Feeling the future!...

I arrived in Istanbul two days ago for a trip to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia via Singapore. I stayed as a guest at my daughter's house with my wife, and we completed our final preparations. 

While in Istanbul, we are taking a walk from Göztepe towards Fenerbahçe for breakfast. We are passing through one of the beautiful parks of the Kadıköy Municipality. The roses have been pruned so beautifully that even without the roses and buds currently in bloom, one can foresee that it will be one of the most beautiful gardens in Istanbul in the spring. Despite it being the last days of January and the beginning of February, feeling the spring and seeing a bright future brings a sense of relief to one's heart. 

Seeing Singapore, the second richest country in the world, and traveling through Vietnam, which has given America a hard time, excites me quite a bit. Laos and Cambodia are a whole different kind of excitement. The future lies in the Far East and Southeast Asia. My son, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Emre Demir, is a faculty member at TED University and conducts academic studies on Far Eastern politics, policy, and economics. He provides training. He follows the Far East moment by moment. From time to time, he also writes articles in newspapers about the Far East. He tries to draw attention to the Far East. 

As far as I can see, neither the CHP nor other parties have sufficient knowledge about the Far East. In fact, it feels as if they are ignoring it. 

I foresee that while the United States and the West, especially Turkey, are living through economic difficulties, Far Eastern countries will be in a dominant position that determines the future.

Is the West only experiencing an economic shake-up? Since the day Trump arrived, Western democracy has been wobbling, even cracking. In Venezuela, they abducted the leader chosen by the people with brute force, right in front of the eyes of the world's nations. They took him hostage. He struts around saying, "Greenland is mine, Canada should be annexed to America," and neither the UN nor Europe makes a sound. It is as if we are living in the Middle Ages. 

Where is world politics heading? Will the future be left to "virtual democracy?" Let artificial intelligence be the ruler, no matter what humanity does. Isn't that so?

Alongside the US's new fashion of governance, Europe is also acting in a way that shows it does not know what to do or how to behave, leaving Ukraine all alone. At the beginning, they pumped up Ukrainian President V. Zelensky, and later they left him alone. It is the people who suffer. 

As a result, it seems that NATO no longer has any legal personality. Turkey also appears to have conformed to Trump's attitudes and behaviors. Will it hold? 

We see and experience the detention in Silivri of many elected officials, primarily Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor and presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu—who was elected by a large margin and for whom the vast majority still vote—by trampling on democratic rules and constitutional articles, as bad examples of one-man rule practices, alongside the suspension of democracy. The practices carried out are nothing but oppression.

With the increasing economic difficulties, we observe that the desire to move away from democracy in the West is growing. 

Social movements against the drift away from democratic life are also increasing in Turkey and America. In America, inhumane practices applied against immigrants, and in Turkey, the blows dealt to democracy are bringing the people to the squares. Our people are not shouting in the squares in vain when they say, "There is no salvation alone, either all together or none of us..."

With the hope of sharing my experiences and observations regarding our "Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia via Singapore" trip, organized under the leadership of my colleague Dr. Hülya Güvenir, with you (in my future articles), I wish you healthy days.