The Gulf and the earthquake

When we object to something on paper and reflexively ask, “Would it be possible?” for the first time, we witness many times that our answers negate our objections in a short time. And it appears we are witnessing and will witness this again.

Yeni Şafak met with Ankara-based columnists and TV and newspapers journalists during an iftar dinner in the capital city. Soon after we broke our fast and had a tea break (for some, it was a smoke break), our agenda was mainly about the Qatar crisis. We tried to talk about what had happened and what would happen in haste with Yeni Şafak Editor-in-Chief İbrahim Karagül, columnists Yasin Aktay, Aydın Ünal, Erol Göka, Mehmet Acet, Ankara News Director Hüseyin Likoğlu and TvNet News Director Ahmet Albuz. 

We were especially wondering what Aktay would say about this fresh topic. The two consecutive articles he had written on the topic were not published yet in the newspaper, but he conveyed his ideas within a general framework that evening. As we are all columnists, you know what we think by looking at our columns.

However, neither the time nor the tea was enough. We agreed to meet after the Ramadan holiday, Eid al-Fitr.

Because it was certain that all these issues would continue after eid too.

Despite all this effort, it is still not easy to know what exactly has happened, what would happen, why it has happened and where it may further spread.

Will the arm wrestling with Qatar stop here, or will new and harsher moves follow? There is not yet a clear answer to these questions.

It has been long clear that it does not make sense to analyze through individual countries and incidents. There must be something changing or a conflict of change that must have led to the examples we are talking about.

What kind of change can be mentioned at the most?

A reflection of the beginning of the loss of global power based on the number-one and absolute superiority of the U.S.; the U.S.'s attempts to stop or reduce/delay this loss of power, or on the contrary, its attempts to consolidate its strength, such as the reasons why the recent Gulf Crisis has found a living space?

We do not know.

How much it may affect us, what countries it can spill over to; it is hard to predict.

But we can see that we are rapidly moving away from the world that we are used to. And they are trying to establish a new order. Is it easy? No.

In fact, continuing like this is at least as hard as establishing the new.

The possibility of the EU being reduced to a structure consisting of Germany and France alone out of the blue is not higher than the U.K. returning to the union. Or, it is disputable whether the moves to be made relying on Russia and China would last long enough to establish the new desired structure.

Big plans, designs, fictions and huge inferences based on the comparative analyses of all similar periods since the past will continue to be made. It is impossible to get rid of these initiatives, but life will continue. We do not know why Israel will cut Gaza's electricity even further and try to keep Gazans in the dark, but this or similar things will happen.

At that moment, there will be an earthquake in the Aegean Sea that will greatly frighten Istanbulites, but we will soon realize that the real fierce feeling will be in İzmir.

If it were up to the media and social media, the earthquake right under our very nose which would actually shake İzmir, would take place in Istanbul.

Of course, these will happen. The earthquake in the İzmir Bay in the Aegean Sea will bring life to the Gulf crisis which has shaken the Middle East and appears to target Qatar for the time being.

Both a child reading his book in the candlelight in Gaza, and the cat that does not care much about the aftershocks in İzmir, will continue to keep their places on earth as the indifferent and the most important parts of all these big plans.