Tweet
This speech was given on October 16th, 2009, in Sarajevo, by Ahmet Davutoglu. Ahmet Davutoglu was formerly foreign minister of Turkey and is currently chief advisor to Erdogan. It think the ideas he espouses are truly frightening for the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Middle East.
The distinguished characteristic of the Balkans is its geographic position in Afro-Euro-Asia, and its history links to this geography. Three characteristics of the Balkans can be identified. The first is, that the Balkan region is a buffer zone in a geopolitical sense. Usually it is seen as a buffer zone in transition from Europe to Asia, from Asia to Europe, from Baltic to Mediterranean, even to Africa, from North to South, from East to West it is a geopolitical buffer zone. I will explain what it means, why it is so important, and why this characteristic had any impact on the history of the Balkans.
The second characteristic is the geo-economic characteristic. The Balkan region has been a region of transaction in geo-economic sense. From the time of Greek civilization, ancient times until today, the Balkan region has been a region of economic transaction, from sea to inside, to the land corridors of Eastern Europe, from East to West. It was and it is even today a transaction of geo-economics.
The third characteristic is that the Balkan region is a geo-cultural interaction region. So, several cultures interacted in the Balkans. Waves of migrations, many peoples came and mixed each other. If you have a region with these three characteristics, a geo-political buffer zone, geo-cultural interaction and geo-economic transaction, you have two alternative destinies in history.
One destiny is that you can be either the center of world politics, or you will have to be the victim of world competition which means that you will have to be a periphery of another power. Therefore, Balkan history is either success history or a story of failures and being victim of this competition. Today for example, when we speak of the Balkans, usually we think that the Balkan region is a periphery of Europe, not the center of Europe, but the periphery of Europe. Is it so? Is the Balkan region really a periphery? No. In fact, the Balkan region is one of the strategic centers of Afro-Euro-Asia. Why did it turn out this way? Why do we have such a perception of periphery? If you ask for example Mehmed-paša Sokolović he wouldn’t say that Sarajevo or Saloniki is a periphery of the Ottoman state or a periphery of Europe. He would think that this is right the center of everything, like the Nasrudin-hodža story. But it was true.
Therefore, look at the history. The first big state, imperial state, which emerged from Balkan region was the Alexandrian Empire. It emerged from the Balkans although the center of the Alexandrian Empire was not the Balkans. There was no Alexandrian police in the Balkans. All the big cities of the Empire of Alexander were in Anatolia, in Egypt, in Iran, in Afghanistan. That Empire emerged from the Balkans, but the center of the Empire was not the Balkans. In Roman Empire, both, Eastern and Western Roman Empire, Balkan region was a periphery. Roman Emperors mentioned the Balkans only when they decided to have a military preparation to go to Asia. So, they didn’t see the Balkan region as the center. The only exception throughout history, a positive exception, is the Ottoman state. During the Ottoman state, the Balkan region became the center of world politics in the 16th century. This is the golden age of the Balkans. I am not saying this because we inherited Ottoman legacy, but this is a historical fact. Who run world politics in 16th century? - Your ancestors. They waren’t all Turks, some were Slavic origins, some were Albanian origins, some were even converted Greek origins, but they run the world politics. So, Mehmed-paša Sokolović is a good example. If there was no Ottoman state, Mehmed paša would be a poor Serbian man who lived just to have a small farm or whatever he had. At that time there was no developed farm in that part of the world. But, because of the Ottoman state he became the leader of world politics. Therefore, Ottoman history is a history of Balkan region, a history of the central character of Balkan region in world politics. All the main trade routes were in the Balkans at that time. Saloniki became the center of economic activities. Before, Saloniki was a small town. But during Ottoman times, Saloniki became one of the main centers of trade economy. All the Mediterranean trade went through Saloniki.
If you follow the migrations of xxxs, you can understand the flaw of money. Why did Saloniki become the biggest xxxish community from 16th to 19th century, even in 19th century? Significant populations in Saloniki were xxxs. What were they doing there? They were monitoring and making all the trade from Saloniki to the North, to Euro-Asia. Mediterranean economics to Euro-Asia were administered through Saloniki and Istanbul. Similarly, Belgrade was like a village, or may be a town in 14th century. During the Ottoman state Belgrade became the central city, pivotal city of the Danube and of central Europe in the economic and cultural sense. There were hundreds of mosques and churches. Sarajevo is a miracle, like the miniature of this heritage. If you understand Sarajevo, you can understand all the Ottoman history. Because it is, according to the saying, if you understand a person you can understand that century. Like Hegel, if you understand Hegel you can understand the German mentality of the 19th century. It is the prototype of all that mentality. Similarly, Sarajevo is the prototype of the Ottoman civilization. Sarajevo has been the prototype of the rise of Balkans.
Similarly, later in 19th century there was Mehmed Ali-paša. He is an Albanian, but he did not only become one of the leading figures of Ottoman state at that time, he is the founder of modern Egypt. If there had not been an Ottoman tradition, Egyptians would not have seen any Albanian in their life. And Mehmed Ali-paša would have been at most Mehmed Ali-bey living somewhere in the Balkans only as an intelligent person. So, leading figures are the prototypes of a civilization. What can we learn from this? The Balkan region has a destiny because of these geo-political, geo-cultural, geo-economic characteristics. Either the Balkan region will be the center of everything or it will be a victim of everything.
Why was the Balkan region divided since the 19th century and from that time until now? Whenever we speak of the Balkan region, we speak of divisions, clashes, ethnic clashes, not civilization. Absence of geo-cultural interaction means cultural clash. Absence of geo-economic transaction means economic stagnation. Absence of political authority means becoming a buffer zone of all the conflicts. Now, it is time to reunite all these. Then we will rediscover the spirit of the Balkans.
Which type of policy should be implemented in order to achieve this? First, in order to prevent a geopolitical buffer zone character of the Balkans, which makes the Balkans a victim of conflicts, we have to create a new sense of unity in our region, we have to strengthen the regional ownership and foster a regional common sense. If you look at the history, we are human beings and we are not living in paradise. Human beings are grey, like history, or history is grey like human beings. We are not angels and we are not animals. It is up to us to decide and to do something. Similarly, history is grey. It depends which part of history you are taking as a selection to interpret today. Balkan history is not only a history of conflicts. Throughout the centuries, from 15th to 19th century, Balkan history was a success story. We can reinvent this success. We can reestablish this success through creating an original ownership, through creating a new multicultural coexistence and through establishing a new economic zone. Multicultural coexistence is very important because the rise of a civilization can only be understood through analyzing the city structures and the cultural life in these cities. If a city is uniform it means that that civilization is not so diversified. It is just an invert looking closed to society, like before in the Roman Empire, the city of Rome was purely full of Romans. People living there was Romans. But later when the Roman Empire was established it became a cosmopolitan city. Similarly, as Istanbul and all other Balkan cities were multicultural. We lived together and because of that strong cultural richness, there was a rise of interaction. The backwardness is purification such as in the 1990s. Those who organized the massacres in Srebrenica, Eastern Bosnia, are barbaric people who did not want to tolerate cultural differences. The spirit of Sarajevo is the spirit of coexistence, the spirit of living together. How does Turkey look at the Balkans? We want to have a new Balkan region, based on political dialogue, economic interdependency and cooperation, integration and cultural harmony and tolerance.
This was the Ottoman Balkan. We will reestablish this Balkan. People are calling me neo-Ottoman, therefore I don’t won’t to refer to the Ottoman state as a foreign policy issue. What I am underlying is the Ottoman legacy. The Ottoman centuries of the Balkans were success stories. Now we have to reinvent this. Why did I come to Bosnia for less then 24 hours? Because Bosnia is in a very critical transformational stage these days. I want to show solidarity with BiH. I want to show that we are here. We are with the Bosnians and we will continue to be with the Bosnians. Why is this transition so important? Because the territorial integrity and the political unity of BiH should be protected in order to have security in our region. If BiH is not secure and stable, we cannot have security and stability in the Balkans. The Turkish perspective towards this region is to reestablish a new Balkan region based on this understanding of political dialogue, solving the issues through political dialogue, intensifying the economic relations and cultural coexistence and harmony.
In 1990s, we faced many difficulties in BiH, in Kosovo and in Macedonia. When those difficulties occurred where did the Bosniaks, Albanians, Turks, Macedonia and Kosovo, turn their face? To Turkey. It is a historical relation. Let me give you an example making the analogy from the beginning. This geo-political buffer zone character, geo-cultural interaction and geo-economic transaction, are the same characteristics of Iraq and Afghanistan. Why did we have problems in Yugoslavia, in BiH, in Iraq and in Afghanistan? Because all these three states were the mini models of their respective regions. BiH is a small Balkans. You have Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox respectively Bosniaks, Serbs, Croats living together as a miniature of the Balkans. Similarly, Iraq is a small Middle East: Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Shi’as and Sunnis. Afghanistan is a small subcontinent in Central Asia with Tajiks, Pashtuns and Hazaras. Therefore, these counties are critical countries. If you manage them properly, you can manage the region. If you cannot manage them properly, you will have a regional crisis. What is Turkey? Turkey is a small Balkan, a small Middle East, a small Caucasus. We have more Bosnians living in Turkey than in Bosnia, more Albanians living in Turkey than in Albania, more Chechens living in Turkey than in Chechnya, more Abkhazians living in Turkey than in Abkhazia, and we have Kurds, Arabs, Turks together. Why do we have all this? Because of the Ottoman legacy. For all these Muslim nationalities in these regions Turkey is a safe haven. The homeland, yes, most welcome, Anatolia belongs to you, our Bosnian brothers and sisters. And be sure that Sarajevo is ours. If you want to come, you come, but we want you to be safe and secure here as the owners of Sarajevo and BiH. Therefore, we have to take care. What happens in BiH is our responsibility. Today I heard one diplomat saying, I don’t want to give the name of the country, that in less of one weak, despite of all political issues, we intensified our efforts on BiH. When I met Hillary Clinton on the Armenian issue in Zürich, I raised the Bosnian issue and we discussed Bosnia more than Armenia.
When president Haris Silajdžić came to Ankara last week, we had many activities. I changed my schedule. I decided to come to Sarajevo, and from here, I will go to Armenia. One western diplomat asked why are you suddenly parachuting this issue? Why are you involved in Bosnia like parachutes? I told our ambassador who brought this news to me: “Tell them we didn’t go to Bosnia with parachutes, we went by horse and stayed there with the Bosnians sharing the same destiny!” Yes, whatever happens in the Balkans, in Caucasus, in Middle East, it is our issue. One day I will be in Iraq, another day in Azerbaijan, another day in Bosnia, as minister of foreign affairs. Whatever happens, it is in our foreign policy agenda. Again with Secretary Clinton I made a joke. In June, when I sat in Ankara, I made a 1000 kilometers circle around my office. There are 23 countries. All of them are our relatives and they expect something from us. If we draw a 3000 kilometers circle, there are 72 countries, and every day in our Ministry news can come from any of these countries which will change our schedule. This is our historical debt. When I say strategic debt, I mean this historical debt.
The second characteristic is the geo-economic characteristic. The Balkan region has been a region of transaction in geo-economic sense. From the time of Greek civilization, ancient times until today, the Balkan region has been a region of economic transaction, from sea to inside, to the land corridors of Eastern Europe, from East to West. It was and it is even today a transaction of geo-economics.
The third characteristic is that the Balkan region is a geo-cultural interaction region. So, several cultures interacted in the Balkans. Waves of migrations, many peoples came and mixed each other. If you have a region with these three characteristics, a geo-political buffer zone, geo-cultural interaction and geo-economic transaction, you have two alternative destinies in history.
One destiny is that you can be either the center of world politics, or you will have to be the victim of world competition which means that you will have to be a periphery of another power. Therefore, Balkan history is either success history or a story of failures and being victim of this competition. Today for example, when we speak of the Balkans, usually we think that the Balkan region is a periphery of Europe, not the center of Europe, but the periphery of Europe. Is it so? Is the Balkan region really a periphery? No. In fact, the Balkan region is one of the strategic centers of Afro-Euro-Asia. Why did it turn out this way? Why do we have such a perception of periphery? If you ask for example Mehmed-paša Sokolović he wouldn’t say that Sarajevo or Saloniki is a periphery of the Ottoman state or a periphery of Europe. He would think that this is right the center of everything, like the Nasrudin-hodža story. But it was true.
Therefore, look at the history. The first big state, imperial state, which emerged from Balkan region was the Alexandrian Empire. It emerged from the Balkans although the center of the Alexandrian Empire was not the Balkans. There was no Alexandrian police in the Balkans. All the big cities of the Empire of Alexander were in Anatolia, in Egypt, in Iran, in Afghanistan. That Empire emerged from the Balkans, but the center of the Empire was not the Balkans. In Roman Empire, both, Eastern and Western Roman Empire, Balkan region was a periphery. Roman Emperors mentioned the Balkans only when they decided to have a military preparation to go to Asia. So, they didn’t see the Balkan region as the center. The only exception throughout history, a positive exception, is the Ottoman state. During the Ottoman state, the Balkan region became the center of world politics in the 16th century. This is the golden age of the Balkans. I am not saying this because we inherited Ottoman legacy, but this is a historical fact. Who run world politics in 16th century? - Your ancestors. They waren’t all Turks, some were Slavic origins, some were Albanian origins, some were even converted Greek origins, but they run the world politics. So, Mehmed-paša Sokolović is a good example. If there was no Ottoman state, Mehmed paša would be a poor Serbian man who lived just to have a small farm or whatever he had. At that time there was no developed farm in that part of the world. But, because of the Ottoman state he became the leader of world politics. Therefore, Ottoman history is a history of Balkan region, a history of the central character of Balkan region in world politics. All the main trade routes were in the Balkans at that time. Saloniki became the center of economic activities. Before, Saloniki was a small town. But during Ottoman times, Saloniki became one of the main centers of trade economy. All the Mediterranean trade went through Saloniki.
If you follow the migrations of xxxs, you can understand the flaw of money. Why did Saloniki become the biggest xxxish community from 16th to 19th century, even in 19th century? Significant populations in Saloniki were xxxs. What were they doing there? They were monitoring and making all the trade from Saloniki to the North, to Euro-Asia. Mediterranean economics to Euro-Asia were administered through Saloniki and Istanbul. Similarly, Belgrade was like a village, or may be a town in 14th century. During the Ottoman state Belgrade became the central city, pivotal city of the Danube and of central Europe in the economic and cultural sense. There were hundreds of mosques and churches. Sarajevo is a miracle, like the miniature of this heritage. If you understand Sarajevo, you can understand all the Ottoman history. Because it is, according to the saying, if you understand a person you can understand that century. Like Hegel, if you understand Hegel you can understand the German mentality of the 19th century. It is the prototype of all that mentality. Similarly, Sarajevo is the prototype of the Ottoman civilization. Sarajevo has been the prototype of the rise of Balkans.
Similarly, later in 19th century there was Mehmed Ali-paša. He is an Albanian, but he did not only become one of the leading figures of Ottoman state at that time, he is the founder of modern Egypt. If there had not been an Ottoman tradition, Egyptians would not have seen any Albanian in their life. And Mehmed Ali-paša would have been at most Mehmed Ali-bey living somewhere in the Balkans only as an intelligent person. So, leading figures are the prototypes of a civilization. What can we learn from this? The Balkan region has a destiny because of these geo-political, geo-cultural, geo-economic characteristics. Either the Balkan region will be the center of everything or it will be a victim of everything.
Why was the Balkan region divided since the 19th century and from that time until now? Whenever we speak of the Balkan region, we speak of divisions, clashes, ethnic clashes, not civilization. Absence of geo-cultural interaction means cultural clash. Absence of geo-economic transaction means economic stagnation. Absence of political authority means becoming a buffer zone of all the conflicts. Now, it is time to reunite all these. Then we will rediscover the spirit of the Balkans.
Which type of policy should be implemented in order to achieve this? First, in order to prevent a geopolitical buffer zone character of the Balkans, which makes the Balkans a victim of conflicts, we have to create a new sense of unity in our region, we have to strengthen the regional ownership and foster a regional common sense. If you look at the history, we are human beings and we are not living in paradise. Human beings are grey, like history, or history is grey like human beings. We are not angels and we are not animals. It is up to us to decide and to do something. Similarly, history is grey. It depends which part of history you are taking as a selection to interpret today. Balkan history is not only a history of conflicts. Throughout the centuries, from 15th to 19th century, Balkan history was a success story. We can reinvent this success. We can reestablish this success through creating an original ownership, through creating a new multicultural coexistence and through establishing a new economic zone. Multicultural coexistence is very important because the rise of a civilization can only be understood through analyzing the city structures and the cultural life in these cities. If a city is uniform it means that that civilization is not so diversified. It is just an invert looking closed to society, like before in the Roman Empire, the city of Rome was purely full of Romans. People living there was Romans. But later when the Roman Empire was established it became a cosmopolitan city. Similarly, as Istanbul and all other Balkan cities were multicultural. We lived together and because of that strong cultural richness, there was a rise of interaction. The backwardness is purification such as in the 1990s. Those who organized the massacres in Srebrenica, Eastern Bosnia, are barbaric people who did not want to tolerate cultural differences. The spirit of Sarajevo is the spirit of coexistence, the spirit of living together. How does Turkey look at the Balkans? We want to have a new Balkan region, based on political dialogue, economic interdependency and cooperation, integration and cultural harmony and tolerance.
This was the Ottoman Balkan. We will reestablish this Balkan. People are calling me neo-Ottoman, therefore I don’t won’t to refer to the Ottoman state as a foreign policy issue. What I am underlying is the Ottoman legacy. The Ottoman centuries of the Balkans were success stories. Now we have to reinvent this. Why did I come to Bosnia for less then 24 hours? Because Bosnia is in a very critical transformational stage these days. I want to show solidarity with BiH. I want to show that we are here. We are with the Bosnians and we will continue to be with the Bosnians. Why is this transition so important? Because the territorial integrity and the political unity of BiH should be protected in order to have security in our region. If BiH is not secure and stable, we cannot have security and stability in the Balkans. The Turkish perspective towards this region is to reestablish a new Balkan region based on this understanding of political dialogue, solving the issues through political dialogue, intensifying the economic relations and cultural coexistence and harmony.
In 1990s, we faced many difficulties in BiH, in Kosovo and in Macedonia. When those difficulties occurred where did the Bosniaks, Albanians, Turks, Macedonia and Kosovo, turn their face? To Turkey. It is a historical relation. Let me give you an example making the analogy from the beginning. This geo-political buffer zone character, geo-cultural interaction and geo-economic transaction, are the same characteristics of Iraq and Afghanistan. Why did we have problems in Yugoslavia, in BiH, in Iraq and in Afghanistan? Because all these three states were the mini models of their respective regions. BiH is a small Balkans. You have Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox respectively Bosniaks, Serbs, Croats living together as a miniature of the Balkans. Similarly, Iraq is a small Middle East: Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Shi’as and Sunnis. Afghanistan is a small subcontinent in Central Asia with Tajiks, Pashtuns and Hazaras. Therefore, these counties are critical countries. If you manage them properly, you can manage the region. If you cannot manage them properly, you will have a regional crisis. What is Turkey? Turkey is a small Balkan, a small Middle East, a small Caucasus. We have more Bosnians living in Turkey than in Bosnia, more Albanians living in Turkey than in Albania, more Chechens living in Turkey than in Chechnya, more Abkhazians living in Turkey than in Abkhazia, and we have Kurds, Arabs, Turks together. Why do we have all this? Because of the Ottoman legacy. For all these Muslim nationalities in these regions Turkey is a safe haven. The homeland, yes, most welcome, Anatolia belongs to you, our Bosnian brothers and sisters. And be sure that Sarajevo is ours. If you want to come, you come, but we want you to be safe and secure here as the owners of Sarajevo and BiH. Therefore, we have to take care. What happens in BiH is our responsibility. Today I heard one diplomat saying, I don’t want to give the name of the country, that in less of one weak, despite of all political issues, we intensified our efforts on BiH. When I met Hillary Clinton on the Armenian issue in Zürich, I raised the Bosnian issue and we discussed Bosnia more than Armenia.
When president Haris Silajdžić came to Ankara last week, we had many activities. I changed my schedule. I decided to come to Sarajevo, and from here, I will go to Armenia. One western diplomat asked why are you suddenly parachuting this issue? Why are you involved in Bosnia like parachutes? I told our ambassador who brought this news to me: “Tell them we didn’t go to Bosnia with parachutes, we went by horse and stayed there with the Bosnians sharing the same destiny!” Yes, whatever happens in the Balkans, in Caucasus, in Middle East, it is our issue. One day I will be in Iraq, another day in Azerbaijan, another day in Bosnia, as minister of foreign affairs. Whatever happens, it is in our foreign policy agenda. Again with Secretary Clinton I made a joke. In June, when I sat in Ankara, I made a 1000 kilometers circle around my office. There are 23 countries. All of them are our relatives and they expect something from us. If we draw a 3000 kilometers circle, there are 72 countries, and every day in our Ministry news can come from any of these countries which will change our schedule. This is our historical debt. When I say strategic debt, I mean this historical debt.
Comment