We don’t have the time to deal with little games. We don’t have the luxury to waste time with small claims, small men, small steps and small calculations. We don’t have the right to fool ourselves, choose the easy way out and push aside our historic responsibilities with on-order alliances, project political discourses, assigned leaders and designs of Turkey that are imposed from the outside.

We are in the founding period of the Seljuks. We are in the founding period of the Ottoman Empire. We are in the founding period of the Turkish Republic. We are in a period in which the world is reshaping. We are in a period in which the region is being rebuilt, all maps are being redrawn, and the division maps for Turkey are being passed on from table to table.

We are in a period in which each and every one of us needs to be a pioneer, a man of resistance. We are in a period in which history is changing direction, a new rising era is starting, those acting upon their grudges and anger are destroying Turkey and the fight on the homeland axis has become the sole goal.

There are no more party policies. There is no ideological polarization. There are none of the old political reckonings. There are no personal struggles or strict plans for power. Everything we say from now, every step and every path we take leads to Turkey. There is no plan and there will be no plan other than Turkey anymore. From now on, all plans other than Turkey will be reset; those who depend on these plans are going to be eliminated and be buried in the wrong pages of history.

We are being threatened from the Syrian border. We are being threatened from the Aegean, from the Eastern Mediterranean, by the “native invaders,” by all the terrorist organizations in the region and all the countries we know to be allies. We are under attack from all borders. They are telling us, “Anatolia is too big for you, it is too much, and it should be diminished.” They think this most valuable piece of homeland of the earth is too much for us, that we do not deserve it. They say, “Kneel and obey, entrust yourselves to us, shrink and relax.”

But we are not like that. We have never been like that. Never have we in history taken the easy way out and bowed down, obeyed, sought refuge in the mercy of another and made history. We chose the hard way, we chose to struggle; we have been resisting and paying a price non-stop for a thousand years; ever since the day we came to this land, we are fighting, we are dying to render, to keep this place as our homeland. We have never been afraid of death or dying.

We died in every inch of the region, we buried our memories in its every step, and we buried our pain and grief. This is the reason behind our interest in Syria, our interest in Iraq, our interest in Gaza; this is why we are close to the entire region. We came to exist with those lands, with the geography, that is how we remained standing.

We knew we were defending Baghdad and Damascus in Çanakkale. We knew we were defending Istanbul in Sarajevo. In the resistance of Anatolia, we were actually trying to make the entire region rise. And today, we know that we are defending Anatolia in Afrin. We know that we actually had a major historic showdown, a reckoning of civilization on the night of July 15. We never thought of ourselves alone; we were never that selfish, we did not think about our own welfare alone.

Our troops who went to Baku, our soldiers that displayed the relentless resistance at the Canal, our people who defended Anatolia, our magnificent people who resisted on the streets on the night of July 15 were thinking the same things, fighting for the same independence, sharing the same belief.

We are doing the same thing today. We are saying “no” to them; we are saying, “We will not surrender to you, we are not going to live the fate you have determined, we are going to build our future with our own hands, we are going to throw those map drafts in your face and draw our own maps, we are going to walk our own path, we are going to restart that historic rise, we are going to start it despite you.”

This is the fight. This is the great struggle. This is the reason for the attacks. This is the will and plan behind efforts to siege Turkey. They are scared, they are worried, they beat themselves up saying, “Why couldn’t we get these people to forget this for a century, why couldn’t we destroy that genetic, how is it that they are able to make such great claims again, take big steps and have a design for the region, where do they get this strength and confidence.”

We don’t only speak or dream. We are scanning every inch of the region, collecting and reviving memories. We are putting up a very big homeland struggle on the inside and a very big regional struggle on the outside. We made this challenge. If we hadn’t, we would have been destroyed and accepted an Anatolia consisting of three parts. We were going to be exiled from these lands too, which we came and took refuge in from the Balkans, the Caucasus and Mesopotamia, and we were going to be pushed outside history, out of the region.

It is right at this point that an “intellect” took action and the millennium-old political memory revived, a nation woke up and cultivated that mind, that memory and strengthened it. This was history’s course changing, it was that political gene coming to the fore and showing us the way. We are now strengthening our defense shields. We are preparing for the new internal and external waves of attack that are coming.

But there will be no turning back from this path, no stepping back, no hesitation, no surprises; that great standoff will be won. Throughout history, we have won all of the reckonings of the rising period and we will know how to win this too.

Understand, contemplate and ponder these days well and be aware of the toxic impacts of mental operations; protect yourselves, don’t be blinded by only looking in front of you. The era of party policies, personal conflicts and the era of small power plans is over. There is now a great Turkey struggle and everybody must determine where they stand very well.

The elections on June 24 is going to be the clash, the reckoning of these preferences. They are going to try to do what they could not do on Dec. 17-25 again, what they could not do in the June 7 elections, what they could not do on July 15, what they could not do with their projects to close in/siege from the south. This election is in no way an internal policy matter. This election is a reckoning of history; it is a founding and rising matter and cannot be personalized in any way.

Did you notice? Turkey decided to hold elections and everything came to a halt. The region went silent, Syria went silent, the world went silent. The developments in the U.S., China, East Asia and the Baltics almost came to a freeze. U.S. and European policies stopped, an incredible silence spread through the world. Did you ever think why?

Did you think of why is there no movement in Syria, why is there no action in Iraq, why have terrorist organizations become silent? Did you think, by looking at all this, why the elections was scheduled to an earlier date in this country? It is as if Turkey was activating the whole world. When Turkey decided to hold elections in a period as short as two months, it was as if everyone’s ploys blew up in their faces; they are in a haste to set up a new game, this is the reason for the silence.

This country has never been a country alone. It has never been just the Republic of Turkey. This is why the impact of the election will be regional and global. The person who will be elected will also be globally and regionally effective.

The path that has been taken and the route drawn to date must continue; the architect of the new rising history must not be abandoned, their projects to “stop Turkey” must not be given a chance. These facts need to be told door-to-door, street-to-street, village-to-village, and city-to-city. Because stage two of the great struggle has started.

The founding generation, founding cadres have great responsibilities just as they had throughout the centuries. It is quite clear that our nation is not going to leave the country halfway and that it is going to give the best response to those making plans to stop Turkey. For centuries, this decision, at the most critical times, has always been made correctly and will continue to be made correctly. Because June 24 is not an election, it is the date to decide in the name of Turkey.

This is what June 24 is. Those who are unable to see this truth today will see it after the elections. This country has no choice but to grow and become stronger. The opposite would be to shrink and divide. This is exactly what they are waiting for, ready at our borders. It is mobilization time for the founding generation.

Nobody should take President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s speech yesterday lightly, the statements made from the depths of history to the future; nobody should try to make them forgotten amid meager plans. This is Anatolia’s, the region and history’s call to us all, to the future. This is how this path will be tread.