23 September 2009 / YENİ ŞAFAK AKİF BEKİ,
The fact that families previously divided by barbed-wire fences that mark borders in villages on both the Turkish and Syrian sides of that region can finally come together to exchange bayram greetings without first obtaining visas is an important step in normalization and overcoming the divisive politics of the region.
In the end, those walls that divide us are also a blockade that manages to make foreign what is actually much shared culture and history in the Middle East. Every stone removed from these walls is a breach that will allow cultural exchange. On the other hand, in the Middle East, with all of its chaotic regions, things are not so easy and plain to read, of course. It would be a great mistake to count the larger picture of the situation with Syria as being based simply on the symbolism of the visa and to not take advantage of some of the other possibilities this really presents.
