It is Time to Embrace Eurasia

Where does Turkey belong? To the East? To the West? There is only one answer we can give to this question: It depends on where you view Turkey from. We are a strange country that appears western from the East and eastern from the West; southern from the North and northern from the South. We have been unable to classify Turkey under any of these labels. We are truly confused.

The question then is: Do we really need to belong to a particular side? Is it not this cultural prosperity which makes us rich? We are European, but also Middle Eastern and Eurasian.

Since the time the Ottoman Empire started to collapse, our eyes were always riveted on Europe. We were partly obliged to do this. In order to not be crushed under the developing West, we set about painstakingly endeavoring to Westernize ourselves amid the final death throes of the Ottoman Empire.

The process was initiated with the modernization of the army. As a matter of fact, we did not choose to Westernize after reading Voltaire, saying, "Wow, they are such intellectual people," or after seeing the works of Rembrandt and saying, "Wow, they have perfect painters!" We were obliged to become a part of this process in order to survive.

This never-ending process still continues today in the form of European Union harmonization laws and we just don't know when this journey will come to an end.

We have always seen the West as the only option and direction. We have badly neglected the lands we live in and our historical and cultural ties to these lands even though we were rejected by the West.

Which parts of those lands did we neglect? The Balkans, the Caucasus, the Slavic world and Central Asia. Briefly, Eurasia and the Middle East.

World-famous Turkish historian Professor İlber Ortayli once asked a question at a conference: "I wonder how many intellectuals we have in Turkey who could show where Haifa, a former port town of ours for centuries, is on the map." What about Damascus? What about Aleppo? How many people can show where Aleppo is on the map today?

Let's leave the Middle East to one side for the time being and go to Eurasia. Let's name two cities from our northern neighbor Ukraine. We can't? Okay. Then let's name two cities in Georgia apart from Tbilisi. No? What do we know about our dear Azerbaijan? Can't our university graduates name a city other than the capital, Baku?

Conversely, we know France street by street and can enumerate all the states in the United States, can't we?

Okay, enough agitation.

All the provocative sentences I have written so far are aimed at revealing a fact or two.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, we came out of our hypnotic trance. We started to rediscover the part of the world we lived in and also started appreciating the fact that the world was not made up of only the West and NATO and that we were not surrounded only by enemies. However, after shaking off these injurious views, another set of remarks favoring an ultranationalist and pro-Eurasian stance appeared before us. This time, they say : "We have to turn our backs on the West and "forage" for an enemy in the West, not in the East."

While the humiliating attitudes of the West toward us whetted the appetite of our conservative people for our Ottoman past, they tilted the nationalists toward becoming pro-Eurasian.

Unfortunately we are not a group of people capable of viewing Eurasia from a realistic and sound-minded angle. Looking at Eurasia from the angle of enmity toward the West, thereby with a Pan-Turkic mindset, or from the angle of enmity toward Russia have failed to develop our relations with Eurasia to the expected extent.

Turkey should be interested in Eurasia as part of its multifaceted foreign policy and should make headway in that direction. Gravitating toward Eurasia doesn't mean turn our backs on the West. Turkey's becoming a regional force is contingent on this ability to maintain its closeness to both regions.

The things done or to be done by politics must not hoodwink us into thinking that something is actually being achieved in these efforts. Our ties to Eurasia still look like seasonal rains. The press continually publishes photos of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sincerely shaking hands with Putin, Nazarbayev and Aliyev. This is nice and how things should be. However, this situation gives birth to the illusion that everything is on the right track. For instance, there is no guarantee that Turkish-Russian relations will always follow a similar course, even after Mr. Erdoğan and Mr. Putin end their terms in office.

Sound relations with Eurasia can be established through economic and cultural cooperation.

One of the soundest and deepest relations ever established with the region after the collapse of the Soviets has been achieved under the instructions and guidance of Mr. Fethullah Gülen and the schools opened by Turkish businessmen.

In developing our cultural relations, the Dialogue Eurasia Platform, an international NGO, has assumed a great role. It has founded national committees consisting of intellectuals from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Ukraine. It has brought together men of culture. The platform has so far realized many joint projects, the most important of which is the DA Magazine, published in Russian and Turkish in İstanbul, Moscow and Almaty. The magazine is one of the most prestigious periodicals in the region.

Our intellectuals, cultural envoys and businessmen should also be interested in Eurasia.

The places where our engineers and contractors can find business opportunities are of course not in Europe. The very first places we should be in contact with are Russia, Ukraine and the other republics in Central Asia.

Currently, the biggest force of Eurasia is Russia. We cannot base our relations with this country on the prejudices coming from history. It is impossible to establish strong ties with the region by neglecting Russia.

With the exception of 23 years, we have always been in peace with Russia during our 530-year history. Is it really too much to have fought for 23 years during those 530 years? Germany and Russia, for instance, have such strong and sincere relations today that they don't even mention the wars they fought against each other and the German occupation of the entire Russian soil between Germany and Moscow less than a century ago. We should establish rational relations based on our common interests.

A very close Russian friend of mine once told me, "If Russians were Muslim, they would like Turks and if Turks were Orthodox, they would be like Russians." When we push aside our prejudices as Russians and Turks and when we get rid of our enmity stemming from the Cold War years, we will see that it is not at all difficult to establish dialogue with each other.

We should also consider that the economic and political conjuncture of the day which binds us together to an important degree may well set us apart tomorrow. Therefore, lasting friendships and cooperation should not be seasonal. Such relations can be established with the realization of long-term projects.

I find the economic projects launched by the Turkish Confederation of Industrialists and Businessmen (TUSKON) in the region very beneficial. The number of such projects should with every day that passes.

It is time to embrace Eurasia so that the Middle East's turn may come.

* Erkam Tufan Aytav is secretary-general of the Dialogue Eurasia Platform and editor-in-chief of DA Magazine.