Prominent Turkish poet, author, and Cumhuriyet columnist Ataol Behramoglu spotlights the contemporary Western approach toward today’s politics through two different aspects, Western enlightenment philosophy, and fascist orientations in continental Europe.
Western philosophy is a synthesis of the humanistic precepts of Christianity and human-oriented classical Greek philosophy.
That is the concept of wisdom against doctrine, secularism against religious conservatism, equality against slavery; human, animal, and children’s rights; equality between men and women, environmentalism, collectivism, and libertarianism.
The other aspect of the West corresponds to the use of Christianity as a tool for assimilation, slavery, colonialism, racial discrimination, and labor exploitation.
Today, within the borders of Western countries, both aspects of the Western world continue to exist, competing and fighting each other.
However, Western philosophy maintains its existence and power against all odds thanks to its well-established organizations built on that basis, but only within the borders of Western countries.
This West no longer has the will or the power to extend these ideals and principles beyond these borders.
The European Union is ultimately an organization for the protection of Western unity and interests.
The European Court of Human Rights judgments lack the power of sanction.
The United Nations is ultimately an organization for powerful states.
The West of human rights, humanism, equality, and libertarianism, is today confined within the borders of the Western countries and forced to defend its existence.
The political organizations, institutions, parties, and Western trade unions have not yet lost their ability to raise their voices and actions against injustices within the country. However, they are in shameful silence and inaction against inhuman acts, outside the borders of their own countries.
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What should a country like Turkey, which, before the Republic, was inclined to adopt the values of the Western enlightenment principles, which gained revolutionary momentum with the Republic, and which is now moving away from these values at the same speed, do in this situation?
More precisely, what should we, as the people of Turkey, who have adopted the values of Western philosophy, do? What kind of a path should we follow?
One of them, and the easiest one, is to follow the advice of the fascist ideologues of the West who say, “You cannot be Western anyway. Go back to your Middle Eastern ways, which is what the majority of your people are predisposed to.”
These are the ideologues of fascism, racial discrimination, and imperialism. As they exist in all countries in the same situation as ours, they have and will always have their collaborators and supporters in our country too.
The true path is to defend these values against both the fascists of the West and their supporters in our country with awareness, wisdom, and determination.
Human rights, freedom, and the supremacy of wisdom are not values peculiar to the Western world but universal values of humanity, and thus to set an example to the representatives, organizations, and institutions of the enlightened West, which have retreated into their shells with cowardness.
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I sincerely believe that Turkey has this intellectual accumulation.
Our Republic, now in its centenary year, is the most significant proof of this.
The most significant proof of the new times is the Gezi Resistance.
The Gezi Resistance is a synthesis of the ideals of the Republic, the war of liberation, the ideals of libertarianism, and the ideal of socialism.
The great success of our girls’ volleyball team is brand new, brilliant proof of my belief in this.
We are an old and deep-rooted country, as well as a new and young one, and we can be a model not only for the West but also for the whole world by defending Western values against the West.
No power can or will be able to squeeze us into the swamps of the Middle East and the darkness of the Middle Ages.
We will not allow this as a whole nation.
