After the first part of the '5th Arab-Turkish Social Sciences Congress' took place in Morocco. The second part is taking place at the Strategic Thinking Institute in Ankara, with the participation of Arab countries. This initiative, which started before the large-scale migration from the Arab world, aimed to bring together Turkish academics and researchers with the intellectual minds of the Arab world and create an effective intellectual-social network. When we look back, we can say that this purpose has been achieved to a considerable extent. After the first congress in 2010, it can be said that there has been a decent amount of interaction between Turkish and Arab academics, and that they are now more aware of each other's work.
The theme this year was "Security and Geopolitics." It might be useful to focus on these two concepts, especially geopolitics, since the Arab Revolutions have been dragged toward chaos with counter-revolution.
The "geopolitical" notion is one that shapes according to the determined content. Immanuel Wallerstein is a philosopher who emphasizes greatly on notion. Wallerstein represents the capitalist world system as basically long commodity chains linking government structures to each other, and supported by notions such as geopolitics and geoculture. In other words geopolitics and geoculture are two of the three fundamental points that shape Wallerstein's analyses becoming a world system.
Wallerstein uses these notions to explain the US's cultural and economic hegemony and how the underdeveloped countries resist this hegemony. Wallerstein's stance against globalization gains meaning within this framework. According to the philosopher, globalization is nothing but the economic and cultural expansion of the US.
Again, within this framework, geopolitics expresses the world of the hegemon countries that ensure the discourse of the world system. A basic description of geoculture is the historical foundation of cultural oppression to modernize and develop all countries within the world system. Wallerstein is like a mechanism built to analyze the global capitalist system.
The average meaning of geopolitics is to emphasize that the in geography a country is situated in structures its foreign policy outputs. Centuries ago, Ibn Haldun had presented work claiming that the regions in which societies live shape their behaviors. Hegel's Gheist suggests that deep minds come about with the effects of the region they are in. This was the idea that was an inspiration for a "state within" which would then become popular.
Ali Şeriati, describing the effect of geography in a more philosophical manner, evaluated geography as "one of the four dungeons of man." It has always been suggested that just as regions shape societies and behavior they can also affect internal and foreign politics of countries. It can even be said that the "oriental despotism" conceptualization within Marxist jargon, based on prebendalism, emphasizes "region" and an inevitable fate created by region. Well, is this really true? Is a region really a fate?
It might be productive to evaluate this issue within the context of Russia's foreign politics, to understand the current situation and to give it an aspect. It has been emphasized that Russia defines its foreign politics according to its historic geographical imposition. For example "Russia's aim to go down into warm seas" has been taught since primary school as part of Ottoman History. This has been understood and interpreted as Russia developing policies and developing its trade to go down into warmer seas in order to fulfill the needs of an unfavorable region in terms of weather and to integrate to the global system.
It seems that the warm seas policy has currently appeared in the form of controlling energy resources and shipment areas. Russia is aggressively exporting energy resources from its region and hinterland, but is geographically distant from the heart of petro-politics, the Middle East. Besides, the drilling work for natural gas and petrol in the East Mediterranean reservoir is threatening Russia's future.
From this point, it can be said that Russia's current politics is the fate driven from its geography. However, there are consequences for doing what is necessary for the fate created by the region. Sometimes believing that this politics is your fate, can bring nothing but defeat. Maybe the defeat Russia experiences now, and the defeats it experienced in the past, are a result of Russia's understanding that it is obliged to its region. Just like the attitude Iran has adopted. With the politics it established in 1979, Iran had a golden chance to break free from the dungeons of its region. However, the attitude Iran displayed recently indicates that it is once again is confined by its own geography. Şeriati , indicates that love is required, in order to overcome the geography dungeon, just like the history, biology and individualism dungeons. Undoubtedly, the only way for nations to overcome the regional dungeon is to establish politics favorable through love. One who sees himself as unfortunate most probably built walls around himself and created his own dungeon.
