Building bridges inwards before to the Other

AMMAN. In his conference at the Strategic Thinking Institute assessing the foreign policy of 2012, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had described the Arab Spring process as the opening experienced in the Eastern European countries and the Balkans in the nineties now being experienced with a 20-year delay. Of course, this opening was not, and is not, experienced in the same way in all of them.

The first major difference emerged in Libya, where the urgent interventions of outside powers produced a situation that clouded the will of the streets. However, the elections held and the quality of the cadres who came to power somehow got the situation in Libya too onto the path of the first two countries. In Yemen there is as yet no visible change other than the departure of the old chronic ruler. In Syria it was clear from the start that the situation would be very different.

No one expected that things in Syria would go as in the others. But frankly no one predicted that it would be this bad either. There were always concerns that the Syrian regime was reckless and, if need be, could burn and destroy all of Syria rather than lose power. But still, living the reality of the matter is not like predicting it.

For those who still try to lay all the disasters caused by the regime in Syria on the opposition and on the "outside powers" that incite or back them, we have said that the opposition could very well have been suppressed in a different way and that things reaching this point was not unavoidable. Had the Assad regime not opened fire on demonstrators who from the start had no concern other than peaceful demands, and set the whole people against it, the opposition could have become manageable within a short time. But the Assad regime fell into the error of thinking that by killing a few people each time it could intimidate the whole people. Despite this it still goes on blaming the opposition for everything that has happened.

The most important proof that the situation could have been otherwise is the Jordanian government itself. In Jordan, which in its demands against the regime resembles Syria very much, the King never responded with violence at all to an opposition that cannot be considered less radical than the one in Syria. Demonstrators were not fired upon, were not arrested, were not prosecuted afterwards. On the contrary, by deliberately and ostentatiously ensuring the security of the demonstrators, the opposition's wider spread was successfully prevented.

This of course does not mean that the demands for opening by the people or by different social segments in Jordan have been completely ended. On the contrary, the number of segments who regard the reforms made since the beginning of the demonstrations as cosmetic and believe they were made out of fear of the Arab Spring is steadily growing.

Parliamentary elections will be held on January 23, and although these elections in themselves ensure that things in society do not get worse, an undesired picture in parliament is prevented from forming through constant arbitrary changes in the electoral system. That is why, while opponents describe the elections as cosmetic, the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest political movement, is preparing to boycott the elections. Because all the last-minute arrangements seem to be made to ensure that the Brotherhood does not form a decisive majority in parliament; yet since in the event of a boycott the legitimacy of the elections, and even of the system, would be greatly damaged, King Abdullah is trying to encourage participation in the elections.

For two days we have been in Jordan for a meeting, jointly organized by the Strategic Thinking Institute and the Arab Thought Forum and carried out within a program supported by Turkey's Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities and the Public Diplomacy Office, in which we address Arab-Turkish relations from the Jordanian front.

In the workshop where we addressed Arab-Turkish relations from past to future, many topics were discussed, up to the academic, cultural, civil society, diplomatic and educational dimensions of the relations. Associate Prof. Ahmet Uysal, Associate Prof. Mesut Ozcan, Prof. Muhittin Ataman, Associate Prof. Vehbi Baysan, Associate Prof. Davut Ates, Prof. Haci Duran, the head of the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities Kemal Yurtnac and his deputy Mehmet Kose, and Aydin Bolat took part from Turkey; from the Jordanian side former prime minister Adnan Badran, former Minister of Culture Nadia Hashim Alloui, former Minister of Communications Saleh el Qallab and many more academics and politicians took part. Each of them made very important observations and analyses in their speeches about the past, present and future of Arab-Turkish relations.

It feels strange when we learn that the hotel where we are staying and where the workshop was held is the hotel that was the target of the attack in which Mustafa Akkad, the director of the film The Message, was killed a few years ago; on this occasion we wish him God's mercy. To erase the impression of that incident, the hotel changed its name twice after being repaired.

In his opening speech at the workshop, the president of the Arab Thought Forum, Dr. Sadiq Al Fakih, said that while they have been following what has happened in Turkey over the last ten years with great interest, the Arab world woke up to these developments later than it should have. Yet he said the Turkish experience needs to be followed carefully and lessons drawn from it, especially for establishing a stronger and merit-based understanding of governance in the Arab world. Former Minister of Culture Nadia Hashim Alloui objected to the expression "bridges that need to be built between societies," saying those bridges already exist between us and need to be operated, but added the following: before speaking of building or operating bridges between ourselves and others, we must throw a bridge into our own interior. Because it seems that we have become estranged from ourselves, we have grown distant from ourselves. And when we grow distant from ourselves we have grown distant from others too.

Much was discussed at the meeting, and it is not possible for me to relay all of it here, but I will not pass without relaying an observation and a proposal of Prince Hassan bin Talal, who was informed of the meeting and invited us to meet at his palace. Talal said that the interpretation by others of Turkey's openings toward Muslim countries as efforts to establish a new Ottoman state did not concern him at all, that on the contrary he welcomed these efforts of Turkey with respect and excitement, and he asked a very meaningful question: in the European Union, there is in essence an alliance formed around meeting the need for iron and steel for the whole continent, which today revives all the European countries. What prevents us from setting in motion certain forms of union over the just distribution of water and energy resources, which are our greatest need right now and are concentrated in particular places, from establishing some unions on this basis? Whatever such unions that would lead the way in meeting these and similar needs are accused of.