The 1884-1885 Berlin Congress which determined the division of Africa between European states went on for four months. The impact of this congress, which is the starting point of the history of modern imperialism, still can be seen in African countries. There was a limited Ottoman influence over the north of Africa, but this was not enough to stop imperialist European powers. Although the Italian occupation of Tripoli before the Great War tried to be stopped, there was limited success. The Ottoman troops had to leave North Africa because of the unrest in the Balkans.
The imperialist policy led European imperialism to rule the entire world, and they entered a violent struggle on the world’s division. It is quite significant that the First World War started after the matters of Africa was concluded. This war was the result of the struggle to share the Ottoman region, to settle the matter of the Orient. Those who wanted to seize oil resources severely pressurized the Ottoman region.
The victorious states of the First World War, after dividing Africa and the Ottoman region between each other, achieved a system with the establishment of the League of Nations that would protect their gains. The League of Nations was an institution aiming to maintain British and American peace. The Mosul issue settling in favor of Britain was not achieved through a legal process; on the contrary, it was a confiscation, and by designating the status of the oil reserves, imperialism gained a legal framework. The League of Nations, or the United Nations with its name after the Second World War, did not serve any other purpose than to make the status quo established by America and Britain functional. The emergence of Israel from the Ottoman geography, too, was a result of the policy of the League of Nations and the United Nations to maintain British and American peace.
The United Nations did not pursue an effective policy in favor of the Muslims neither in Bosnia, Algeria, Libya, Azerbaijan, Karabakh, nor in the invasion of Iraq, or in the Syrian civil war. Because the reason for its existence is to maintain American-British peace. And as long as the status quo established after the First World War and Second World War continues, there couldn’t be any other important development.
The world is greater than five
It was not an ordinary incident that President Erdoğan, who was prime minister back then, said “one minute” to Israel after the 2008 global financial crisis. It is a starting point and shows that the status quo that was established by American-British peace is no longer sustainable. Erdogan’s “The world is greater than five” claim is an objection to the world order that was shaped after 1918. It could not be any other country than Turkey to be at the center of this objection mechanism, because the system was founded on “the Defeat of the Turks.” Israel, which was established on Palestinian land and the statelet that wanted to be established at the south of Turkey are American-British states.
An Armenian state wanted to be established in the six eastern provinces of Turkey in 1914. The West, which the kept Ottomans busy with the Armenian issue for decades, attained an important and longtime gain by establishing Israel in our geography. Now they want to do the same thing with a PKK-PYD-YPG-DAESH-FETÖ state, which would include the north of Syria and Iraq. In this respect, the terror formation east of the Euphrates is quite significant.
It is very important that Turkey started a peace process in Idlib that could possibly end the Syrian war because this small town represents the continuation of the system that emerged after the Ottomans lost Palestine and Mosul. The Astana process was implemented outside the American-British peace domain, extraneous to the United Nations. The success of this process in Idlib shows that the claim that “the world is greater than five” Erdoğan made during his presidential campaign is not groundless. Thus “the world is greater than five” claim is not only a slogan anymore and has started to take actual form.
It is also quite significant that Israel stepped forward to sabotage the agreement reached in Idlib, trying to make America, Britain, and France invisible. This haste proves the obligation Israel feels toward the umbrella organizations of the League of Nations and the United Nations which helped establish it and are still protecting it.
Turkey says that “the world is greater than five” and stands behind this claim.
