In my Friday piece titled, 'Urgent call for a peace model before tanks attack the Kaaba,' I presented a suggestion. Actually, it wasn't a suggestion, but a call. It was a warning about a disaster picture we are going to witness, be obliged to face, one or two years in the future. It was an endeavor to draw attention to the steps that need to be taken and things that need to be done.
I had made that call to our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. I believe that two powerful and reputable institutions like the Istanbul Crisis Center and Istanbul Peace Center can only, and only be founded by his leadership, survive under his protection and achieve effective results with his support.
Because his political discourse, his perception of the region and world, local and self-sacrificing stance, make one think that this is the right address. Turkey's current position, the future it is trying to reach, its power and political memory, indicate that the country that can make this project happen is Turkey. Looking at the region, countries, governments and leaders, one is beset by hopelessness. We know that those destinations will lead to nothing, that they can't even stand on their own two feet, that they can't say anything other than what is imposed on them, that they have no will other than to be the fronts of the regional grand resolution project.
Just as Turkey took the reins of its own rising, it should also seek solutions that will prevent the fall of the region. The political language, identity and social support for this solution have all been produced. Now after this stage, permanent institutions should be produced and each one of these institutions should be turned into international institutions, and steps should be taken for structural transformations.
The world's crisis region is our geography. All conflict scenarios, all military/security strategies are applied here, all energy fights take place here. Your place in the global power map largely depends on how much room you have in this region.
You can never expect a solution from those who exported the crisis to this geography; you can never beg them for peace. This would be a silly attempt. Because they are the architects of the crisis. They are the ones who divided and are battering the geography, getting communities to kill one another. Simply look at the last year. Just see how the 'great disaster' that came step by step has taken the geography hostage. More will come of these steps. No country, including Turkey, will be exempt from this regional disaster scenario. While we are trying to close a century-old bracket and build a new future, those crisis centers are re-planning a 20th century fate for us; they are producing one scenario after the other to extend that back for another century. We need to start seeing this reality. Turkey has seen this reality. This is why it is in a great struggle. This is why a series of destruction projects, civil conflict scenarios, coup attempts are being tried on Turkey. This is the only reason behind the examples of betrayal on the inside.
They know well that if Turkey stops raising its voice, the entire geography will go silent, if Turkey rises, the entire geography will be revived, if Turkey becomes strong, the regional crisis modeling will become ineffective. Hence, Turkey's battle is not a war for its future alone. It is a new hope for the masses that came face to face with becoming extinct in World War I.
If we are able to get from the depths of Africa to the far corners of Asia, if we are able to communicate from heart to heart there in this regard, it is because there is a yearning for this. If people from Kyrgyzstan to Bosnia and Somalia hang Turkish flags in their homes at times Turkey is struggling, it is because they are still living the Çanakkale solidarity today. If we are able to form the same sentences against the same incidents from the Atlantic shore to the shores of the Pacific, if we are able to speak the same political language, this is a great power.
This common political language should not remain merely as a political discourse. We should be able to take the next step. Local, strong, reputable and permanent institutions should be built to achieve this. Turkey, where the common political language is spoken the loudest, should lead the way in the formation of these institutions. President Erdoğan who does not hesitate to use this language on every platform, who takes a stance, should lead the formation of these institutions.
Today, we urgently need to solve the crises and produce peace projects. Hence, the formation of these two institutions takes priority. Then, institutions aimed at economical, political, technological and cultural cooperations can be formed.
Because there is a great danger ahead of us. Do not undermine this danger. We need to be able to see a few years ahead, so as not to fall into the state of the countries that fell prey, one by one, against the Mongolian armies. That danger is the division of the geography, countries and regions into pieces. It is the transformation of all differences into disintegration, separation and conflict. It is the mobilization of all areas of weakness for this great destruction.
We became confronted with so many truths we thought were figments of the imagination. Some things may seem a fantasy, exaggerated. But be sure, if it continues like this, in a couple years, the tanks of the countries within this geography - not foreign armies - will be approaching the Kaaba. Their soldiers will siege the Kaaba and their aircraft will bomb the region. With the regionalization of the sectarian crisis, God forbid, the tanks attacking the Kaaba will be adorned with verses from the Quran. We are going to take sides according to the realities of that war. Our countries are going to produce very logical discourse through geopolitical and political facts to prove how right they are and we are all going to believe them.
The president must use his symbolic power, reputability, which exceeds the orders, for this purpose. By gaining support from a couple of powerful countries in the region, but without ever imitating those idle and bulky structures, a dynamic Istanbul Crisis Center and Istanbul Peace Center must be established.
A Wise Men's Committee should be founded with respectable names from among the geography's political leaders, scholars, intellectuals and opinion leaders. These centers should be turned into deep-rooted institutions, not structures that gather seasonally, and they should work on a daily basis. They should be concerned with all the problems of the geography and produce solutions for them.
Dolmabahçe, Istanbul should be the headquarters for these institutions. Budgets should be formed while maintaining their independence, and there should be an economic source similar to the funding we direct to humanitarian aid. These centers should each be transnational institutions, and with time, they should be transformed into international institutions. In this sense, Istanbul should become the center of a multinational top structure and the new structures to be formed in the future; it should become the capital of the geography's transnational institutions.
The two said centers should be included in everything ranging from interstate relations to tight social conflict areas. They should put into action common values against identity crises and pave the way for the awakening of a common awareness in the entire geography. And when the time comes, they should exclude certain structures, apply force on them, accuse them in the presence of communities and create pressure.
President Erdoğan is the only one who can lead and achieve this. As a man who lives in Turkey, embodies the memory and identity of this country, sees the fears the geography will confront and feels concern, this is my humble call to him!
