American conspiracy?

If, in spite of all the restrictions, this process culminates into a full membership, i.e., if , with its 80 million inhabitants, Turkey obtains an equal say in the EU institutions, this would be a tremendous advantage, not only for Turkey, but also for the 300 million Turkic peoples and the Muslim world with a population of 1 billion.

Yet, this academician did not think in this way. For him, the EU process meant the end of an independent Turkey. Turkey did not have a chance of living or surviving within the EU. He had already decided what he as an individual would do if this happened. He would collect his belongings and move to the lands from which Turkey originated thousands of years ago. Because, for him, a Turkey that is an EU member would lose all its national assets.

These contrasting approaches mentioned above could be discerned in how two figures who are influential in conservative groups view the EU process. One of them would regard it as an opportunity for promoting our own values, including those relating to Islam to Europe. The other would tend to see it as a threat to our values and would argue that the nation should be protected from it.

The most important difference between these two approaches, in my opinion, is closely related to how we view ourselves and our nation. Those who have self-confidence form the first group while those who lack self-confidence fall into the second group.

The first group tends to regard themselves as the successors of one of the few nations that played a great role in shaping world history. For them, with its geographical location, rich history and cultural background, Turkey can produce original strategies to solve the most complex problems. It is naturally one of the players that comes to mind first in the settlement of regional problems. This group does not fear establishing relations with other people as they have full confidence in themselves. They tend to regard such confrontations as an opportunity to promote their own values.

The second group, however, does not have this self-confidence and for this reason they tend to treat Turkey as an object. For them, Turkey will never be capable of taking any step of its own volition. It cannot produce any strategy without receiving instructions from the superpowers. If Turkey appears to solve some problems which have become gangrenous inside the country, or if it plays a mediation role in major crises in the region, this is surely made possible because of the “others” plan. Because of their lack of confidence, they do not want to coexist with others. The more homogeneous the environment they live in, the happier they will become.

Without taking this background into consideration, it is impossible to understand the recent initiatives Turkey has launched inside and outside from the correct perspective. Those who think that this country is unlikely to produce a strategy on its own regard the Armenian, Kurdish or Alevi initiatives as conspiracies devised by the United States or other powers. The fact that intellectuals from Egypt view Turkey’s increasing prestige in the Middle East with envy or that the Turkish foreign policy is appreciated not only by Washington, Brussels and the Kremlin, but also by all the countries in the region does not change this.

The people who nurture this conspiratorial perspective have the same reactions, not only to these political achievements, but also regarding the successes of civil movements. For example, the same people tend to assess the Gülen movement, a civil movement which originated in Anatolia and spread throughout the entire world, from the same perspective. They ask the same question: How can a movement that originated in Turkey be this successful without external support?