Just like the people, the issues in the Middle East are intertwined. They are inextricable. Every issue is related to the other and each group is connected to the other.
It would have never come to the minds of the Ottomans that these lands were going to be subjected to an ethnic cleansing. That’s the reason why they accepted the people the way they were. They tried to govern people accepting their conditions. Instead of using the human diversity as an input to take advantage, Ottomans modified their administration in accordance with the people.
The ideal example of such respect is an unbelievable thing. However, the model was realized and in fact, it lasted for a noteworthy 500 years without any problem. Moreover, prior to this model, the Saljukis and previously Abbasids and earliest Umayyad dynasty applied the same model. In other words, there used to be a model as such which included unbelievably a multi-cultural society consisting of all religions, sects and cultural groups living side by side and in line with each other. After all, this was the ordinary manifestation of the Islamic civilization.
In later centuries, orientalists made a blunder when they described this model as a “mosaic society”. The mosaic society in their terminology refers to the incapability of the Ottoman Empire or the Islamic society to create a homogeneous society in its own territory.
The creators of this term did not use it in order to describe the society the way we use it today, i.e. expressing the diversity, enhancement, calibrate of the society. Rather, they used this term in order to allege that a multi-cultural society in its essence was the source of the problem.
They all accounted this diversity and variety of the Islam society for its supposed inability to generate a homogeneous society.
Given the experiences of the western society, the homogeneous, unique and centrist societies always come to the forefront. However, if you want to question the cost of these societies, you will encounter the Hundred Year War, Thirty Year War in the name of religion along with genocides, expulsions practices and fascism with its offshoots.
When today the West has finally discovered the multi-culturality as a value, even so it aspires to transform it into a central and unique standard practice.
ISIL deserves no aspect of the title to be called as an “Islamic State”. Their practice does not accord with the teachings of Islam or the quality of being a state. However, it seems that the west, before everyone else, accepts this self-appellation. ISIL has taken Islam as a hostage. On the other hand, those who engage war, shoot at it without taking the state of this hostage into the account at any rate.
Meanwhile, the ISIL is getting bigger but Islam suffers from it. In as much the corpses of Muslims are under the bombs, Islam is being damaged under the Islamic state concept.
Those who bomb ISIL while not considering Islam is the hostage in its hand, strike Islam, too. ISIL, which spares itself by using Islam and its symbols as a shield, does not feel any slight bit of annoyance that the bombs laid over Islam causes the damage to its centuries old prestigious history and glorious image in these lands.
Unless the west and ISIL have a bilateral agreement, then let’s go back home.
In the Middle East, or more correctly in the Islamic world, every issue is related to each other. If there is an operation conducted against Shia, the Sunnis, Kurds are affected from it, too. In fact, in this landscape if you just throw a stone to someone here, even though it strikes the person, it turns back and hits you, too.
The proper governance of this region requires a mature care and diligence woven with ancient values. Not everyone can do that. No one should rely on their guns and weapons, bombs, aircrafts to be qualified in order to govern this landscape.
In fair terms, the governance in a country cannot be proven through an iron hand. In fact, the force exerted in this regard has no value at all. The esteemed force is that what fits the human being that can be consented to without the need of violence.
The reason why the landscape of the Middle East is spilling blood and warfare is neither Islam nor Muslims. Its era for blood, violence, and chaos coincides with the encounter of the western civilization, its values, institutions and, of course, its invasions.
The stone which Aysel Tuğluk throws
In this landscape, every issue and topic and human being are intertwined. If someone throws a stone, it hits everyone’s head and primarily the one who throws it first.
Is there anyone who would understand the stone which Aysel Tuğluk threw at the soldiers of Turkey who were present there to welcome the Kurds seeking shelter in Turkey? In fact, there is always room for everyone in this landscape. This landscape can put up with everything and every individual, but this stone that Aysel Tuğluk and the mentality that made her throw it is repulsive.
Shall we interpret this as a rage against Turkey because it becomes a shelter for Kurds about whom they claim for many years that Turkey has committed to a massacre?
Or is it the outcome of a trauma due to the turmoil in a few days at the confrontation of an organization like ISIL which is neither fish nor fowl? And yet, they have been deluded with autonomy claims with early authority dreams and transformed unarmed, civil people into their subject!
Anyway, let everyone know and understand that the soldier to whom she threw the stone is the only person a Kurdish man can trust when a real problem occurs.
Kurds know this very well, but it’s a serious problem that those who make politics over Kurds cannot comprehend. God willing, we will overcome this too.
