The Felicity Party Vice Chairman Prof. Dr. Numan Kurtulmus answered the questions of the Worldbulletin. In the interview took place in his work office in Istanbul-Fatih, mostly the world policy and the issues in the Islamic territories were spoken.

Kurtulmus, proposing the Jerusalem Criteria as a solution for the chaos, disorder and conflict in the world, said that the purification process of the Ottoman is still going on today. Kurtulmus determining the importance of the 22 July elections in Turkey pointed out that there was a kind of zone cleaning in Turkey in 1980.

Prof. Kurtulmuş said that at the point of issues today , instead of trying to find solutions to the problems, the west is making the heaps of issues. He is also heralding the beginning of a new alternative birth. Numan Kurtulmus also pointed out that Islamophibia is aggravated by the west.

While answering our questions Mr. Kurtulmus is indicating the main reasons of the problems in the world and the ways to solve them, then in addition to this he is emphasizing the need for peace and rest in the Islamic territories in general for the humanity of the entire world.

In the globalized world we can see a serious interaction. A crisis in Africa surrounds the entire world. We can see similar interactions in the cultural areas. Can we see this in politics, too?

It is clear that in the entire of these areas that you said, there are serious structural changes. This is not a matter of today, but a matter of a long time. I think this process got faster with the oil crisis that started in the beginning of 1970s. The industrial capitalism standing on real production, I mean industrialisation, the industrialised societies on the economical system till then, clearly understood at the point that was come that because of the oil crisis could not go on its way.

The nation states standing on the industrial capitalism started a new period since they could not continue the industrial capitalism. In this sense the ones holding the power in their hands then had two initial aims in 1970s:

First of these was the process of globalization. If the countries with great economies and the big powers should make the global economy OK, their exploitations should clearly go on.

The second one was going to an economical structure that the high technologies were invented. Especially the informatics, satellite and broadcasting technologies. However these two became the pushing power, the steam engines of the industral societies, high technology tools became the process of the globalization. Intrinsically it was a thesis to turn the industrial societies holding the power, wealth and opportunities in their hands into sectors with more and bigger benefits, rather than the concern about performing a life order for people to live in a more peaceful, united, independent and better way. This way is perfectly applied.



Just after that in 1980s, the neo-liberal economical policies were made. A new system was needed to continue for the practice of these policies. For this, Soviet Union should be separated. After the separation of the Soviet Union, there was an opening for very widely neo-liberal economical policies. Starting from the 1990s, the order created with the name“ The New World Order”, is the cleaning operation of the political structural order in the globalization of the neo-liberal economical policies. So “The New World Order” is a system harmoniously continued with the neo-liberal economical policies in order to defend the benefits of a very limited group.

In this context “The New World Order” is both using the neo-liberal economical policies clearly and the cultural global imperialism. It is using the media, movie, Hollywood and advertisements. So with all its nets, a new system that initially started with the economical concerns, establishes its political aims with “The New World Order” and with the cultural imperialism predicting a cultural system.

Didn"t this system creat new crisis within itself?

Of course… The issue that the west had been discussing before passing to the period beyond the industry was: The west established on the modern values those were dominant in the world for 200 years posed the oil crisis.

The industrial capitalism established on the share of the abundance, was taken aback with the occurance of the poverty and need. It could not find solution and faced deep crisis within itself. So that time the question was “which alternative civilization should be put against the western civilization and the modern values”.

As the effort to continue to change and revolutionize the industrial capitalism was going on, at the same time they tried to answer this question in the global sense.
Is there an alternative structure, region or a country for the new world order?

TODAY TURKEY"S LEADERSHIP IS OBLIGATORY

From Indonesia to Morocco, after the separation of the Soviet Union to the Great Wall of China, a new Islamic land occured. Turkey is the key lock and the admiral ship for the pioneership and leadership of all these. Starting from those times, it is the main reason of not practising some projects in Turkey both economically and politically.

With its experience coming from the past and its opportunities today, Turkey is not a country responsible for its own, but be a leader in the Middle East, Caucasus, Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean. Even it is obligatory for Turkey to do it. Because after the 9/11 that dark room in the world that is trying to announce Islam world as the new hag, is trying to put the Islam world into a clash with the western world. The only country that will obstacle this according to its position is Turkey.

Whichever groups you classify in the 21st century, Turkey is in the center of all these. Say whether North- South, Islam world or East-West, Turkey is just in the middle. I don"t mean it only physically, but with its potential, history and relations…

So Turkey has a historical responsibility here. It must show a stability to eliminate the thesis of the clash of the civilizations, while doing this I think we have a chance to present our own values to the entire world, without disappearing in the injustice western civilization.

The history of mankind thought us that all the big civilizations come out at the crossroad of the various and great civilizations. In this sense Turkey is like a place two different civilizations meet. Another advantage of Turkey is that the Turkish land is a brief summary of a World State. I mean whatever there was in the World State then, exists in Turkey today.


GLOBAL PEACE AND JUSTICE

So do you mean that with a powerful will Turkey prevents the clash of civilizations and the wind of terror blowing in the entire world and starts the blow of the winds of peace?

It can blow. But the first condition for this is to overcome the psychology of losing coming out as “ we lost versus the west, we have nothing to do.” This is something to overcome with the self-confidence.

First of all we need to see that if the values that the modern west put to the front were the true values, the world should have a complete global peace and justice.

After the 200 years" of great industrialisation, the wealth and richness should reach everyone. I think especially the period after 1990s is the last and the most powerful term of the “New World Order”. A kind of golden era. It seems that these values can not maintained.

The number of the people who died between 1990 to 2007 is almost equal to the number of those who died in the World War II. Actually there are not so big wars but unfortunately the world is having a period in which together with the “New World Order”, rapidly it is moving away from democracy, and more chaotic and fightful period is starting.

Today in the world nearly 3 billions of the 7 billions of people are continuinng their lives with a daily income under 2 dollars. This is a maintainable situation. In no term of the world there was such a poverty. Even it was not so at the time of Pharaoh and Nimrod. Even the slaves of Pharaoh were going to bed with full stomaches. Today in three minutes, one slave of the neo-liberal system is dying. This system is not a maintainable.
On the other hand armament… The guys who say that there will be no war of armament and no high tension, are taking a share of 1.3 trillion dollars from the weapon market. This is not a stability that can be continued. The reason why this system cannot be continued is not because of the badness of the ones who administrate the system. It is because of the wrong thought they have. That"s why I say modern western values.

There are four basic values. If you foresee rationalism, individualism, secularism and protonisation, no government in, you establish a system, an anti-governmental structure.
Every system has a basic property.

1. Mentality 2- Model, the rest is to fill them in. In this mentality everyone will accept his mental superiority and struggle for his own benefit. If you establish a social system planing for ages to act in an over individualistic way, excluding whatever there are about heavenly world, religion and Allah, as a natural result of this, you create a neo-imperialistic mentality saying “ I must control and exploit whatever source there is under and on the ground.”

Whichever model you put on this mentality, it will be injustice and inhumane. I clearly say that, following the path of the modern western civilization, it is impossible to establish a new model that will bring global peace, wealth and felicity to the mankind.

JERUSALEM CRITERIA

Will the westerns be excluded?

This is a classification that doesn"t belong to us. Every period the west has a problem with the east. During the history, in no period of Muslims, at no time of the Islamic civilizations and Islamic governments, Muslims had problem of the west. It is impossible for the Muslims to look at the members of the other religions in a bad way and make classifications. So we already do not have a problem of east-west or South and North.

The east and the west, the north and the south all belong to Allah. We are going to use the escrow left to us in the earth for the peace, rest and wealth of everyone. The other is never seem as the other. That"s what I call Jerusalem Criteria.
Will you explain the Jerusalem Criteri a little more?
Salahaddin Ayyubi is the great commander of the east. Everyone knows him with his virtue as a commander. After the crusade ( We understand better when we see the situation in Iraq now) Jerusalem turns into a lake of blood. Crushaders even slaughtered their own coreligionists. In such an atmosphere he took Jerusalem again. The first thing he did was allowing the Christians to open their own churches, Jews their own synagogues.

For 400 years a trop of soldiers cotrolled Jerusalem as an Ottoman State. I think that they administrated there on four basic values: The first one is the freedom of belief for everyone. Everyone believes whatever he wants. It is not by saying “You go to that corner and believe there.” The belief must certainly be practised and narrated. I mean there should be freedom to offer the belief to the others. The freedom of propoganda…

Second; the freedom of education. Everyone is going to take the education of his own belief and culture.
Third; free roaming. The man was doing his business in Alexandria. He was coming to Iskenderun and then Bursa and was buying whatever he needed. The merchants should be registered to the chamber of commerce and the net of the guilds.

The fourth, free roaming and free trade. Be careful free roaming and trade came to Europe in 1990. But we were at this point 6 centuries ago. So the criteria that we call “Jerusalem Criteria” is superior and more developed than the “Maastrich Criteria” and “Cogenhagen Criteria” presented today.

WEST IS INCITING THE ISLAMOPHOBIA

In spite of this what is the source of Islamophobia in the west? Is the west scaring itself?

First, an opposition and an enemy power is needed for them to define themselves.

Second, the lands that the quartet coalition powers are on are the Islam lands. The people of these lands are Muslims. So I think that the Islamophobia is originated theoretically and practically from these two basic sources.

Even it is possible to say; started from the book of Salman Rushdi and the cartoons insulting on Prophet Muhammed and the words of the Pope…If you put all of them together, here comes such a process. Consequently there is something we see in bliss that, especially in Europe in spite of the enmity against Islam, practically the Muslims there are not conflicting anyone. The native people there do not like the existance of the immigrants, but do not hate them, either. This is the happy side of this event.

In spite of all these Islamophobia touts, trying to spread this to the entire world after the 9/11, the peoples in the daily life do not have enmity against the Muslim minority. This is spreaded in politics and media among some elite groups. I think Turkey has a lot of responsibilities here.


Do you have a Project for the refugees in Europe?

We must see that especially our citizens who went to Europe from Turkey thought on how to buy estates in Turkey and leave those to their children. But this is past now. As a man who goes to Europe so often and knows the problems there I say, these people are the permanent elements of there.

Since it goes on in this way, in 30 years the second greatest religion in Europe will be Islam. This is an unobtainable chance for the world peace. The inveterate of our people there is not a kind of assimilation, on the contrary a union and peace, if they say “this is the basic rule of the new world order”, here the area of test is Europe. Let"s make those people living there Europeans with their Islamic culture and IDs.

THE WEST IS BACKING THE MILITARY AND DICTATOR REGIMES

Europeans are describing and humiliating the Islamic world as a world where the military and dictator regimes are dominant. The future of the Islam world is shown pessimistic. But you are promising for hope. How do you see the future of this geography?

First we need to fix that, the military and dictator regimes in the Islam world are all backed by the west. Without any exceptions I say, all of them are backed by the politicians in the west. I want to share one of my memories with you here:

I was talking to the consul of one of the most important counties in Istanbul a week after the 9/11 events. This person is a very important politician as well. During the talk we started to talk about the Middle East and democracy. I said him “After the World War I, all the policies in the world were made and shaped by the British polical surroundings, even the borders were drawn by Britons. Now America is trying to do something in Middle East after the political experience it took from here. If after the World War I, the dominant countries should have backed up democracy instead of the despot regimes, there would be no high tension in the world today.

“IT IS NOT GOOD FOR US TO OPEN THE WAY TO DEMOCRACY”

Then he said: “ True. I agree with you. Our benefits in this geography are not to back up democracy, but I personally do not agree this . If we open the way to democracy, a ruling party that we don"t want comes to rule.”

In the democratic field those who administrate the west have very big double standarts. They think that if democracy develops in the Islamic world, if the public can administrate ownself, their benefits there will be in danger. They never support a developed and strong democracy in the Islamic lands.

THE WORLD NEEDS ANOTHER CIVILIZATION

Why am I hopeful? First, the politics and economy are the means for the wealth of people. If this civilization unconditionally dominating the world for 200 years was successful, we should not talk anything today.

I am not only saying for the Islamic world but people are dying of starvation in the back streets of Washington. Such a power cannot be maintained. Globally it is important to create a big power, but it is a difficult success, but to maintain this requires much more success.

For this reason a system that is going to bring justice and freedom to eveyone is needed. We live in a world that the non-existant values such as cooperation, restructure of the society, loyalty, respecting the ideas of the others, beneficence, and helping each other. A different civilization is needed to present the values to the world. I think that this is the Muslim geography. I think that this voice will come out of the Islam civilization. This is not only to solve the problems of Turkey and the Islam world, but to determine the ideas to solve the problems of the entire humanity.

EU IS NOT GIVING US ENOUGH MARK FOR OUR HOMEWORK TO PASS

What is your viewpoint towards the EU?

“EU is an indispensible project of civilization for Turkey” this is a key sentence. Five Prime Ministers in Turkey said this. Unfortunately the present Prime Minister said so. Two Presidents said this, too. This is like a password. We never accept EU for a project of civilizations for Turkey. EU is not a project of civilization for a French, Bulgarian or Romanian. In the essance EU is an integrity of the systematical norms. We do not make politics in a psychology of imprisonment to Europe as if not doing the homework and in this sense accept EU as a project of civilization.

This is not true. EU is not a project of civilization for both Europeans and us. If they accept this as a project of civilization, we are already not a part of that civilization. We are the part of another civilization.

Concretely we must see that we" re talking about EU, but what will happen in EU 20 years later? How will EU solve the dilemmas within itself? This is a puzzle that we do not know. EU has done what it hadn"t done before any other candidate countries. It says “ take these homework and do them and bring us.” In none of these homework, it is giving us enough point to pass. Because it has bad intentions for its student. It practises double standart. So we think that it is the best for Turkey to give up the process for the EU candidacy.

Turkey"s EU membership process is a means of high tension itself between EU and Turkey. When I talked to one of the important conculs of Europe, I said this. He asked “What does it mean?”

I said “Think in conscience. If we were not in the process of EU membership, in any parliament of Europe, could the Armanian Genocide issue be spoken?” He said “No”.
When with almost all the European politicians and scientists that we talk, we are asking this question:

“Speak consciencely, can Turkey have a full EU membership?” Most of them answered this question as:
“No, not at all.” Both Europeans and we know this. What a fraud this is. In the waiting lounge of EU, as an indispensable and one-side love, we will wait. This is never just for this country.

We think that it is inevitable to end the EU membership process of Turkey, but we are on the side of improving the mutual relations with all the countries in Europe. Which European country do we a problem that cannot be solved, why should we conflict? We think that we must develop condensed relations with Europe, but immediately end the imprisonment policies of EU and the policies humiliating Turkey.

I prefer Turkey as a leading country in the region and in its geography, rather than a country that is waiting in the training hall of EU.

THE FIRST PRIORITY OF THE ISLAM

What kind of projects do you have for the Islam world?

You know D-8 is a vey successful project that started at the time of Refahyol. That project is not only for the Muslim world. It was thought as a means for those who are oppressed and exploited in the entire world to express themselves.

Unfortunately the D- 8 countries officially exist but they could not produce concrete projects. In the same way the Organization of the Islamic Conference(OIC), in the term of Tukrey"s presidency is no way active.

The issues among the Muslim countries require a new perspective. They cannot be seen as only the inter-governmental issues. Now the policy applied in the region is for dividing the Islamic lands more into pieces.

“Great Middle East” looking into our eyes say that; “the borders and regimes of 22 countries in this region will change.” So the initial issue of the Islam world is; not causing more divisions but providing more unity and integrity. The biggest lack for this is the weakness of the political will.

GLOBAL WARMING IS AN ISSUE OF MENTALITY

What do you think about the global warming?

We need to come again to the issue of mentality. The main difference between the modern west and the Muslim mentality is about the look at the earth. The modern west mentality sees the earth with a view as “my property”. Muslims look at the earth with the sense of inheriting, namely “ The earth was inherited to us, we must leave it to the ones after us in a best way”.

Now what happened that the global warming reached this level? Don"t those who make so many nuclear tries know that there will be a hole in the Ozone layer and the ecological balance will be upside and down. Don"t those who drain the chemicals into the sea know that the balance will be collapsed? They know these better than you and us. The reason for the ecological disaster that we have today is the sense that says “ the earth is our property, we must have the most benefit by exploiting the sources under and on the ground.”

When we have a look at our civilization Prophet Muhammed says; “ While taking ablution from a river, do not waste the water.” Prohet Muhammed does not speak in vain. Here we understand that the other people that will come after you have the right to use that river. Again Prophet Muhammed says “ If you know that tomorrow is the doomsday, plant the tree you have in your hand.” There should be a balance in the earth. The global warming is a natural result of a violent mentality. It is not possible to change the ecological balance before changing the mentality. This mentality shows itself so clearly that they are forcing the countries as us to sign up the Environment agreement and Kyoto agreement. America polluting the seas and the environment the most is not signing up this agreement.

First let them give up the show and sign up the Kyoto Agreement. If these men in America say “our property and we plunder however we want”, we talk about the ecological balances in the world a lot.

This interview was translated by M. Hasan UNCULAR for Worldbulletin.