Loyalty to the covenant and the politics of affection, or "loyalty and affection in politics"

What has taken place in Turkey over the past month has made it unavoidable for many segments in Turkey and the world to resort to the concept called the "New Turkey." There is no doubt that, after a very turbulent year, Turkey has been renewed, refreshed, and has gained strong momentum for a movement toward the future.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Chairman of the AK Parti, who led the AK Parti for 13 years + 17 days from the hour of its founding, and the AK Parti government for 11 years and 6 months, with his strong charismatic leadership and extraordinary success, crowned this success by earning the office of the Presidency, the highest office attainable in the political arena.

When he was elected to this office, he passed to it at the peak of his political leadership, having raised his votes to 52 percent at this level. There could be no better indication that he has a great right over the political movement he leaves behind.

But undoubtedly he staged a better manifestation of his political leadership and of the acknowledged nature of this right when handing over the chairmanship of the AK Parti, which he described as "my greatest love." The way he managed the process of selecting and consulting on the person who would take his place in the party leadership, and finally his bringing it to completion, was so elegant as to be unprecedented in Turkish political life and very difficult to repeat.

When the name Ahmet Davutoğlu was publicly expressed, he would undoubtedly be appreciated as the most suitable person about whom very few people could hesitate. But as much as Davutoğlu deserved this office more than abundantly, far more was written to the credit of the leadership that managed the process of bringing him to this office flawlessly. For Turkish political life (in fact, the political lives of other countries are no different) works according to a norm that almost appreciates leaders not wanting strong personalities around them.

Therefore, if by chance a strong leader has emerged in a party, it is extremely rare for a second one to be found around him. That is why such movements generally stand on their leaders, and when the leader steps down the movement collapses, either for lack of men or from the cutthroat rivalry among those who come right after the leader.

Yet the AK Parti, under Erdoğan's own leadership and thanks to his choices, has from the start been like a mixture of stars. Far from the path of people of merit being blocked, a kind of meritocratic measure operates in which they are made the best use of. This is one secret of its success. Of course, another dimension of this secret is that the members and leading figures of merit see the movement not as a career field but as a cause, and that they are bound to one another with affection and loyalty.

Just in the last month, especially thanks to the handovers of the premiership and the chairmanship and what we lived through afterward, we have also seen that watching politics can become extremely enjoyable.

Politics, it turns out, can very well remind and teach those who watch it a set of values.

Sincerity in politics, it turns out, can very well get results and produce results that will be for people's good.

Through politics, it turns out, people can very well go beyond the narrow horizons of an ego-centered, self-interested, opportunistic world of meaning.

Through politics, it turns out, constants said to be unchangeable can change, rigidities said to be unmeltable can melt.

Through politics, it turns out, the ill fate of the world and its downtrodden can be changed.

I wish I could convey here the impressions of those who came to Turkey from abroad and watched the AK Parti Extraordinary Congress.

Many of them said in particular that the speeches of Erdoğan and Davutoğlu would be regarded as reference texts for their understanding of politics from now on.

There were those who said that merely the fact that this transition was carried out so perfectly had raised great hopes in them for the Islamic world.

A Muslim politician who came from Britain explained that this practice of Turkey, and of course of the AK Parti, is the greatest trump card against the many criticisms we face as Muslims in Europe.

But the subject I heard most, and which also surprised me, is that both Erdoğan and Davutoğlu referred to Erbakan's legacy, path and struggle, and how deeply this moved and pleased them.

All of them were aware of why ways had parted with Erbakan and sided strongly with the AK Parti, yet they placed a quite separate value on Erbakan's being remembered in such a show of loyalty on such a day.

In the manner of loyalty, politics acquires a meaning worth shedding sweat and tears for. We do not say it for nothing: the cause of the AK Parti is a cause of loyalty and affection.

These values will undoubtedly be a guide for all the renewed cadres of the AK Parti, which has taken on the responsibility of the New Turkey.