The Disintegration of Western Civilization and Humanity's Search for a New Path

As another year comes to an end, each passing year begins to make us long for the previous one, and the fragilities of today’s Western civilization have started to surface. As a country, we have begun to experience these same problems more severely, largely due to our desire to reach the West and our tendency to seek solutions exclusively there. Global populations, including ours, are aging; the West is facing difficulties with the colonies from which it has sourced raw materials, and it sustains its systems by importing foreign labor. A period of economic collapse has begun and is rapidly worsening. Democratic regimes have ceased to produce solutions and have instead become sources of problems. This is because the concepts of justice and democracy have effectively become privatized—transforming into systems that favor their own citizens and those who hold power. What is happening between Israel and Palestine has upended notions such as justice and impartiality, laying corruption bare.

The United States, European countries, and those aligned with them are complicating and paralyzing the system by categorizing rights instead of upholding universally accepted rights to life. For example, societies are deeply divided over issues such as animal rights, women’s rights, and gender neutrality. In the United States, some states seek to secede from the union, while nationalist movements in Europe cannot be contained. If this process cannot be halted, civil war may become inevitable.

During the global pandemic, it became clear that shifting industrial production to distant geographies disrupts supply chains, leading to inflation, high costs, and shortages of goods. During the Russia–Ukraine war, Europe confronted both its energy dependency and its weakness in defense. The West had experienced similar internal problems and wars in the past, but this time the situation is different. During the Cold War, the main reason for the West’s superiority over the East was the atmosphere of freedom it provided. Europe emerged from its own darkness by prioritizing science and building a framework of rights and freedoms. Yet today, in the universities of the West that once emerged from that darkness, concepts such as rights and freedoms have lost their value; protests against what authorities do not want are prohibited. Those who support the oppressed are granted no rights at all. The Berlin Wall, which divided Germany in two, was once called the “Wall of Shame.” Today there is one Germany, and because of what it once did to its Jewish citizens, it now supports the actions of Israeli decision-makers. The West has strayed so far from its own values that Russians who fled to Europe to escape the war environment in Russia are returning to their country as angry Russian nationalists due to the discrimination they experienced. The same danger exists in our country as well, where rhetoric and behavior toward Syrians, Afghans, and other foreign nationals have escalated into xenophobia.

The climate of freedom that once strengthened Western art has disappeared. We have entered a period in which some of the world’s most respected artists cannot find stages simply because they are Russian citizens. It must now be stated clearly: history is likely to repeat itself, and Europe seems poised to return once again to its own dark age. For this reason, the coming period will be difficult and arduous for the world and for humanity. Although the future imagined for people appears more digital and more convenient, it is clear that this will not be the case. A future is being offered in which people receive a universal basic income, think about nothing, and are entirely dependent on digital devices. Although this may sound appealing, humanity is rapidly heading toward extinction, living like chicks raised in coops—fed at set times, with night turned into day and day into night. Although it is very difficult to stop this course, what must be done is a return to humanity’s factory settings: a way of life that understands the wisdom of existence, seeks to learn ancient knowledge, and can meet its own needs from the land. The processes unfolding in today’s world confirm these thoughts.

In this context, it becomes necessary to recognize the importance of the African continent—where digitalization is slower and whose past is marked by internal conflicts and colonization—in the coming economic and sociological period. As an NGO (Fastiad), based on our long-standing foresight and efforts, we believe that the African continent, once associated with slavery, can today become a continent capable of saying “stop” to the enslavement of humanity. We know that the conditions exist for humanity to be rebuilt, that resources are abundant enough for the world, and that even these lands alone contain sufficient resources to sustain all of humanity if shared fairly in every sense. For this reason, we strive to be present on this continent as Turkish businesspeople and cultural ambassadors, and to build bonds of solidarity. Time continues to prove us right. With hope for a beautiful and peaceful future…