In every new crisis that Turkey faces, the country presents new opportunities for understanding the basic ideas of intellectuals.
There is a class of journalists that the Republic of Turkey has trained in an 80-year endeavor that are statist, suspicious of democracy, Jacobin and despise the public at every opportunity. In every case, these people make speeches and express their positions strongly. This intellectual class, which seems to side with Western thought, an open society and democracy at first, may align themselves with the coup class during critical periods.
I predicted in one of my articles that I have written over the years that a new vision of Turkey has been developed: "Basic intellectual codes will change from now on." The future is not very promising for intellectuals who only state opinions concerning problems in Turkey, who are unaware of developments around the world and unconscious of the cultural hinterland of Turkey and cannot adapt to cultural developments because these people receive all of their energy from Turkey's domestic problems.
Our conventional intellectuals seem to side with Western thought and democracy at first sight. They believe in Western-type ideas and enlightenment philosophy. They try to enlighten the public, which they find relatively ignorant, as the knowledge of reality has been communicated to them. On the other hand, they look down on and advise excluded groups such as Islamists and Kurds and the left marginalized by the state, and they write to legitimize the prohibitive attitude of the state. These groups that seem to be nationalist, patriotic and statist have played an affirmative role against the requests of the world system.
They see the function of the world system regarding simplification of their studies as a part of their mental structure. During all these processes, they do not attribute power to the state in which they live and of which they are members.
The existence of the Western world is more important for them.
All election processes in Turkey are tough because Turkey is not like Scandinavian countries in which elections concern their own people alone. An election carried out in Turkey concerns nearly half of the world directly. How can political elections - in a country that is an irreplaceable ally of the U.S. and a member of NATO succeed in operating a democracy with all of its hardships, connect with all the states in the Middle East, is previously a protector and currently a neighbor of the Balkan states, is the neighbor of Russia, which has the largest land mass in the world, faces Israel, which is under the protection of Western countries in the Middle East in the zones of influence, has recently entered the agenda of Africa, is the next-door neighbor of Iran, which opposes the world system, is at the intersection of energy corridors that have caused the geopolitical balance in the world to be re-written - only be elections?
As we have written so far, Turkey is a country waiting for European Union membership with a population of five million in continental Europe.
The new Turkey, which makes its existence felt with its young population, growing economy, an army with the power to buy weapons, industry having the potential to export and cultural geopolitics, can only be perceived by new codes.
Generally, Turkish intellectuals have a mental pattern that is unaware of all of these developments, do not attribute power to the country and think that the level of the country is still as it was 40 years ago. With these circumstances, Turkish democracy faced a civil coup attempt three months before the March 30 elections. Conventional intellectuals kept their distance from civil politics in previous years and sided with coup perpetrators in accordance with their traditions.
The type of intellectual who cannot read developments in the world and is unaware of the potential of the country they live in and the reflexes of the public is a type of intellectual that is alienated from his or her own nation, and it is normal that these intellectuals have difficulty understanding the new Turkey.
With a population of nearly 80 million confident in democracy, a growing economy, large army, traditional dynamics, commercial and political organizations established with neighboring countries, great potential in the field of energy, Turkey, with an administrative culture inherited from the Ottoman empire, endeavors to prioritize benefits for its people while being at peace with the world system. Hence, its geopolitical potential should be perceived correctly by Turkish intellectuals. As far as we can see, conventional Turkish intellectuals and the policymakers of the world system cannot read the new Turkey.
About the author
İhsan Aktaş is Chairman of the Board of GENAR Research Company. He is an academic at the Department of Communication at Istanbul Medipol University.
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