Research Newsletter, #11 (May 2016)

World Humanitarian Emergency

There are currently over 250 million in 37 countries are waiting for humanitarian assistance. Out of them, 60 million refugees forced to leave their homes and living in camps or host communities. At least US$ 25 billion per year is needed to provide minimum level of assistance for those people.

First humanitarian world summit was organized between 23-24 May 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey. The participated countries agreed to end the conflicts and wars, which cause chaos and violence. Otherwise, it is not sustainable to host such large volumes of refugees in camps or host communities.

People who forced to leave their homes are looking for safe and liveable places. But where to go? Most of them target to reach to developed countries (EU, America, Canada, Australia etc.). Germany declared to accept around 1 million refugees but other EU countries are not willing to accept that much. But even so, is that the solution? There are at least 12 million Syrians forced to leave their houses. It is very obvious that EU cannot handle with such volumes of refugees. Turkey is currently hosting the highest volume (around 3 million) but country is having difficulties to cover all the needs of the Syrian families. Such as, only 1/3 of the Syrian children at school age are able to attend to education in Turkey. In addition to this, poverty is a serious problem.

In addition to the Syrian refugees, people from Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and from African countries are trying to reach to Turkey and EU countries. NATO, UN and developed countries have existed in Afghanistan and Iraq for more than a decade but still there is no progress in terms of building peace and removing poverty in those countries. That means, there is something wrong with the current approach on emergency situations or conflicts of the international organizations and developed countries. Clearly, money does not solve the problems; because it is a reality that huge amount of money was spent for both Iraq and Afghanistan. We cannot also blame local governments by claiming that they are all corrupt. The problem is that lack of understanding the local cultures and dynamics of the life in the places where there is a conflict. In addition to this, the policies based on “enemy of my enemy is my friend” is not working. Such as, Taliban was supported against the Russia. But the result is clear. Now, the same is going on in Syria. Opposition groups, so called moderate terrorists are supported against the Assad regime. Would this bring a peace to Syria? No, if so, it would bring in last 5 years.

It is very clear that no solution can be found for Syrian Refugees unless EU– Russia—USA– Syrian Government are agreed. The future of people of Syria cannot be linked directly with Bashar-Al-Assad. While entire Syrian population is suffering, none of those major players have a right to insist about the role Assad in the future of Syria. First of all, the responsibility of USA, EU and Russia are to bring peace and stability to the nation. Later on, people of Syria will decide about their own future at the first democratic elections, which is organized and observed by relevant international organizations.

Now, urgently, above listed powers urgently establish a permanent peace between Free Syrian Army and Syrian Regime Forces. Later on, all other opposition groups including so-called moderate terrorist groups should be removed from the country. Then, new temporary container cities should be established in safer parts of Syria while re-construction is going in the country.

Now and immediately, the leaders of EU, US, Russia and Syrian Regime should sit together and bring peace for the people of Syria. No need to waste time anymore with meaningless power struggles.

From Moderate Islam to Radical Islam

As we discussed in our previous articles, there is no moderate Islam. There is one Islam and it cannot be modified depending on the needs of the political leaders or countries.

Unfortunately, western countries continue to do the same mistake and play with religion dynamics in Middle East Countries including Turkey and North Africa. After 16 years of strategy of implementing a strategy based on moderate Islam in the region, what we have are:

• Chaos in Iraq (Iraq Separated into two as well)
• Chaos in Libya
• Military Coup in Egypt
• War in Syria and Separation of Kurds
• At least 15 million displaced persons
• Millions of lost lives
• No future for the children and youth of Syria and Iraq
• End of laicism in Turkey

On top of these, region became a heaven for terrorist and criminal groups. So, as a result, insecurity threat reached to Europe.

Overall, we can clearly say that bringing democracy to the region based on injecting moderate Islam did not work but rather caused very serious damages.

Western countries and their current leaders jointly contributed to the insecurity in Europe. It is very surprising that Germany is going through such an unethical negotiation with Turkey as well. The future of Syrians are on the table in exchange of uplift of visa regime for Turkey. Such a deal is totally against the basic human right principles of EU. It seems EU leaders just realized the magnitude of the mistake they did and do not know how to handle the situation.

It is urgently needed that Western Countries should get back to the its original values and read the situation carefully in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Everyone can see that current policies over Syria and moderate Islam failed.

Radical Islam is growing day by day in Middle East, Gulf countries and Africa. The more the western countries are interfering to change the regimes or leaders or the more they want to get more shares from world energy resources, then they cause chaos and internal wars. As a result, more and more young Muslims join the radical groups.

EU countries cannot save their region by blocking refugees in Greece or by giving money to Turkey. If they really want to save their countries, they should not interfere with the regimes in other countries. If Kaddafi was alive today, thousands of people would not die in the sea on the way to Italy. If moderate terrorists groups were not supported in Syria, 12 million Syrians would not leave their homes. We can increase the examples more and more.

If western countries would like to continue their peaceful life, then they need to support the laicism, freedom of speech and media, freedom of believes, gender equality and human rights. If so, they need to stop the relation with rich gulf countries, dictators and where there is no democracy and human rights. Western countries can only inject basic human rights to the world, if they be consistent and do not be opportunistic. In addition to this, they need to understand the Islam well and stop playing with it. However, as long as they continue to have double standards in terms of human rights, then they will continue to cause more problems in the world.

But one day, problem will reach to themselves like the case of Syria.