photo: geopolitika.ru - in the picture Pepe Escobar
MOSCOW - On 17 June, a very interesting conference was held in Moscow on Modern Russia and the Turkic States. This conference was organised by the Eurasian Movement and was attended by leading Russian and foreign experts on contemporary Eurasian and global geopolitics.
We would like to remind you again that the moderator and opening remarks were made by a world geopolitical expert and representative of the leadership of the International Eurasian Movement Valery Mikhailovich Korovin, (his introductory post is in the first part - link below the article) then geopolitician - Kamran Hasanov, expert on Latin American geopolitics, president of the Fidel Castro Foundation, editor-in-chief of the geopolitical portal geoplitika.ru - Leonid Vladimirovich Savin, academic and historian Leonid Vladimirovich Kuznetsov, expert on Eurasian geopolitics Dmitry Rodionov, Pepe Escobar journalist, geopolitics expert, Alexandr Silantiev also a geopolitical expert, Alexandr Igorevich Drogovoz, Deputy Director of the Institute of International Education of the Russian State University Kosygin, Vladimir Evseev, Head of the Department of the SOS of the Institute of CIS Countries, Doctor of History, Darya Saprynskaya researcher at ISAA MSU, analyst at the Gorchakov Foundation, Gagik Sergeyevich Ohanyan postgraduate student at the Faculty of Global Processes of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Natalja Makejeva, Roman Blaško Director of Foreign News from the Czech Republic and other guests.
The moderator Valery Korovin thanked for the contribution and the excellent overview of the activities of our Western opposition forces, whose goal is to disintegrate a large area of Eurasia and Russian statehood by politicizing the ethnic factor and actually buying the leaders of as many political movements as possible, by offering them some kind of business projects, that is, their financial involvement and further politicisation of the ethnic factor in order to break the big Eurasian space into small fragments through which you can enter it, this big space and, above all, exert your influence in it. This is completely opposite to the approach that Russia has been taking for centuries, and here there is a deliberate confusion of the concept of empire, Korovin said, adding that we know that this concept has a land and naval quality.
Marine civilization versus continental civilization
"A marine civilization simply seizes and conquers territories by all means and makes colonies out of them for the purpose of exploiting them, and that is what the colonies don't need from them, they need liberation from being economically drained. The continental empires, as we know, settle in one place, build a center and it in turn builds its periphery, this is a completely different approach, but at the same time the Western NGOs impose on the Turkic peoples the idea that Russia colonized and exploited them, that is, they put their approaches on Russia, while Russia carries out integration on the level of culture and civilization, that is, it carries out interaction with the Turkic world on the level of symbolic exchange and cultural exchange."
Leonid Kuznetsov: Civilization has broken down into three models, the Chinese, the Huns and the Ashin in the Altai
Next, Korovin asked the academic and historian Leonid Vladimirovich Kuznetsova. Kuznetsov to make a little historical excursion, despite the moderator's warning. Kuznetsov began by saying that the Altai itself was the birthplace of the Turks, and that great attention was also paid to this in his works by our great Russian historian Lev Nikolayevich Gumilyov, who devoted his whole life to the study of the peoples of the great steppe, and in his opinion the great steppe people of the Huns or Huns, when their steppe empire broke up in the second century, split into three branches.
"One of them went to China to the south and actively participated in the unrest and fighting in China in the fourth to sixth centuries, it was the so-called Six Barbarian States period, as Chinese historians write, the Liuzhao period, and eventually they were all assimilated by the Chinese there. Another branch moved westwards and, after having mixed with some of the Finno-Ugric ethnic groups along the way, they appeared in Europe already under the name of Huns, who made enormous efforts to finally break up the Roman Empire, they were called the God Bech, especially Attila, Kaganu, these Huns. And the third part went to the Altai and really under the leadership of the dynasty or the Ashin family, they settled there in the Altai, they were very successful in metallurgy, in blacksmithing, they were subordinated to the Zhuzhan horde until a certain period, but then they decided to liberate themselves and literally within a few decades they created a huge steppe empire, the first Turkic kaganate, from Mongolia and Manchuria to the northern Black Sea coast, northern Crimea, northern Caucasus."
This kaganate, as Kuznetsov states, existed for 150 years, was a threat to such decent all-people states as China and Iran, but then politically disappeared, however, the spread of the Turkic language as common to the great steppe led to the incorporation of a huge number of peoples into this kaganate who may not even have been originally Turkic. And ancient Russia, our ancestors the ancient Russians entered into dialogue with the Turks as early as the 10th century AD, so actually, as Solzhenitsyn wrote a book about Russians and Jews 200 years together, and you can write about Russians and Turks a thousand years together, and the first peoples of them were the Pechenegs, the Polovtsians, the Kopchaks, judging by all accounts both those and the others were not Turks at first, but they were descendants of the Sarmatians, Indo-European nomads from the great steppes, but Turkified. And again the same Gumilyov in his work "Ancient Russia and the Great Steppe" writes that these relations were of course not always balanced and peaceful, but generally had the character of a symbiosis.
This can be seen in Russia's relations with the Kipchaks. Here we all, that is, my generation, at least went through such a work in school "The Word of Igor's Regiment", Prince Igor Svyatoslavich, who fought against the Kipchaks, started a military conflict with him, lost, was captured. It is also somehow forgotten that the one who helped him escape from captivity baptized the Polovtsian Avluk or Lavrin, and Igor Svyatoslavovich's mother was a Polovtsian, because inter-ethnic marriages with Polovtsians were very common. And later when the Mongols began their conquest of Russia, the Battle of Kalka in 1223, very bloody and tragic for the Russian princes, but who prompted the Russian princes to take action against the Mongols was the Polovtsian prince Katyan Sutoyevich, who was the father-in-law of Prince Svyatoslav Svyatoslavovich in Donuvka. He said that now they would defeat us, and then there would be another. So strong was the political alliance with these Turko-Kovtsy that eventually the old Russians came to their aid.
Then, as Kuznetsov said, there was a period of Mongol conquest, the first 50 years were very unfavourable for Russia, destructive, it was the destruction of cities, the decline of culture, but then the symbiosis began again, when the Golden Horde accepted Islam under Khan Uzbek in 1316 and most of the Mongol nobility was destroyed, the Golden Horde turned to the Turkic state, because the substrate was equally the Kipchaks and the Volga Bulgars, and then there was a period of interaction that was very complex, some historians even believe that somewhere beneficial to Russia, because if it were not for this Tatar sovereignty, the Russian princes would probably have simply cut each other down. And then of course Russia outgrew the framework of this union, and already Moscow Russia took a lot of things from the Golden Horde, actually began the reverse process of advancing eastward, and as Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetskoy wrote, one of the founders of Eurasian studies, a linguist, also a historian, a scholar of Turkic peoples, that without this advance to the east, without the Volga, the Urals, Siberia, Russia would not have become Russia, and these were all the lands of the former Golden and Blue Horde, and in general, they were conquered in record time, so the local peoples did not resist the Russian troops particularly fiercely, we were somehow our own. About the period of Romanov Russia, Soviet Russia, when Russia generally lived together in one state, and then in a new twist of history, he meant the process of gaining independence by these nations, it was natural historically, I guess the framework of the empire was too tight for them.
Kuznetsov: "And of course, when we talk about an organisation like the Organisation of Turkic States, Russia should not only join it, but in my opinion should lead this movement, because Turkey cannot lead the Turkic world with its potential, its resources, its history. Who are the modern Turks? Turkish is just a language, culturally, civilisationally, Turks are much closer to Europe and the Middle East, it is generally very difficult from the side of the people, here sits our esteemed Georgian brother, and here is Erdogan, he is las Georgians, because Turks have taken away the ancient Georgian sam-saatbaba and Islamized the local population. The Turkish element in the Turks, well, God willing, 10 %, probably less. The rest are Greeks, Slavs, descendants of the Inacharians, Georgians and so on and so forth. And the Ottoman Empire, they never even tried to unite the Turkic world around them, because one vector was going, the Ottoman Empire was going to the Middle East, the other was going to Europe, they wanted to conquer Vienna several times, go to the center of Europe, but they never particularly aspired to the Central Asian steppes. If we take modern Turkey, I would say that the main vector of Turkey's foreign policy has not been defined."
Kuznetsov went on to say that in the next twenty years he has changed three times, with the European vector at the beginning and when the Justice and Development Party came to power, Erdogan's goal was the European integration of Turkey. Sometime in 2009-2010, he realised that this integration was not going to happen. France, Germany, the major powers of the European Union, were strongly opposed to Turkey's integration into the European Union. In 2009, when this issue was being discussed, Escobar was in Spain at a political conference of right-wing forces, and these people protested so strongly against Turkey's admission to the EU that it was unbelievable.
Kuznetsov also added that: "I saw it myself and participated in it myself, but involuntarily, of course it happened. And then when Turkey concluded that European integration was not going to happen, the vector shifted to the Middle East, the support for the so-called Arab revolutions, the Arab Spring, so that Turkey could become the hegemon of the Arab world. And all this was combined with support for the Muslim Brotherhood movement. This project has also failed. Nowhere has the Muslim Brotherhood managed to come to power and dominate political life. In Egypt, their super-general Sisi, in Syria they were not tolerated either, in Yemen the Islah party finally collapsed completely. And now this Turkish vector may be developing as an alternative, but it is quite dubious in terms of Turkey's own interests, because Turkey's main interest is the defence of Turkish national security, and that is northern Syria, northern Iraq, northern Africa, Libya, energy security and the Aegean. Central Asia, however, does not in any way fit into these interests. Moreover, Turkey does not have the resources to pursue an active policy in the Middle East and, say, Central Asia at the same time.
He went on to say that this means that in Central Asia Turkey can only be an agent of some Western influence. So the challenge for Russia is that during the Erdogan period, with Erdogan staying there and some residual phenomena, still supporting the Muslim Brotherhood is something it still wants to do in the Middle East. But if Erdogan's party leaves power and the People's Republican Party, the Kemalists, come to power, they will implement this, in Escobar's view, Turkist expansion. Therefore, Escobar said, it must be Russia's task, of course, to gather the Turkic peoples around it and offer them a civilisational alternative, a symbolic alternative. In his view, the XX century, the XIX-XX century of such developed capitalism, when material values were the main ones, in the XXI century the main values will be symbolic, and these will be the most attractive for the peoples. Thus the West has so far positioned the peoples of Turkic and Central Asia as tools to advance its political goals. He added that:
"Well, first of all, we all remember the so-called war on terror in 2001, when the events of 9/11 al-Qaeda. Well, and in general, from my point of view, the very term 'war on terror' - it's absolutely absurd. Terrorism is one form of unconventional warfare. To declare war on terrorism is to declare war on war. That is absurd. And the Central Asian nations have been seen as a platform for waging a war against terrorism in Afghanistan, against the very terrible Taliban that we are now hosting as a result at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, with whom we are actively trading, have already handed over a billion dollars and so on. Next. When this narrative of the "war on terror" is over, it will become clear that this is now about access to critical resources. These are rare earth metals, base metals, energy resources, central. So again, these nations of the region are acting as a tool. The challenge for Russia is to give them a completely different, attractive symbolic vision of, say, the Turks as the central central central nation of Eurasia. And indeed, historically, the Turks are the creators of most Eurasian empires."
In Western Europe, the Germans created an empire, in Central Asia, in the Middle East, the Turks are the Ottoman Empire, the Safavid Empire in Iran created by the Khan of Azerbaijan. The great Mughals in India, Babur, Tamerlane's descendant, Tamerlane himself, etc. This means that we should create a non-conflicting cultural image which would be very attractive to the Turkic peoples and which would contribute to our further alliance. After that, the moderator Valery Korovin took the floor again and thanked for this excellent historical excursus which he added is exactly what this conference is meant to elaborate. The approach that Kuznetsov mentioned, according to Korovin, is very important and therefore must be given great attention, because today's Turkey is a nation-state, a civil political nation, where the ethnic factor is something that should be overcome by this civil political community and which no longer has any meaning if the nation-state is realized in the limit, i.e. in the form it aspires to. Here, then, the Turks are completely eroded.
Korovin: "This ten percent Turkic component, of which Alexander Andreevich Kuznetsov spoke, should be completely eroded in a civil political nation. This is the vector that this Turk has chosen and that was supposed to bring Turkey into Europe, but it has not, because Turkey is still very traditional, ethnic, exclusively Islamic, not European at all, especially in the current format of contemporary Europe. It turns out that all these Turkish efforts to unify the Turkic world are purely an external order, i.e. using Turkey as an instrument of Anglo-Saxon manipulation of the processes in Eurasia, absolutely destructive and disastrous."
Korovin recognized Pepe Escobar to speak and make a presentation.
Pepe Escobar: National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Another contributor to the discussion, Pepe Escobar, visited the organization's headquarters in Istanbul in March 2022. And just a little later than Boris Johnson, who played a role in the Istanbul agreements between Russia and Ukraine largely falling apart. But the chance to talk to the people who run the organization in Turkey was fascinating, Escobar said.
"I went to a beautiful hotel in Istanbul, I talked to them, I was very well treated. And my journalistic instincts were overcome. When I was at the organization's headquarters in Turkey, I talked to its leaders. I asked them directly about the plans, what plans are embedded in the epigram of this organization. Is it economics, is it geopolitics, is it a culture? I simply asked them to explain it to me in an accessible way. And I was surprised that they just didn't, well, at least they didn't give me any answer to my question. They were very specific. They basically said: we are an organization that starts from scratch. We need more facilities with our partners from Kalkos to Central Asia. But they didn't get to specifics. And when I talked to some of my academic friends in Istanbul, they said more or less the same thing. It's something that came out of nowhere, and they don't know exactly what they're doing. But to my quite specific questions about what they were planning to do, they really couldn't tell me anything definite at all. I got the vaguest possible answers, like we're just at the very beginning, we're doing some general coordination and so on," said Pepe Escobar
Pepe Escobar pointed out an interesting fact when he recently visited the National Museum in Astana, where they have a large map of all the Turkish nations in one room. He said they have a list of 49 different ethnic groups that officially make up the Turkish nations, theoretically represented by an organisation with its main corporation in Istanbul. It was quite clear that the vast majority of them, well, they are ethnic groups, in general, that live at least on the territory of Russia. What does this mean, Escobar asks? Are they all some kind of Russian ethnic group? The Balkars, the Gagauz, the Dolgans, the Cossacks, the Cossacks, the Karapaks, the Karachays, the Kumins, the Kyrgyz, the criminal Tatars, of course. Escobar added that Tatars are called criminal Tatars in Kazakhstan. And he found it very funny. He describes that there is one group called the Crimean Tatars, which has no scientific value, it doesn't mean anything. It's just a folk name to express the essence of the Tatars. He then went on to list another ethnographic map in the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Balkars, Uzbeks, Saligs, Uighurs, Tatars, specifically this time Tatars, Tuvins, Turks, Uighurs, of course Kazars, Kamsa Turks, Korasan Turks are a very small minority here in Korasan. Kotan, Shoras and Yakuts, who are mostly Sakas. Altaics, Balkars, Gagauz, Kazakhs, Karkalpaks, Kumyks, Crimean Tatars. Escobar was also introduced to a very obscure term. The population of Crimea, which is nonsense. Uzbeks, Tatars, Uighurs, Tuvins, Kazars, Khorasun Turks, Yakuts or Sakas, these are all ethnic groups that have lived and live on the territory of Russia. Also, the whole new part of Turkestan, the modern part of Turkestan, was built mostly by Turks. Turkestan, northern Kazakhstan, city. And Turkestan has been officially recognized by Erdogan.
"I visited Turkestan and recognized Turkestan as the cultural capital of the Turkic peoples. Erdogan visited Turkestan and officially declared it the cultural capital of the Turkic peoples. However, when he made this claim, he did not even mention culture. He basically said that the cultural capital of the Turkic peoples is Turkestan, northern Kazakhstan. But when Erdogan said that, he didn't even mention culture. He basically said that the capital of the Turkic peoples is Turkestan, northern Kazakhstan. By doing so, he put so much emphasis that it is the center of Naturana. But it is obvious that this is not the case. Erdogan doesn't read anything because he thinks he knows everything, that he can answer everything. No wonder he has such a superficial knowledge of quite serious matters. That is why Turkestan can ask us what the organisation of the Turkish states is all about.
Above all, it attempts to redistribute history so that it merges with the history of Turkish cultural place, from Azerbaijan to Xinjiang. Escobar said that for the profit of what is referred to in Istanbul as the "Group of Five". The "Group of Five" are five big construction companies linked to the AKP and Erdogan's party. The story is said to be that Azerbaijan is the "Group of Five" and Turkestan is the "Group of Five". "Group of Five" and it is said to be the five most influential Turkish construction companies that control many processes in Turkey. The "Group of Five" is a very narrow business and commercial focus, but it is a reality. mainly it is said to be in line with how Erdogan thinks. Therefore, Russia should not worry that this will stabilize North Asia. Even if very limited.
In Escobar's view, of course, the main goal of this organisation is to expand Turkey's influence and it cannot be compared to the way China works, to the global initiative or to the Russian, Eurasian integration. Here, of course, it's not so close where it can be traced and at the level of, for example, language, of course, Turkish doesn't have that much importance or that much influence in countries like Peshk or somewhere in Uzbekistan. Let's say people don't speak Turkish, of course they speak either their language or Russian. That says something. But what should worry Russia and all of us is that it is not part of the organization of Turkish articles that are supported by Turkish military intellectuals and extremism everywhere from Syria to Sinjar.
Escobar added: But when you look closer you find organizations like ISIS, al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, ISIS-K, all kinds of extremist groups that give free reign, even live in Istanbul, then go to Gaziantep, cross the border and come back. It's all very, very easy. It's a danger because these Uighur separatist groups, they have their main center in Istanbul and everybody knows they are there. That is the danger. But it has nothing to do with the organisation of the Turkish articles. This, of course, is basically such a nest of terrorists, terrorist organizations. A number of them have their headquarters right in Istanbul. They move freely around the country. They are such organizations, Igil-type structures. They are everywhere in Turkey. You can find them both in Istanbul and in Gaziantep, for example. They move freely.
He further stated that they have a very strong influence in the country. So far, these are only conclusions, a characteristic moment that Escobar, for example, saw in Tashkent. In his view, it is colossal, like the American trade center, for example. The Chinese came there and saw this mall so they announced that they were building twice as big in the same space. And they did build it. And there is some Russian influence, which he said is quite obvious to everybody present, is everywhere present. And about Turkish influence, that is barely noticeable or even completely absent.
(the third part of the continuation of the conference will be published on 1 July)
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