Anatolia
The Turks, living in this territory for a thousand years, have inherited some part of the culture of
every civilization which flourished here since prehistory. They have evolved a synthesis derived
from the cultural legacy of Anatolia, from the culture they brought with them from Central Asia,
and from the Muslim religion. Their talent for synthesis and their ecumenical character have
enabled them to blend these three strands together. The imprint of these heritage’s is readily
visible in the cultural fabric of Turkey today. You yourselves accept that your own civilization
originated in Mesopotamia (where civilization flowered for the first time), then Anatolia, the
Aegean basin, and Rome. We have at least as much right as you to adopt these ancient civilizations as our own, since they are those of our own land. In looking at our history as an insider of Anatolia, we can claim to have lived on this land since the beginning of the Anatolian civilizations, for both culturally and demographically the preceding civilization has each time been carried over, at least to a certain extent, into the succeeding one.
It was we, therefore, who brought about the Neolithic revolution. The Sumerians were also a
people whose language was agglutinative like ours and had the most important word, namely God, in common with us. The Anatolian Civilizations were created by indigenous peoples, Hattis,
Hurrians, Lydians, Lycians, Sea Peoples, and Minoan Cretans. Indo-European peoples such as the Hittites, the Luvians, and later the Ionians and the Phrygian s, were assimilated by the indigenous peoples, who had been already civilized.
The Hittites succeeded in establishing an empire which was the first Anatolian political union. It
had the same geopolitical core as the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, and suffered the same fate.
At Troy it was we Anatolians who resisted the foreign aggressor, with “the help of the Anatolian gods” and of men gathered from all corners of Anatolia, who did not even speak the same language.
Later we defended ourselves against the crusaders, then in 1915 against the Allies invading the
Dardanelles.
Homer – our countryman – in the ninth century BC signalled the beginning of what would later be
called `the Greek miracle’ in Anatolia. This `miracle’, which was created in the first place by
Anatolian `physicists’, crossed the Aegean Sea to mainland Greece. Science and knowledge of the cosmos developed on our shore of the Aegean; ethos, philosophy, and theatre on the other shore.
Both shores gave rise to cities which nurtured political and economic liberties.
The appearance of the Greek miracle in Anatolia following Crete, which was the cultural extension
of Anatolia, was predictable since civilization had been born in the East and moved to the West.
The Greek Revolution in 1820 prompted European historians to regard mainland Greece as the
starting point of their civilization, overlooking the cradle of the miracle. They did so because the
source was Anatolia, our country inhabited by Turks.
After the Greek miracle Anatolia was occupied by the Persians coming from one side and the
Macedonians coming from the other. Eventually they brought nothing but ruin and caused Anatolian science to lie dormant until the Renaissance. The remnants of this cultural heritage can be found today in Anatolian folklore, myths, fables, dances, clothes, houses, carpets, cooking, music, and common words. In this sense no one in western Europe can claim to be as Aegean as ourselves. To accept this fact, however, means that one first has to give up an ethnocentric perspective of history.
Later came the Roman Empire. Anatolia was its most important province, and her culture and
civilization revived accordingly. She became aware of belonging to the whole Mediterranean basin.
Christianity, which was just beginning at this time, received its name at Antioch, and by the efforts
of Paul of Tarsus-another of our countrymen -was spread throughout Anatolia where the first seven churches were built. The apostle John lived at Ephesus and his Gospel begins with a reference to the logos, a concept of Heraclitus. The pioneers of the new monotheistic religion encountered the superior rational culture of pagans for the first time in Anatolia. The classical culture was swept away by Christian humanism but only after Christianity had absorbed the ideas of the Greek philosophers Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, as well as the folk culture.
With the advent of the Eastern Roman Empire, monotheism became the State religion, and
Anatolian political unity was restored. This Empire had to struggle against the Sassanids to the east, the Muslim Arabs to the south, and the barbarians to the west. The Balkans became converted to Orthodoxy. The Christian religion, which had been born here, underwent an internal evolution. With time it became differentiated from Catholicism whose evolution unfolded in a different social, political, and cultural context.
The system of pronoia (fief-timar), an original creation of the Eastern Roman Empire, eventually
degenerated, resulting in the ruin of its agriculture. The Capitulations weakened its economy and
bubonic plague decimated its population. In the end the Empire was surviving only through the
efforts of its shrewd diplomacy. Everything changed in 1071 with the arrival of the Seljuk Turks,
followed by the Franks in the role of crusaders. Both of these groups wanted to fill the void left by
the decline of Byzantium.
Ostensibly the aim of the Franks was to liberate the Holy Places and Byzantium from the Muslim
Turks. Indeed, they captured the Holy Places but held them only for a short time, and soon showed scant sympathy towards the Orthodox Christians. In 1204 the fourth crusade captured
Constantinople. Throughout this period of two hundred years the Turks had gradually been settling
in Anatolia. The Anatolian peoples and the Muslim Turks, by living together on the same land during this time, gradually achieved a new cultural synthesis. A large contribution to this process was made by the Turkish mystics, Mevlânâ and Yunus-our countrymen.
Turkish philosophers had preceded Turkish warriors in the Middle East by two centuries, and the
conquest of Constantinople by five centuries. AI-Fârâbî, the first of these philosophers, was an
Aristotelian. Both he and, later, Avicenna attempted to create a synthesis between Greek
rationalism and Koranic dogma. Their method was dialectic, teaching as they walked with their
students.
Other Muslim philosophers included not only celebrated Platonists and Aristotelians but also natural scientists, influenced by the Anatolian Physicists. Muslim mystics were also influenced by
Neoplatonism.
The works of all these philosophers, who kept Greek philosophy alive and enabled it to develop,
were translated into Latin and, through Spain and Sicily, reached the rest of western Europe, where they contributed much to the Renaissance. Had Europe been fair, it should have added the word Islam to the equation which represented its cultural background to make it ‘Judeo-Christian-Islamic, Graeco-Roman’.
Islam, like the two other monotheistic religions, bears witness to Abraham. In spite of their
universal nature all three were revealed to the Semites and, though different, have points in
common. The Turks, just as much as the Indo-Europeans, were foreigners to the Semites. Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, was eastern Mediterranean in origin.
Ottoman Empire
That is why, when the Ottomans prevailed, the Byzantine philosophers were convinced that the
members of the two creeds could be reconciled. The hostility shown by the crusaders towards the
Orthodox Church merely facilitated the transmission of the Byzantine legacy to the Ottomans. The
Ottomans subsequently inherited many Byzantine institutions, either directly or through
intermediaries such as the Sassanids-Samanids, Omayyads and Abbasids, Grand-Seljuks, and
Anatolian Seljuks.
If the Roman Empire represented the extent of the spread of Western culture, it also played a no
less important part in the structure of the Ottoman Empire. In addition to the contribution of the
Greeks, whether converted to Islam or not, the Ottomans received from the East Roman Empire
the entire Balkan heritage, including Greece herself.
By 1517 the Ottoman Empire included all the European territories which had previously been
Byzantine, except for the south of Italy. The Patriarchate, newly endowed with political powers and
uniting previously separate Churches, became more powerful than it had ever been in the time of
Byzantium.
The zenith was reached at the end of the sixteenth century when the decline of the Empire began.
Factors which contributed to the downward trend were the growth of maritime trade by European
countries following voyages of exploration, the Capitulations, inflation, deterioration of the
ecosystem, the collapse of fundamental institutions such as the fief and the corps of Janissaries,
and the prohibitive cost of defending an oversized Empire.
In an attempt to regain the grandeur of the time of Suleyman the Magnificent, the first reforms in
the seventeenth century proposed a restoration of the previous conditions by strengthening the
central authority. Westernization reforms began only after the defeat by the Russians in 1774,
ratified by the treaty of Küçük Kaynarca.
The real basic cause of the decline of the Ottoman Empire was the fact that western Europe
managed to push forward its own evolution-by means of the Renaissance, the Reformation, the
French Revolution, liberalism, and the industrial revolution-to the stage of the nation-State, a
development process different from and more successful than that pursued by the Ottoman Empire.
Like Byzantium, the Ottomans never experienced a Renaissance period, for both remained loyal to the mission and the nature of the universal state.
The initial power of the Empire was itself the cause of delay in launching westernizing reforms.
When they eventually came they began with the army. The judicial system was then modernized by gradually withdrawing the administration of justice and education from the control of the religious authorities. Then ideas of homeland and liberty made their appearance, and an attempt was made to limit the power of the Sultan. However, the reforms were not carried through due to the rebellions of Christian communities in the Balkans, inspired by nationalism and stirred up by Russia, and the wars which followed.
The Capitulations evolved into a means of colonization. The Empire found itself in debt and could
not repay what it had borrowed. When bankruptcy came, its revenues were confiscated. Except for a short period, successive governments did not pay enough attention to the economy.
After the loss of the Balkans, Islamism and Westernism competed to give the Empire a new identity.
Turkey and Europe
The pro-Western faction won the day. Our War of Independence following the end of the First World War, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, resulted in the foundation of our nation-state, the final victory of secularism, and the breaking of ties with the Islamic and Ottoman past.
Despite Atatürk’s liberal approach, after the crisis of 1929 governments attempted to develop the
country under State control.
At the end of the Second World War there was a move in favour of economic liberalism, but the fear left by the Capitulations was such that it was impossible to adopt a truly liberal economic policy, and the Ottoman tradition of economic interventionism continued.
Distrust of the provinces tended to reinforce centralization. The habit of seeing the businessman as the non-Muslim merchant of the Empire who had collaborated with the foreigner prevented the
development of the private sector. By the middle of the nineteen-seventies a planned economy
based on import-substituting industrialization has been in place. The world economic crisis triggered by two oil shocks made the failure of this policy inevitable.
The reforms implemented by those in power, both at the time of the Ottomans and after the
proclamation of the Republic, had the effect of producing a certain polarization between the
various factions and political parties. This became more apparent during the democratic regime.
Despite advocating basically similar economic policies, the two principal parties became engaged in a rivalry so violent that it ultimately led the young people to throw themselves into an armed
struggle. With the subversive activities of external forces, the economic crisis turned itself into a
political crisis in which the authority of the State was negated by terrorism. It was in these
circumstances that the military intervention of 1980 took place.
Since then, and particularly since 1983, we have radically changed our economic policy. We have
liberalized foreign trade and exchange regimes, and abolished price controls. We have invested
State revenues exclusively in developing a national infrastructure. We have facilitated the activities of entrepreneurs and the private sector. We have begun a policy of privatization, encouraged foreign capital to invest in our country, and increased savings by improving the return that they yield. We have given preferential support to exports by maintaining realistic exchange rates.
Thus the energies which for centuries had been repressed are now released, enabling Turkish
businessmen and engineers to establish themselves in the outside world. Economic stability is
assured by the operation of market forces. The healthy growth of our economy is demonstrated by
the rapid increase in exports. This has allowed us at last to overcome the balance of payments
deficit which had existed ever since the Ottoman era. We have also accelerated urban development by the transfer to local authorities of large and regular financial resources.
Westernization reforms have thus been fully implemented.
As a country which developed relatively late, what should have been done at the beginning, namely liberal economic reforms, could only be realized at the end of the process. Westernization reforms in general, and economic reforms in particular, have provided us with the rationalist culture that escaped us at the time of the Renaissance. By westernizing, our country has become modern, and by modernizing it has become westernized. Attaining the same economic level as Europe is now only a matter of time, and perhaps only a short time.
During the decline of the Ottoman Empire the Western image of the Turk deteriorated badly. The
Turk, who had been feared and respected during the sixteenth century, became despised in defeat.
By degrees the West came to regard the Ottoman as ignorant and barbaric, and began to direct its policy towards the `liberation’ of `oppressed’ Christians. In fact, there has never been a shortage of reasons to attack a country in decline. Religion merely served as a camouflage for the true reason which was basically political. Moreover, as a result of the new currents created by the French Revolution, Christians had begun to want their national independence. Multinational states were passing into history.
It is clear that wars between western Europe and the Turks gave rise to a particular view of us. But
has not the West made war upon itself, especially in the name of religion, more often than we
have? Leaving aside the eight million and twelve million men who met their death on the
battlefields of the First and Second World Wars respectively, let us remember that the Thirty Years
War cost two million lives and the Napoleonic Wars two and a half million. The number of victims of a thousand years of Turco-European conflicts is in no way comparable with these figures.
Why then is our image in the West so bad? I believe that the answer to this question is to be found
in the West itself.
The development of western Europe after the Renaissance soon made it profoundly different from
Ottoman society. Montesquieu used this difference as an instrument on behalf of the evolution of
French society. According to him, it was clear that France must follow a path opposite to that of
Ottoman despotism. The economic and political forces for change in France defined the kind of
State and society they wanted as the antithesis, the negation, the inverse of the Ottoman model.
They represented the Turk as being what they must not be, and choosing him as their `negative
identity’.
Ethnocentrism grew in western Europe, notably during the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, as a result of progress and the growth in material power. Together with it there
developed an intellectual movement away from religion and faith. The resultant self-idolization
increased the need for, and reinforced the negative identity attached to the Ottomans. Historical
studies based on race and language also made their contribution. The Westerner took for granted
that all good and positive values were the product of his own society, whereas the Turks possessed all the undesirable and negative qualities. This Manichean attitude gathered additional strength each time there was a crisis in Europe, sometimes directed against the Turks, sometimes against other ethnic groups.
The reforms undertaken by the Turks for their survival were interpreted as being efforts to correct
faults in themselves which they had finally recognized. The crisis of identity suffered by the Turks
at the end of the Empire and under the Republic, and the fact that certain occidentalists perceived
Western society as the ideal model to imitate, confirmed the division of roles: on the one hand the
Turks were struggling to be accepted by the West; on the other the Europeans, refusing to be
satisfied by any effort towards westernization whatsoever, were convinced that the Turk could
never become a Westerner, and criticized him unceasingly in order to prove it.
After the intervention of the army in 1980 Turkey’s image has further deteriorated. The socio-
political segments with left leanings, whose historic mission seemed to come to an end in the West, raised the banner against Turkey on the grounds of violations of human rights in general and ethnic rights in particular. It is far from me to defend the military regime. But I cannot help noting that at more or less the same time some people in the member-states of the Community were conceiving the process of integration as concomitant with the disintegration of their societies into regional and ethnic fundamentals which they sometimes qualified as retribalization. As a reaction to this development, ultra-right parties and movements sprouted, soon directing their racial hatred at guest workers. The atavistic feelings thus aroused in Europe were not admitted by the majority, but were instead projected on to the Turks. Those Europeans who failed to love their next-door neighbour of different race started defending the human rights of those who were too far away to be visualized, while supporting the so-called oppressed ethics in or out of their country in a redemptive effort.
It is our sincere desire that this false image of us should be put right. It neither corresponds with
reality, nor does it reflect the truth. To build relationships between western Europe and ourselves
on such a foundation could only be the source of dangerous instability. If one thinks back to the
terrible events prior to and during the Second World War, one would expect from Europe a little
more self-criticism.
Despite the injustices inflicted on us during our long history, Turkey’s full membership of the European Community would not cause any major difficulties for us. The reforms in Turkey
secularized not only relations between the State and religion but also our manner of viewing history and life. Great sufferings matured us. The role previously played by religion in political and social life was reduced by the adoption of secularism, with religion becoming internalized within
individuals in the form of increased faith. Helped by the moderate nationalism of Atatürk, this put
an end to our crisis of identity.
Secularism has given us an intellectual and moral steadfastness which is capable of welcoming all culture and all technology without threat to our identity. Our full membership of the Community should not cause any particular difficulties for you either.
Our country, its culture, its religion, its institutions, its regime, and its economy are all now
sufficiently comparable with your own. Moreover, Turkey is physically part of the geopolitical area
of the West. As Edgar Morin commented, Europe is a continent without fixed borders which have
been changing constantly during the course of history.
According to him, Europe is:
………… a complex whose attribute is to bring together the greatest diversities without confusion,
and to associate opposites in a non-separable manner… there is nothing that was hers from the
beginning, and nothing which is exclusively hers today.. That which underlies the unity of European culture is not the Judeo-Christian-Graeco-Roman synthesis, but the not only complementary but also competitive and antagonistic interplay between these separate traditions, each of which has its own logic.
When integrating itself with a greater whole each country brings with it its experience of life. If, for
a man, the best and worst moments of his life constitute the value of his experience, perhaps the
same is true for nations. No country has ever experienced such magnificence and glory, nor such
trials and suffering, as we have.
To embrace Turkey, Europe’s view of her own history and perception of the world will need to be as secular and universal as ours is. The Europe capable of accepting Turkey as a full member of the Community will have risen above ethnocentrism. No longer needing to project her own negative aspects to other countries, she will be at peace with herself, will renounce all Manicheism, and, encompassing within herself both good and bad, will arrive at a global vision appropriate to her enlarged geographic borders. She will understand how illogical it is for a Europe not to include Anatolia, the cradle of civilization in the northern Mediterranean. She will recognize the Aegean Sea as a stretch of water which unites the two coasts on which appeared one of the greatest civilizations of the world.
Today Turkey is the first country with a Muslim population which has established a republican
regime, created a nation-state, founded a secular society, become truly democratic, and is
industrializing rapidly.
I am confident that, unless it diverts from the course on which it has set out, Turkey will soon
become a fully developed country with the creativity generated by its cultural heritage duly
preserved and reinvigorated in line with the requirements of our time. Thanks to its geopolitical
location this development will not fail to have an impact on the Middle-East, the Balkans, Central
Asia, and eastern Europe.
Turkey has knocked at the door of the EC, fully aware that both the Community and Turkey can
survive without our full membership. However, the significance of the answer will be no less
profound.
Turgut Özal, Turkey in Europe, Europe in Turkey
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