Copyright Cover Photo by Levent Ağaoğlu in 1975, New Mosque, (Yeni Cami) Istanbul
ASAM Conference by Prof Dr Azmi Özcan
Article by Veyis Güngör
I watched a video of the ‘Traditional Saturday Conferences’ organized by ASAM and Eurasia Bir Foundation on the first day of the first month of the new year,. The topic of the meeting held online that week was “The Sin of the Turks; It was titled “The History of Colonialism” . The guest speaker is our esteemed historian Prof. Dr. Azmi Ozcan . I met Azmi Özcan in London during my student years, when he was doing his doctorate on ‘Contemporary History’. I would like to briefly share with you, my esteemed readers, three important issues that Azmi Özcan, who is also the founding Rector of Bilecik University, drew attention to at the conference.
At the conference, Prof Azmi Özcan, who also presented a history reading and made an analysis of civilization. The three issues that focused on in his speech are as follows:
- The historical journey of the Turks,
- The philosophy of existence in the Turks,
- The sin of the Turks.
THE HISTORICAL JOURNEY OF THE TURKS
Starting his speech by stating that he also embarked on an academic journey to make sense of existence and creation, Prof. Özcan said, “Turks, one of the most ancient communities in the world, started their historical journey from Asia”. Pointing out that the Chinese, the Indians and the Mongols, along with the Turks, went on the same journey, Özcan said that the Chinese were there where they were then, and that the Indians also stayed in the same geography, and the populations of these two countries are approaching almost two billion today.
Saying that the Mongols melted into the Turks, Prof. Özcan stated that while Turks should be in the same number under normal conditions, today the population of Turks in the world is around three hundred and fifty million. Saying that the difference is the result of the price Turks paid during their historical journeys, Özcan underlined that despite the fact that Turks paid the price during their historical journey, they gained an identity and personality that other communities did not have.
“This identity and personality has revealed a Turkish worldview by trying to catch the secret of existence and discovering the meaning of life,”
he said.
TURKS’ WORLD VIEW AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF BEING
Prof. Özcan referred to the Turks developing a worldview as is meant in the most advanced and developed democracies that humanity has reached today. Özcan, put forward this worldview as a broad understanding that people are not alienated, excluded, humiliated, or exploited because of their innate characteristics, and said,
“Turks allow all kinds of beliefs, thoughts and identities to freely express themselves wherever they go, in any state they have established. It prepared the right conditions and created a culture that accepts this as a philosophy of being.”
he added.
Stating that an important feature of this culture is that it never poses a threat to the state and the values of the nation, Özcan said, “Because in the understanding of the Turks, the state is an ‘indispensable’ institution in order to realize their justification for existence.”
Saying that the most concise explanation and expression of the existence of Turks in the world is in the Kutadgu Bilig and Orkhon Inscriptions , Özcan said;
“The Turks have existed to eliminate oppression from the face of the earth and to establish justice.“
“The practical expression of this is to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and accept all existence and all people as a trust from Allah to the Turkish khan , Özcan stated that a state is a condition to realize all these. It is for these ideals that the Turks have established nearly 130 states throughout history.”
Turks had the distinction of being the nation that developed the most projects in the world. Turks, who have the qualifications of being the nation for which the most plans are made in the world, are known as a community that sits on the most threatened lands in the history of the world.
According to Azmi Özcan, the answer to the question of how the Turks, who managed to establish their state without interruption despite all these threats and have survived to the present day, achieved this, is “having a strong state tradition and a strong army in the sense that Turks attribute to life” is lying.
THE SINS OF THE TURKS
Prof. Azmi Özcan says, ‘In the course of the last thousand years of history, Turks have three basic sins‘ and expresses them as follows:
– Turks had stopped the Mongols. At a time when the history of Islam was on the verge of extinction, the Turks stopped the Mongols around present-day Lebanon in 1260 by Sultan Kutuz and Sultan Baybars. If it had not been stopped, the story of Islamic history would have ended.
– Turks stopped the Crusades in the same centuries by Kılıçarslan, by Zengis. In the continuation, Byzantium, which was the first state of Christianity, Istanbul was taken by the Turks. The holy lands of the Christians were inhabited by the Anatolian Turks.
– The Turks are the only nation that does not surrender at the point of resisting colonialism. By 1900, eighty-five percent of the world map was occupied. The remaining fifteen percent belonged to the Turks.
Of course, other sins can be added, Prof. Özcan stated these three main sins and the ones that accompany them in his historical journey.
As a guest of the traditional Saturday conferences of ASAM and Avrasya Bir (Eurasian Union) Foundation, the information we briefly conveyed from Azmi Özcan’s speech shows us that the historical journey of the Turks continues. The world view developed by the Turks during their ancient history journey will undoubtedly not please the systems that want to enslave humanity and put themselves in the place of God, as it has happened throughout history.
However, their displeasure does not necessitate Turks to give up on this journey, to change their worldview, to abandon their understanding of being, such as tolerating the created because of its creator. These characteristics of Turks are seen as a sin by those imperialists and all kinds of modern and digital colonialists, defending ‘Über men’ ideas, where ego and ambition come to the fore.
Humanity, again needs the fact and imagination contained in the forms;
as Âşık Pasha expressed,
“Since the ancestor is the sky and the mother earth for this body, human; means the son of the universe. When man’s father is the sky and his mother is the earth; He is the son of the universe.”
or as in the Orkhon Inscriptions ,
“When the blue sky above and the rainy ground below were made (created), human beings were made (created) between the two.”
Veyis GUNGOR
http://www.dibace.net/fikir-yorum/turklerin-gunahi/
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