Backtracking is a disaster; it would mean resembling Syria, Egypt…

Backtracking would prove disastrous. Coming to a standstill, or even slowing down, would mean annihilation. It would mean squandering and erasing every gain made for the sake of the country and nation.

Backtracking, weariness and giving up are associated with Egypt, Ukraine and Syria.

It means confining oneself to a narrow nationalist and introverted mindset, and the spread of ethnic and sectarian conflicts to the widest extent possible.

Furthermore, the wave of revenge that will arise from such a step will set the country even further behind the point it started from, and Turkey will lose the struggle that took a century to initiate.

Some people will really rejoice in such an event. Rounds of applause will be heard in many capitals, and the domestic supporters of tutelage, who are extremely disgruntled, will shout out with joy.

It will represent a victory, attained at the cost of the country’s annihilation, for those with no concerns regarding notions such as country, nation, history and memory.

The consequence of such an event means being torn to shreds and being divided.

The country will be rendered hostage if the flames engulfing our immediate environs are spread to the interior of Anatolia, and violence is embraced on the basis of a tribal mindset.

This would not mean the sacrificing of a particular political understanding, cadre and circle, but the squandering of a country and nation’s stance.

This struggle represents resistance against the dissolution of an empire; the dragging of the entire region toward disaster; the destruction of hopes for the future harbored by countries and nations; and the mental imprisonment we have endured for a century.

It is a struggle for self awareness, the discovery of the past, and envisioning of the future. It is the issuing of a challenge to those who want us to re-experience the 20th century. Political parties and cadres might change but the road is long and neither the road nor the struggle will change.

If it does change, and those on the march stop moving, or no one is left to march, then that would mean the country is finished and the nation has yet again been abandoned to continue in a tired and frustrated state, which was experienced at the onset of the 20th century.

Ottoman Turkish, too, is a frontline of this return to roots.

Ottoman Turkish is not a foreign language but rather an issue of memory and identity. We lost our cultural memories in the same manner that we lost our historical memory. When we speak of rising up, engaging in self discovery, taking cognizance of our environs, and envisioning the future; we should know that they are actually all elements of the great struggle and the struggle of a country and nation.

The same people that tried to estrange us from the past we experienced just 90 years ago, by portraying it as something that occurred centuries ago, have also depicted Ottoman Turkish as a foreign language. They erased Ottoman Turkish, the “common language of the region,” from our memories in the same way that they erased the memories of what occurred in Iraq, Palestine and Yemen 90 years ago.

Memory, however, is a whole. Estranging the language means estranging everything.

It means that great strides have been made on this path, if the rage has increased, the attacks have increased, and the fight has taken on an added dimension. This is because acrimony increases as hopelessness grows. The waves of attacks, crises and histrionic tantrums will increase in frequency as the end of the road comes into sight.

Traversing this road requires desire because it is a historic showdown. The struggle for Turkey is such a great struggle that those who consider it a struggle of personal ambitions will not be able to exploit it, and those who hide behind someone else’s authority and adopt different positions each day will not be able to impede it.

Bear in mind that backtracking, a sense of fatigue and weariness means disaster and death. It means putting all the hopes of the country on hold and losing this war of honor. It would mean the biggest collapse we will have witnessed since World War I.

It would mean breaking Turkey’s back; bringing it to its knees and the destruction of the country’s unity. Ignore those shouting at the top of their lungs, throwing histrionic tantrums, and becoming more brazen by the minute… Their struggle is based on shallow and short-term calculations to impede this march. They won’t hesitate to engulf the entire country in flames in order to see their calculations bear fruit.

They are all waiting for us to stumble and trip. They are waiting for a sign of backtracking and fatigue.

The ones who abandon the fort first are always a threat!