The UN, US and Turkey
The 71st Regular Session of the U.N. General Assembly has begun in the U.S. and will last until Sept. 24. Turkey will be represented by the top state figure, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, during the assembly. Erdoğan's talks in New York must go beyond the activities of the U.N. General Assembly and be addressed within the framework of Turkish-U.S. relations, as the course of bilateral relations in recent years cannot be separated from Erdoğan's remarks and vision about the U.N.
I think we saw this vision in the most concrete way in Erdoğan's address to the 69th U.N. General Assembly two years ago. Indeed, this speech had the characteristics of a road map not only for Turkey, but also for all developing countries. It was a beginning indicating that the Erdoğan-administrated Turkey would no longer unquestioningly accept the hierarchy that was established under the leadership of the U.S. after World War II. This hierarchy was threatening not only developing countries, but also developed ones, especially the U.S., after a certain point and constantly creating a state of crisis for the system. However, the West failed to understand this and wanted to strangle the rise of developing countries in the new period. Especially after 2014, the West's criticism of countries like Turkey, Brazil and Argentina escalated into a smear campaign.
As a part of my profession, I closely follow the developments in the economic sphere. Turkey's endeavors to achieve a new growth target and economic rise, which became clearer under Erdoğan's presidency in 2014, witnessed the same reactions. Moreover, the escalation of the criticism of Erdoğan's economic vision into a smear campaign largely corresponded to the year 2014.
Let's take a look at the 2015 G20 Antalya Summit and the 2016 G20 Hangzhou Summit in order to understand Turkey's new economic perspective. During last year's G20 Summit, Turkey pointed to inclusive growth and proposed a new understanding of development and welfare that would prevent the increasingly growing income gap, halt the flow of funds from the East to the West and distribute resources in a fairer way. The G20 has begun addressing crucial topics such as the recreation of financial architecture, fight against corruption, the financing of terrorism and the re-regulation of the world trade rules, which are designed in accordance with the West's interests (for instance, ending the West's hypocritical stance on protectionism) in an attempt to equalize developing and developed countries. This, beyond any doubt, is the most concrete expression of Turkey's economic and political inclinations in the new period. In this regard, Erdoğan's speech during the 2014 U.N. General Assembly is the beginning of a new world order in the East.
Following World War II, the U.N. General Assembly witnessed many important and historic speeches that narrated the Cold War period. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's oration in 1974, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro's harangue in which he harshly chastised U.S. presidents John Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, Soviet politician Nikita Khrushchev's offensive speech in which he took his shoe off and hit it on the lectern while talking about U.S. imperialism and the hard-hitting allocutions of Latin American leaders who were stimulated by the wave of revolutions in the 1980s, are the first examples that spring to my mind. But, of course, there must have been many other ardent speeches that rocked the 1990s with the potential to make history. Even though they were verbalized by figures from different backgrounds and nationalities, they were all one and the same in that they criticized the U.S.'s and the West's brutal, occupational and neo-colonial policies. All these speeches were a consequence of the polarization of the world at that time.
In this period as a whole, from 1947 to the 1990s, the two main poles of the world, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, as well as secondary countries that escaped the Cold War paradigm, determined the world political map. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which is considered to have emerged with the Havana Declaration in 1970, failed due to its cosmopolitan nature. This movement, which incorporated 55 percent of the world's population and two-thirds of U.N. member countries, failed as it tried to gather incompatible countries such as Cuba and Saudi Arabia under the same roof. When we consider the fact that the five main victors of World War II (China, France, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S.) became the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) with absolute veto rights, it is not that difficult to see how and under what circumstances the U.N. was established. This alliance, which included Russia and China for the sake of global balance and status quo, is also the mainspring of current economic and political crises.
As Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote many times, while the U.S. was reconstructing Europe after World War II in line with its neo-colonial politics, it was well aware that it would encounter a bankrupt economy as a result of the Balkanization and fragmentation in Eastern European countries in the 1990s as well as its burgeoning ageing population. When we look at the overall picture of Europe today, we see that the U.K. is striving to recover and Germany's policies to consolidate the EU by taking itself as a center have failed. All this intensifies the EU crisis. The U.S.-centric system that was founded after World War II is dissolving in the Pacific region, Turkey, Continental Europe, the Middle East, Caucasus and even Africa. Turkey is protecting its own interests and values based on the public's democratic will under Erdoğan's leadership. This is a proposal of a fairer and more livable system for the poor in the entirety of the world and of a new world order that is rising from the East.
The U.S. has to acknowledge this historic fact. If it does not do so and tries to reverse the course of history, it will harm its own interests in the long term.
I think we saw this vision in the most concrete way in Erdoğan's address to the 69th U.N. General Assembly two years ago. Indeed, this speech had the characteristics of a road map not only for Turkey, but also for all developing countries. It was a beginning indicating that the Erdoğan-administrated Turkey would no longer unquestioningly accept the hierarchy that was established under the leadership of the U.S. after World War II. This hierarchy was threatening not only developing countries, but also developed ones, especially the U.S., after a certain point and constantly creating a state of crisis for the system. However, the West failed to understand this and wanted to strangle the rise of developing countries in the new period. Especially after 2014, the West's criticism of countries like Turkey, Brazil and Argentina escalated into a smear campaign.
As a part of my profession, I closely follow the developments in the economic sphere. Turkey's endeavors to achieve a new growth target and economic rise, which became clearer under Erdoğan's presidency in 2014, witnessed the same reactions. Moreover, the escalation of the criticism of Erdoğan's economic vision into a smear campaign largely corresponded to the year 2014.
Let's take a look at the 2015 G20 Antalya Summit and the 2016 G20 Hangzhou Summit in order to understand Turkey's new economic perspective. During last year's G20 Summit, Turkey pointed to inclusive growth and proposed a new understanding of development and welfare that would prevent the increasingly growing income gap, halt the flow of funds from the East to the West and distribute resources in a fairer way. The G20 has begun addressing crucial topics such as the recreation of financial architecture, fight against corruption, the financing of terrorism and the re-regulation of the world trade rules, which are designed in accordance with the West's interests (for instance, ending the West's hypocritical stance on protectionism) in an attempt to equalize developing and developed countries. This, beyond any doubt, is the most concrete expression of Turkey's economic and political inclinations in the new period. In this regard, Erdoğan's speech during the 2014 U.N. General Assembly is the beginning of a new world order in the East.
Following World War II, the U.N. General Assembly witnessed many important and historic speeches that narrated the Cold War period. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's oration in 1974, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro's harangue in which he harshly chastised U.S. presidents John Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, Soviet politician Nikita Khrushchev's offensive speech in which he took his shoe off and hit it on the lectern while talking about U.S. imperialism and the hard-hitting allocutions of Latin American leaders who were stimulated by the wave of revolutions in the 1980s, are the first examples that spring to my mind. But, of course, there must have been many other ardent speeches that rocked the 1990s with the potential to make history. Even though they were verbalized by figures from different backgrounds and nationalities, they were all one and the same in that they criticized the U.S.'s and the West's brutal, occupational and neo-colonial policies. All these speeches were a consequence of the polarization of the world at that time.
In this period as a whole, from 1947 to the 1990s, the two main poles of the world, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, as well as secondary countries that escaped the Cold War paradigm, determined the world political map. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which is considered to have emerged with the Havana Declaration in 1970, failed due to its cosmopolitan nature. This movement, which incorporated 55 percent of the world's population and two-thirds of U.N. member countries, failed as it tried to gather incompatible countries such as Cuba and Saudi Arabia under the same roof. When we consider the fact that the five main victors of World War II (China, France, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S.) became the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) with absolute veto rights, it is not that difficult to see how and under what circumstances the U.N. was established. This alliance, which included Russia and China for the sake of global balance and status quo, is also the mainspring of current economic and political crises.
As Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote many times, while the U.S. was reconstructing Europe after World War II in line with its neo-colonial politics, it was well aware that it would encounter a bankrupt economy as a result of the Balkanization and fragmentation in Eastern European countries in the 1990s as well as its burgeoning ageing population. When we look at the overall picture of Europe today, we see that the U.K. is striving to recover and Germany's policies to consolidate the EU by taking itself as a center have failed. All this intensifies the EU crisis. The U.S.-centric system that was founded after World War II is dissolving in the Pacific region, Turkey, Continental Europe, the Middle East, Caucasus and even Africa. Turkey is protecting its own interests and values based on the public's democratic will under Erdoğan's leadership. This is a proposal of a fairer and more livable system for the poor in the entirety of the world and of a new world order that is rising from the East.
The U.S. has to acknowledge this historic fact. If it does not do so and tries to reverse the course of history, it will harm its own interests in the long term.
Last Update: September 16, 2016 21:56