The visit of Karamanlis shows we are doing well on the "peace in the world" bit. But at home we face two main problems. One is to bridge the gap between the secularist elite and the masses with religious sensitivites and the other is to build up Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood against the tide of Turkish nationalism.
This was the slogan that we used when we as the Cevik family launched the Turkish Daily News on March 15, 1961. We lost the paper to the Dogan Group in 2004.
We published The New Anatolian on February 1, 2004 with the same mentality.
Ataturk's great motto "Peace at home, peace in the world remains our motto."
Today we see with satisfaction that Turkey continues to use this motto as its foreign policy principle. Thus Ankara is hosting Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis as an official guest within this spirit. Turkey has been very active in peacemaking in various problems spots of the Middle East to conform to this motto.
Yet, we see with sadness that we still have problems of creating peace at home.
Turkey has two basic challenges it has to face. One is to forge a way to build a common understanding between the secularist elite which has been running Turkey for eight decades and the masses with religious sensitivities who now have taken over power and want to be recognized. The other is to maintain Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood in our country.
If Turkey can overcome the basic problems in these areas and reach a common understanding there will be no force in stopping us from becoming the giant of the region.
The first issue is very complicated and has to be addressed with great sensitivity. The Justice and Development (AK) Party has come to power as the representative of the masses who demanded to be heard by the secularist elite. The secularist elite which has been holding on to power has seen its power erode over the years because of corrupt and incompetent governments.
Its struggle not to allow AK Party to rule has created frictions and tensions. Thus the secularists have resorted to new alibis claiming Turkey is on the road of becoming and Islamic republic and have used the good name of great Ataturk to recruit sympathy.
This trend has to stop. We have to find a middle of the road solution that will bridge the gap between the masses with religious sensitivities and those with secularist sensitivities.
Even the headscarf ban for girls at universities is being turned into a source of confrontation. This has to end.
The other area of confrontation is the Kurdish issue. Unfortunately those who do not want to address the issue are selecting the easy way out and are using the separatist demands of the PKK terrorist organization to cast a shadow on the rightful demands of our citizens of Kurdish origin to be treated as first class citizens of this country.
We have to promote Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood at all costs. We have to find a common position and satisfy the needs of these people. This means some of our Kurdish friends have to distance themselves with the PKK.
These are the two issues that The New Anatolian has been pushing hard over the years.
Let us hope common sense prevails and people realize that we are all in the same oat and if it sinks we all go down together.
