Of course, every year that we leave behind deserves a comprehensive assessment, with all of the positives and negatives. But since for the past week this assessment has been performed in a sense on different pages in Today’s Zaman, in this column I’d like to look not at yesterday, but to tomorrow. I want to share what sort of a 2010 I hope for, as well as my predictions with regard to this year. As you know, it’s a universal tradition to begin each year with good hopes and wishes that the new year will bring goodness, happiness, health and prosperity to our spouses, friends and loved ones. Frankly, my hopes are similar to this at the beginning of each new year. My wish is to always enter the new year with hope, and I hope that it brings happiness to all. But I also know that with this stance of ours we’ve also burdened the shoulders of the new year with a debt that urgently needs to be repaid, a debt comprising everything that the year we’ve just finished and the years past were not able to bring us. Unfortunately, as life plods on and the number of years we’ve left behind increases, the amount and quality of that debt we expect the new year to repay also increases. And when the end of the new year, which was started with hope, arrives, the hopes that this debt will be repaid are carried over into the next year. As people age, this continues as such. But let it be so -- we shall continue to expect much of the new year and continue to hope that it will have wonderful things in store for us.
Since I don’t think readers will be terribly interested in my personal hopes for the new year, I’ll begin by listing the things I wish for Turkey. My greatest wish is that Turkey will be able in 2010 to manage the successful and problem-free completion all of the reforms, initiatives and peace efforts that it began but was unable to finish in 2008 and 2009, years of historic and revolutionary transformation for the nation. I also hope that a successful solution will be found for the mines that have been laid by some Turkish and Kurdish circles along the path of the solution process, an end to the destructive path of opposition that they have set out upon and the resistance that they’ve fronted -- at the cost of bloodshed -- in an effort to disable the democratic initiative process. Because I believe that there is no other path to the solution of the Kurdish problem, the elimination of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the establishment of a democratic state of law that will thrive across Turkey. I await as part of an expanded democratic initiative the critical and courageous examination and solution of the problems faced by pious Sunni Muslims, Alevis and members of other religious groups living in this country. I hope that 2010 will be a year in which the minority mindset of Armenians, Greeks, Suryanis, Christians, Jews and all other minorities will be able to be eliminated through the removal of all obstacles to their enjoying all the rights entitled to first-class, equal citizens.
I want an end to be put to the horrible conspiracies being launched against the people and democracy, and for the state, military, civil society, media and judiciary to be cleansed of all the various gang and junta structures hidden deep within. I want democratic standards to rise and violations of human rights and freedoms to fall to zero. I want this nation to be one in which nobody is looked at with prejudice or treated with contempt based on their lifestyle, beliefs or convictions -- in short, a country in which everyone lives as they please. I hope 2010 will bring all of us a Turkey that is much more a state of law, that is more free, civilian and democratic, in which nobody will feel state pressure, military tutelage will become a thing of the past and no segment of society will be treated as privileged.
I hope the initiative process that began with our neighbors will, as with Syria, result in more borders being rendered meaningless -- and I include Armenia in this hope of mine. I hope that reforms as part of the EU accession process will be realized without any loss of momentum, such that 2010 becomes at least as critical as was 2004 in this regard. I expect the world to effect a speedy recovery from the economic crisis and Turkey to return to its dazzling performance of previous years in which it broke record after record. I long to see a Turkey in which per capita income is on the rise, prosperity is increasing, the distribution of wealth is more equitable and the current record unemployment falls to more tolerable levels. It’s certainly possible to expand this list; after all, there are also our expectations of previous years that have not yet been met, and moreover, they all seem to us dividends to which we have a right and which must immediately be distributed, and we’re expecting them all from 2010.
Does 2010 have what it takes to meet all these expectations, you ask? It’s necessary to set all of these wonderful expectations of ours aside in a box that we can reach, while we list our realistic predictions. I hope you won’t accuse me of ruining all your dreams for the new year if I say that unfortunately, 2010 will pass with at least as much tension as 2009 did -- I believe that all of the evil developments of 2009 that struck us with horror were aimed at the upcoming elections and selection process for the new president. Even if you do accuse me of this, I must say it up front -- whether a little or a lot I do not know, but a year full of tension is awaiting us in 2010. Let’s hope that through this inevitable tension our country will gain results such as increased justice, freedoms and prosperity, allowing it to become a true democracy and state of law.
I wish a year full of happiness, prosperity, health and hope to all of you.
