In the current age of global chaos and uncertainty, a stabilizing power emerges and that power is Türkiye, according to Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun.
“Türkiye today is a stabilizing power that serves regional and global peace,” Altun said on Monday as he delivered the opening speech at an exhibition titled “Difficult Years” detailing the political, social and cultural events, and notions of 1970s Türkiye through original documents and photographs, among other primary sources, in the capital Ankara.
Before juxtaposing the Türkiye of today and that of 50 years ago, Altun defined the 1970s as a tumultuous decade that began with a memorandum and closed with a military coup. He outlined that the politics of the era failed to resolve social and economic problems, thus lost its esteem, with political polarization morphing into social polarization that led to ideological schisms and armed clashes.
Altun listed unregulated migration to cities, unplanned urbanization, economic crises, poverty and policies that excluded exports to encourage imports as the series of problems that plagued Türkiye during that period.
He explained that the country was “heavily affected” by an intense energy crisis that gripped the world in the 1970s, which “only further deepened the woes” amongst the public, and argued that the 1970s happened “because of a Türkiye that failed to act on its own behalf and make itself known in the international arena.”
“We saw a weakened Türkiye stuck in the polarized global politics of the 1970s Cold War era. We saw an array of problems around the world and a Türkiye wanting a strong political leadership and stability that will face these problems and take concrete steps,” Altun said.
Despite “correct” moves like the Cyprus Peace Operation, he went on to say, the following administrations were intimidated through the American embargo and similar sanctions, and failed to maintain their autonomous policy on the island of Cyprus.
Moving onto the 1980s and 1990s, Altun described the next two decades in Türkiye as a period wherein external dependency was institutionalized, politics was withheld by guardianship, and anti-democratic practices and political instability reigned.
He then jumped ahead and said the year 2002, which marked the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) rise to power, saw Türkiye undergo a “serious transformation” that made it a place where people could talk about the aforementioned issues as “the problems of old Türkiye.”
“Along with the guidance and successful practices of President Erdoğan, we discarded the system of Western dependency and colonialism,” Altun stressed. “We have enabled Türkiye to develop an autonomous policy in both economic and foreign policy, therefore, start winning day by day, and became first a regional power, and then a global player.
“This Türkiye of today is the assurance of peace in our region and around the world. While the old Türkiye was withdrawn and unfortunately unstable, today’s Türkiye is an island of stability in spite of regional and global crises,” Altun declared.
The exhibition highlights the importance of understanding Türkiye’s politics and its sociopolitical reality in order to better understand today and design the future, Altun remarked. “The images and documents in the exhibition shed light on the era and equally expose the causes of problems that stemmed in the two subsequent decades,” he said.
The “Difficult Years” exhibition project displays a vast collection of newspapers, stamps, books, film posters and photographs from football clubs, among other materials to question and sample the events and notions that shaped the decade.
It features original documents and materials relating to the political instability, governments and coalitions, political killings, economic crises and poverty, clashes between the left wing and the right wing, the 1971 memorandum, the “Bloody May 1” incident in 1977, the 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation, terrorist and anarchy attacks, martial law and sports events of the era.
The Murat 124 and Anadol, the first automobiles manufactured in Türkiye in the 1970s, also took center stage at the exhibition.
“Difficult Days” will be open to visitors until Jan. 20, 2023.
