Do you recommend that people in your country, in Nowheristan, let’s say, for some reason you have gone mad suddenly and started to do strange things, take up arms against anyone or you?
No, but in Nowheristan the emperor has no role at all, the emperor is there to create awareness but the power should never be at the hands of one man, people who will rule Nowheristan are the Senate of Elders where, we have 600 to 600. Those are the most brilliant minds in the entire world, people who are over 60 and thought to be brilliant in different fields, so the best doctors, best engineers, best architects, best philosophers, best historians…They would take the decisions, and it is two senates and they are on the antipodes of the earth and they move in there for 4 years, like olimphic villages. They live there, they take the decisions not emperors and these people can even send emperors to jail.
This sounds like a science fiction movie…
Actually life is science fiction, what we live now is science fiction to people who lived 100 years ago. Nowheristan will be a reality. Anyway Einstein used to say “if an idea does not sound absurd at first, then there is no hope for it!” So, any great idea has to sound absurd at first, which does not mean that all absurd ideas are great ideas… Yes, I think if I become a very bad emperor then people should take to their weapons!
One of the ancient Greek philosophers, I think Plato, believes that the age for the rulers of the country should be 50 and over.
Exactly, youth is very dangerous; people are pretentious when they are young… Well I am only 39 years but in my head, I am more than 60. I am tired like an old man. I left home at the age of 15, I saw war, I was 15 years old. I’ve seen people who were dying in front of me, I was on the front. I’ve seen how mean human nature can be, how people you share food and you live with, can sell you for money. They can go and tell where they are hiding and get all their friends killed just to get money! I saw human nature is very disgusting!
Are you that pessimistic?
Yes, more than you can imagine! I try not to show because I see that….I have no illusion on human nature.
I hope this pessimism about human nature changes at some point.
I have pessimism but I have also great admiration for…
It is very elastic human nature. The problem is that most of it is elastic towards down, but sometimes you also have people who tend to be what Nietzshe used to call “Uberman”, Superman, that I ve seen superman. In war at times you see, time to time, superman.
There, I remember an officer who was sent to arrest us. He was a ranger, a commando officer with his commandos, they were surrounding us, if we were arrested, we would be executed. So, they surrounded us and we did not have enough weapons and we were not to enter into a fight with the commondos of Lebanon Army. We surrendered and this officer came close to us with a soldier. At this time I was looking into his eyes; he took a weapon and put the weapon into the head of his soldier, he then, took the soldier as a hostage and told us to follow him and he told his other soldiers if they followed him he would execute the soldier.
This officer had us escape, even though he had the orders to arrest us, he helped us to escape. He was arrested for two years and tortured and exiled to Australia.
This is heroic!
Yes it is, and this guy came from a poor family, he became an officer!
When I asked him why he was doing this, he said: “I am supposed to be the hero, not you guys! I am the commando, you are kids! If I arrested you and something happened to you I would never live with myself. They might execute me, but it is easier for me to be executed than knowing that I had you executed!”
You see humanity is sometimes capable of great things! But, for each one million mean and small action, there is only one action which is enlightening! There should be more of it!
What do you think about the politics of Lebanon now; Hizbullah, the Coalition government, the external powers, Israel, Syria? Do you think that there is a possibility of another civil war?
Israel is a historical mistake; it is not a country, a historical mistake! Israel is about making the Arabs pay for the bad conscience of Europe! Europeans are trying to liberate themselves from the guilt feeling about what happened in the Second World War (through history). Yet, they were not even capable of paying from their own pocket, they pay their mistakes with the blood of Palestenians and the suffering of the Arab world.
This is something that we should not accept under the same etiquette as warrior, you have the criminal and the hero, they put under the same etiquette… Islamist is also an etiquette, we should not be afraid of Islamist!
Islamists are not Bin laden, Bid Laden is an idiot! In the Arab world, a lot of Islamists are brilliant people. They are people trying to make a change, they are people not doing the politics of US. They are not proxies, people not corrupted and they are people who have values.We should not be afraid of them, we should try to be friends with them and try to explain to them and this is what I am doing with Hizbullah, because I have lots of friends and very close people to me who became responsible for Hizbullah. I tell them I respect what you are doing, but please, you also respect my way of life. I don’t want your wifes to wear bikinis but if my wife wants to be in a bikini, accept this also.
Hizbullah has this approach, this is why Hizbullah has the support of more than the half Christian population of Lebanon. More than half of the Christian population of Lebanon has supported and voted for Hizbullah. This is a big sign!
The problem in the Arab world is, and this is why lots of young people are going to Islamists and sometimes the most brilliant is, because they give us only a choice between an idiot watching the American culture, dreaming of becoming an American, eating hamburger and the one watching Arab entertainment TV that only shows girls with silicons, where they make ugly songs, and trying to work for this prince or sheihk or going to Dubai… If you have some brain or anything, you got to join the Islamists! They are not giving us a third choice, this is not happening! This is why the most interesting people are becoming Islamists.
What do you think of the AKP government in Turkey then?
I think they are amazing, what they did was very good!
Which one?
This change of politics… Turkey today is much stronger than Turkey a few years ago! Turkey today is seen as the saviour in Arab world, as an alternative. While the Arab leaders are totally crawling in front of the Americans and nobody is asking for the rights of Arabs, Turkey is doing it. The way your prime minister did in Davos, was a very big thing for Arabs!
Some people think that AKP and America are actually very close and all this is a big show!
I usually judge people on their CV rather than their future intentions. I think they have a clean CV.
I am not studying the dossier on a daily basis but I look at what happened during the last couple of years since they got into power. For example, Armenia was blocked for 80 years; the situation with Europe is not like everyday dreaming that Europe will accept us or anything.
They are not ashamed of their culture. They are not schizophrenic like Turkey used to be in the last few years “We are Muslims but we are not really Muslims, we are oriental but we are Europeans!” They were totally confused.Now, they say “no”, they are not eshamed of their history, they are not ashamed of who they are, and it is great!
I mean, when you come into Turkey now, people are much more relaxed.Even though, there is a crisis everywhere, I think Turkey is managing to evolve. I mean people are being able to make some money in Turkey not like the years before. Now there are less and less people who are dreaming of travelling abroad. A few years ago everyone, 100 percent of the Turkish population was dreaming of going to Germany.
So you do think that Turkey’s new role in the Middle East is seen as more positive, active?
Everybody has noticed it, not only the Arab newspapers are talking about it, it is evident! For example, I knew all the Turkish ambassadors in Lebanon, at least 5 of them; I have been having dinners and everything! You should see the new Turkish ambasodor in Lebonon; he is heavy weight you know! They used to send us people just to fill a place, because they were not interested in our politics. They used send their good ambassadors, I don’t know, to USA, Germany, France or Great Britain to say as if “we have nothing to do in this part of the world” but now I know, we feel that they understood that you cannot live as Turkey without looking into Syria and not looking into Iran and Armenia but all the time looking just Amerika into France and Germany! They understood this!
Now this new guy comes, he knows everything; he speaks Arabic, speaks Farsi! He knows that he is playing a role, he has meetings! Before, Lebonon was left for the Americans to decide, for the pro-Israilis, Syria. And Turkey entered into and it is very good, and they have role to play! You cannot forget that they know very well that four hundred years of presence in Syria, in Lebonon and Egypt, the Ottoman diplomacy was the best in the world. Whether they like it or not! Even if Mustafa Kemal told you that it is finished, “cut the Ottoman”, you cannot cut it in the subconscious, you still have it in your culture, in your know-how, in your language, in your food, everything! It can play a role and we want it to play a role! Even the people who were under occupation, they now say, we wish it could have again a small role, because they were not damaging as the Americans are. When Americans come to play a role in somewhere, they create Bagdat, they create Afganistan, and they create Lebonon and Israel! They don’t know, they cannot understand the mentality! No one can understand this mentality outside the Arabs more than the Turks!
Are sure that the Turks will come without any other intentions?
They have intentions! Everyone has intentions, politics is made of interests, but at least if they don’t succeed it will not be an Iraq, it will never be! An Iraq could only be done, even the France would not… Only an American, who does not know anything, because for us the difference between an American an Arab is like the difference between someone from the Planet Mars and planet Earth! They come to Iraq, they don’t understand anything and they start something they cannot control! And also in Afganistan… The Taliban is even stronger than the time the Americans they went there, they fucked the whole system! Now in Pakistan, they have nuclear weapon and the army of Pakistan is now becoming Taliban! The officers of Pakistani army are becoming Taliban, we never know how it will end but Ottomans would never do such a thing!
Part 3 to follow
This interview was published in Yeni Harman Magazine on January 2010. Copyrights©Filiz Elasu
(You are free to quote any part of this interview as long as you credit me: copyrights©filizelasu.com)
