Tagebuch 29. April 2017
A letter to my friend Vamik Volkan

Dear Vamik,

today I read an article in „die Zeit“ by Rasim Marz, a Turkish German historian, expert on the Ottoman period. I do not know the political attitude of this historian, but the article was written in a very informative and serious style of history-writing. For me it was like opening a new window! As I simply can not believe, that a political picture can be so different, I sincerely would like to share this experience with you: 

I always see Erdogan´s Turkey as a terrible threat to democracy and a terrible fallback in historic development. Turkey is no more a nation like ours and it falls into a sinister  condition. We only can hope that it will recover as soon as possible, but chances disappear. It should recover, but it does not come up to our standards. This is the picture.

In his article Rasim Marz draws a picture of historic depth. To put it very very short he describes the development since the Ottoman Empire as a struggle of the Turks between two extremes: beeing completely divided into small pieces by the French, British and Russian colonists on the one hand, and the ambition to become an empire again, on the other. There were periods during these times, when Turkey desperately wanted to become part of the western world and was rejected by imperialistic policies, sometimes with wild arrogance. Rasim Marz draws a picture of a struggle, how to survive in an atmosphere of economic and political imperialism of the west as well as Russia. 

The strange feeling I got is, that I completely agree with this historic picture and to see todays development in this historic perspective, nourishes the suspect to which extend the EU and the west are not free from economic and political imperialism. This does not mean to accept Erdogan´s policies, but it means that using the historic perspective in our attempt to understand todays politics, would let us see also Europe´s policies differently.

How outdated and childish we see colonial politics today, does not mean, that they are not existing. We always lough on children´s behavior although it shows, what is really going on.

Dear Vamik hope to see you and Betty soon. I urgently need your fresh ideas and positive insight and of course we have to prepare spaghetti again!

Kisses from Wolf and Regina