We are living through one of history's turning points. This is a breaking moment, which has been building up for more than half a century; it is the watershed moment of a historical era and the end of the West's hegemony. All such breaking points are also times of re-establishment.
EU Minister of Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell's mentioning the return of empires, drawing attention to Turkey, Russia, and China making comebacks as “empires,” can be evaluated as both a warning within (to countries and institutions that are members of the Western alliance) for them to come to their senses and recover, and as a threat against Turkey, Russia, as well as China’s likelihood of forming an Asia bloc.
Borrell is specifically targeting Turkey, a country that has made a major breakthrough in the last couple of years in military defense technology and geopolitical strategies. In other words, we are face-to-face with a multilateral threat that is targeting Turkey as it has heightened its target and increased its scale – thus, the matter needs to be contemplated in depth. The matter is critical in terms of Turkey, therefore, I want to discuss it in every aspect tomorrow in a separate article.
In today’s article, I will interpret Borrell’s statement; above all, it serves as an internal warning (aimed both within the EU and at the Western alliance itself).
Borrell’s statement is a warning that during the coronavirus pandemic, countries, institutions, and companies belonging to the Western alliance, which are going through a major economic crisis – like all countries worldwide – are going to face the danger of losing their hegemony over the world at the end of this process, and that they should make conscious preparations for the approaching disaster.
The European “World Order,” which was established in 1648 after the Peace of Westphalia and lasted for three centuries, collapsed after the two great wars. In terms of its essence, this meant the collapse of modernity.
The collapse of modernity inevitably triggered post-modernity.
The post-modern period was the process of confessing the collapse of a Euro-centric world in every field, as well as the acceptance that the modern God, truth, human, nature, and world concepts philosophically brought humanity to the verge of a dead-end. In other words, it was the confirmation of modernity’s defeat in every field.
The two world wars presented the most striking example of this. The world order and hegemony established by the modern man, who lost the idea of God and truth, who dominated nature and the world, became the victim of the excesses of the mind that made man a slave to instruments and caused humanity to lose its purpose. Hence the modern man, who had reached the pinnacle of monetary development in science and technology, brought humanity to the brink of hell.
The two great world wars were sufficient for Western thinkers themselves to name the last century as “humanity’s darkest century.”
The process leading up from World War II to the present has been a predominantly ambiguous and chaotic period. First, there was a “sham fight” – called the Cold War – between the West and East blocs (capitalism and socialism). This process extended the lifespan of modernity for some time, and thus Western civilization and its hegemony over the world.
The collapse of the pro-West projects (particularly Arab nationalism and Kemalist neo-nationalism) which were implemented in the Muslim world during the post-colonial era, under Western control and through the pro-West circle’s voluntary agency, and Islamic discourses rising to the level of the most powerful intellectual, social and political actors of the Islamic world contrary to expectations, from Morocco to Malaysia, frightened Westerners and their agencies. This drove Western imperialists to immediately end the Cold War; and through a sly, post-modern strategy called “anti-terrorism” that they developed at home and abroad deal a great blow to the Muslim world gathering around an Islamic orbit.
This process, which I call the post-modern war with Islam, is being carried out through proxy wars, and it has been successful to a certain extent. However, even though Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan were invaded, even though a coup was conducted in Egypt, and one was attempted in Turkey, as a result of Turkey repelling the coup attempt with a legendary struggle, and its great breakthroughs in the defense industry, the expected success could not be achieved – Turkey could not be stopped.
Western hegemony is going through a chaotic process; it is experiencing a major breaking point. Borrell and similar Western statesmen, strategists are pondering how the Western hegemony’s collapse can be prevented and how it can be rebuilt. It seems that capitalism is going to settle in China and thus continue its hegemony, yet this process may also bring the end of the West’s hegemony.
So, who is going to strike the final blow on Western hegemony?
China or Turkey?
I am going to try and trace the answer to this question in tomorrow’s article.
