Starting from Syria “Kurds lost” and “Turkey Lost” Although voiced by different segments of society, their discourses contain the same logic and are fueled by fear. In our geography, nationalist reactions that are nourished on the grounds of resistance to imperial occupations, if they are not directed towards big goals, after a while they become introverted and self-destructive like sharp vinegar.
The struggles in the Caucasus and Africa have therefore combined nationalist and religious motifs.
In Anatolia, the situation is quite different. Those who were forced to migrate to Anatolia from the Balkans and the Caucasus as they lost their homeland after the empire were forced to build a new “patriotism” they built. The anxiety of losing the last front marked the first years of the Republic.
The fear of partition has always been a justified trauma, and it is in this psychological atmosphere that we should read the policies of the Second World War. Of course, we should be able to criticize constructively, without being unfair, but we should not condemn them from today's perspective. The search for change in the world and especially in our region offers new opportunities.
It is unfair to the founding cadres of the Republic and to Turkey to freeze the practices of a century ago and treat them dogmatically. The threats and impossibilities of that day were different from those of today.
Today's global tensions and regional gaps can open a new space. Instead of the micro-nationalist or ethnicity-oriented fractures and fragmentations of the first period of the globalization process, there is a need for meetings and commonalities. Alliances and compromises arise from the need to act together against common threats.
If the Kuvva-i Milliyiyis and Mustafa Kemal were today “what would he do”, “how would he do it” We must seriously address these questions. Building a new communitarian, democratic and patriotic idea should simultaneously focus the peoples of the region, especially the Turkic world, Kurds, Arabs, Persians, on common goals.
Cultural relations, trade cooperation and finally political solidarity, including security policies, could create a new center of attraction from Central Asia to North Africa.