Syria's voice is being muted. And even those voices, those screams, that resonate from this hub of violence and humanitarian neglect that somehow pass through the watchful eyes of its overtly uber-authoritarian regime is being ignored. The Syrian people are being ignored. The World is turning its back on the thousands of bloody mangled bodies that line the streets of Damascus, the bloody hands of Assad and his combattant. And the questions this inherency draws aren't new ones either. Why has the United States - the world's so-called democracy police, the "city on a hill" - turned its back to this outrage? Why has it so willingly taken up projects like Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, but turned its back to such apocalyptic desperation? The excuses that attempt to answer these questions, as much as they may vary, are neither sensible or rational, but at least practice constraint in terms of precedent: America's penchant for the "American interest." But what about Turkey?
That's right. Turkey. Syria's neighbor and European Union member-hopeful. In light of the "civil war" - as Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister suggests - in Syria, Turkey has taken measure to do exactly what the rest of the world has already decided on doing, that is doing nothing. Instead of, at least, relating to the problem in Syria and taking up the Syrian people's problem as its own - as it already is, ostensibly, by the mutual economic problem the Syrian civil war presents Turkey in terms of transport - Turkey's Economy Minister has decided to "weigh new transport routes to the Middle East," despite a "10 percent drop in exports."
At this point, there is no rational argument to stay put and do nothing about Syria. But the only argument that makes any sort of sense is the American argument. That is, we cannot do anything because it does not lie in our interests, the interests of our nation. (This argument neglects the fact that the defending of humanitarianism is the duty of every global citizen.) But Turkey is unique, different from America, in this respect. It does have a national interest at hand. It must do something. In Turkey's case, the most obvious argument would be..we're not a "first-world" country with a top-5 global economy so we cannot do anything. This is one of the many insensible arguments that governments obsessed with the economic and political problems of today make to avoid any sort of real change. But it doesn't take this sort of worldly status to bear witness to slaughter. If this is the case I strongly urge the policymakers from every single nation around the world to read Fuyuki Kurasawa's "Message in a Bottle" for "witnessing is an intrinsically dialogical process of recognition involving two parties...eyewitness and their audience." There is no reason to go guns-blazing, or tanks rolling...then what would be the difference between the so-called intervening angel and demon? It is about empowerment. It is about encouragement. That is how problems are solved and that is how humanity is saved. For how can we save humanity by destroying it?
That's right. Turkey. Syria's neighbor and European Union member-hopeful. In light of the "civil war" - as Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister suggests - in Syria, Turkey has taken measure to do exactly what the rest of the world has already decided on doing, that is doing nothing. Instead of, at least, relating to the problem in Syria and taking up the Syrian people's problem as its own - as it already is, ostensibly, by the mutual economic problem the Syrian civil war presents Turkey in terms of transport - Turkey's Economy Minister has decided to "weigh new transport routes to the Middle East," despite a "10 percent drop in exports."
At this point, there is no rational argument to stay put and do nothing about Syria. But the only argument that makes any sort of sense is the American argument. That is, we cannot do anything because it does not lie in our interests, the interests of our nation. (This argument neglects the fact that the defending of humanitarianism is the duty of every global citizen.) But Turkey is unique, different from America, in this respect. It does have a national interest at hand. It must do something. In Turkey's case, the most obvious argument would be..we're not a "first-world" country with a top-5 global economy so we cannot do anything. This is one of the many insensible arguments that governments obsessed with the economic and political problems of today make to avoid any sort of real change. But it doesn't take this sort of worldly status to bear witness to slaughter. If this is the case I strongly urge the policymakers from every single nation around the world to read Fuyuki Kurasawa's "Message in a Bottle" for "witnessing is an intrinsically dialogical process of recognition involving two parties...eyewitness and their audience." There is no reason to go guns-blazing, or tanks rolling...then what would be the difference between the so-called intervening angel and demon? It is about empowerment. It is about encouragement. That is how problems are solved and that is how humanity is saved. For how can we save humanity by destroying it?
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