In brief, what Howeidy says is this: the Arabs love not the Ottomans but today's Turks, and the high sympathy that has formed toward Turkey today is not formed by the Ottomans being remembered fondly. On the contrary, the power Turkey has reached today does not even remind anyone of the Ottomans.

In fact it is a good thing that it does not remind them, because whether because of the history narrated in the direction of the national states that later emerged in the Arab world (the Imperialist Ottoman), or because of what the Unionists did in the Arab world in the Ottomans' last period, the Ottomans have no image that is remembered fondly. That is why, contrary to what is supposed, presenting Turkey's popularity in the Arab world today as neo-Ottomanism has no benefit whatsoever. Indeed, it is not history that is facilitating today's rapprochement; on the contrary, thanks to this rapprochement even the possibility of remedying the negative aspects of history may arise. As always, history is being reconstructed in the company of the present. For this reason it is useful not to emphasize this meeting as a return to a history.

Today's Turkey is rising with far different dynamics, and with the stance it displays in world politics, its strengthening, its firm sensitivity toward issues such as Palestine and Bosnia, and its ability to say "no" when necessary to both Israel and the US, it presents a new actor very different from the Ottomans. It is possible to say that this popularity is also supported by the attractiveness of Turkey, corresponding to its strengthening economy and reflected in television series.

Howeidy, who acknowledged that the "zero problems" goal in Turkey's foreign policy is in itself a tremendous goal and that Turkey displays a respectable performance in this direction, nevertheless did not neglect to warn that it is inadvisable to take on an air as if it had solved all problems and were about to solve all the problems of the world. First, Turkey has still not been able to solve its own Cyprus, Kurdish and Armenian problems, and does not seem likely to in the near term. Second, problem areas are sometimes elements that provide balance to international powers, and their resolution is neither as easy nor as necessary as is supposed.

In fact I had wanted to relate what Howeidy said about the Ottomans to the Ottoman historiography that has come up because of the "Magnificent Century" TV series that has caused debate in recent days, but as you see, there is no space left; perhaps we can establish this relation later. The series continues anyway.