“…A crippled wind blows from afar/ The eras debate my destiny/ Dark sages claw at the darkness/ The universe is a battlefield/ A verse clutching love marches towards me/ A city’s love-crazed blocks my way asking for Layla… /Is Layla a unique soul/ Or a soul within a soul?” (İlhami Çiçek)
“The past is never dead; it’s not even past” (William Faulkner)
“The death of fire is the birth of air, the death of air is the birth of water” (Heraclitus)
“In water resides the spirit of extinguished fire” (Buddha)
The famous Bhagavad Gita epic of Eastern wisdom tells about the great war between two relative dynasties who could not share the kingdom in ancient India.
According to legend, in this first world war of history, two armies led by great commanders faced each other. The Bhagavad Gita, meaning “Sacred Song” or “Song of God” in Sanskrit, begins at this juncture. As the battle is about to commence, Arjuna, the commander of one army, instructs his charioteer Krishna to stop the chariot in the middle of the battlefield. And he watches the battlefield silently for a long time. He trembles at the sight he sees and thinks about the futility of the war. Suddenly losing all willpower, he drops his bow and arrow, collapsing in despair in his chariot. He decides not to fight. Krishna, serving as Arjuna’s charioteer and friend, tries to dissuade him from abandoning the battle. And a deep discussion begins between them, first about the war and then about life, death, God and existence.
The epic continues with this metaphorical discussion. The battlefield represents the world, even the universe. The two warring dynasties, though relatives, symbolize order and chaos. War is life itself, that is, ‘living’. Arjuna’s internal struggle is humanity’s inner conflict. Krishna is Arjuna’s mentor (in the epic, in accordance with Indian mythology, Krishna later acquires a divine identity and turns into the god Vishnu, and in the final stage, it turns out that he is the eternal soul Brahman himself.) The argument between Arjuna and Krishna is actually the conflict between the infinite soul within man and the finite. The epic is full of interesting dialogues, wise answers, occasionally theological explanations of Indian philosophy, and deep questions about the meaning of life. According to the metaphor, commander Arjuna, as a responsible human figure, and Krishna, as the voice of the eternal soul, the human subconscious, and a divine breath, begin to speak:
Arjuna: “I see omens of evil, Krishna. I cannot imagine what glory would come from killing my kins in the battle.” “I don’t want to kill them even if I die myself, Krishna. I can’t do this for three earth kingdoms, let alone one earth kingdom.” “What joy remains in life if we must kill our relatives in war?” “I am not after glory, nor the kingdom, nor the pleasant life that the kingdom will provide. Of what use are kingdoms, pleasures, and even life itself?” “Did we not desire all this for those who stand ready to sacrifice their lives and wealth in this war? Moreover, we do not know who is better off defeating whom in this war. If we kill our relatives who are in war formation against us, will we have the will to live?”
Krishna smiles at Arjuna, who is left hopelessly stuck between the two armies, and says: “You suffer unnecessarily. A wise person grieves neither for the living nor the dead. For there has never been a time when neither you nor I nor those gathered here did not exist. From now on, we will all exist forever.” “Just as there is an essence within our mortal body that passes from childhood to youth, from youth to old age, this essence also passes to another body after death. Pleasures and pains are temporary things that belong to the world of senses, just like heat and cold. Get over these Arjuna!” “A person who is not affected by these changes, who is always the same whether he is happy or in pain, is considered truly wise and attains immortality. What is unreal cannot exist; what is real cannot cease to exist. Those who can see the difference between these two are those who have seen the truth.” “This reality that dominates everything in the universe cannot be destroyed. No one can put an end to it. The body is mortal. But the essence within the body is immortal and unlimited. That’s why Arjuna fight in this war. In this war, there will be no one to die or be killed. Those who think this will happen are wrong. Because the infinite within man neither dies nor kills.” “You were never born and you will never die. You haven’t changed at all and you won’t change anything. Since you are never born and eternal, you will not die when your body dies. How can a human being know that his essence is unborn, eternal, unchanging and indestructible, but how can he kill someone else or die?” “A sword cannot cut this essence, fire cannot burn it, rain cannot wet it, wind cannot dry it. Beyond the power of sword and fire, rain and wind, He is infinite and one. Mortal eyes cannot see it. He is beyond all thoughts and changes. If you know this, you shouldn’t be upset.” “Don’t worry, Arjuna, over the death of something that will never die. On this path, nothing is wasted and there is no failure. The person who follows this path has only one goal. Reaching the end of the road.” “Those without purpose, however, become lost in the endless choices of life…”
The epic continues in this vein.. The unique demagogic mind games of Indian philosophy give surprising answers to man’s ancient questions. The most important feature of this style of wisdom, which relies on cleverly constructed language games rather than logical consistency, is not the content of the answers it gives, but the paradoxical certainty in approaching problems. Indian thought gives contradictory answers in a definitive and absolute style to all the questions that hurt the human soul. The boldness of the discourse covers the ambiguity of the answers. The patronizing tone in style balances the deep agnosticism in the content. Perhaps this is why history has found its way to flow unchanged in the Indian sub-continent. The speeches of Arjuna (Adam) and Krishna (God), the protagonists of the Bhagavad Gita, are an answer to the most fundamental problem in the history of philosophy, a debate about being and existence; An Orthodox response to the movements that emerged demanding the reformation of Brahmanism… Reformist movements have proposed to go beyond what exists in order to reach the end of the road. Brahmanism, on the other hand, says that you are the only one who exists and you have no ‘outside’ from which you can go. The epic Bhagavad Gita, which emerged from this great separation of Indian thought, is on one side a theological text, but politically it is a philosophical description of the objection to the established order…
The counterpart of these seemingly complex issues in the Mesopotamia-Mediterranean basin is the relationship between authority-state and human beings. In this geography, where existence takes place within the master-slave dialectic and the state-opposition equation, all problems are expressed in a politicized language of religion. The state is the shadow of God on earth and therefore it is the name of an all-powerful, single, indivisible and holistic will. In this context, the state is not just a religious authority, but religion itself. Man is a servant of the state. He is obliged to obey, to fulfill his responsibilities, and not to disrupt peace and order. Rebellion, objection and opposition to the state is the biggest sin. As religious reforms, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and the Prophet Muhammad’s messages tried to repair this ancient equation where it was broken: Obedience but on the condition of justice, responsibility but on the condition of freedom, peace and order but on the condition of not oppressing…
The fundamental contradiction of the Mesopotamia-Mediterranean basin is neither class-based, ethnic, nor religious—it is political. Politics here is simply the negotiation of conditions between parties. If the state does not comply with these conditions, rebellion is legitimate. If the rebellion does not demand these conditions, it is illegitimate. God-state, God-king, the shadow of God on earth, divine order… The most obvious characteristics of the Mesopotamian-Mediterranean civilizations were shaped by this perception of sacred state. Nothing can be understood correctly without understanding the concept of the state in this geography, the meaning attributed to it and its historical adventure. Translating the Bhagavad Gita into the political reality of the Mesopotamia-Mediterranean basin offers an intriguing perspective.
If we read the epic in the language of this basin, Arjuna could represent the societal conscience opposing the state, while Krishna-Brahma could symbolize the state advocating for unconditional obedience. Their debate might be interpreted as the tension between authority and opposition, the people and the state, the reason and the conscience, ideal and reality.
What does this tension, which humanbeings have experienced in different ways throughout history, tell us about today? First, let us note the fact that the Mesopotamia-Mediterranean basin and the Indo-Iranian basin represent two distinct blocks of civilization. In the first, peace and order, and therefore the state and law, take precedence, while in the second, order within chaos, and therefore wisdom, philosophy and paradoxical realities prevail.
In the Indo-Iranian basin, the state is not a unified authority. Alongside the bureaucratic mechanism of the state, independent power centers such as clergy and aristocracy exist and often exert more influence. This characteristic structure has also been present in Catholic continental Europe since the Western Roman Empire.
In Mesopotamia-Mediterranean the situation is exactly the opposite. Here, ‘God’, that is, the sole sovereign power – in the name of God or with divine authority or in the sense of the shadow of God – is the state. Religion, aristocracy, the military, and intellectuals are all part of the state. More precisely, the state is in everything. The concept of an omnipotent God is the expression of theology that ensures the unity of authority. This has been the case since the pagan and then Orthodox Eastern Roman Empire. These two historical experiences and knowledge blocs must form the basis of any scenario crafted for the future of the world, our region, and our country. Both civilizations have comparative strengths, and historically, they have been serious competitors. However, a great civilization dynamic is hidden in the composition of these two basins. The fundamental contradiction of the various ethnic-political-religious powers that dominated these basins, which were the main geographical region where history flowed from the 2nd millennium BC to the 19th century, was established on this axis. Like two tectonic plates, the forces concentrated in these basins competed, clashed and fought with each other, and these great conflicts shaped the main course of history. Great migrations, population movements, religious-philosophical schools, political formations, technological developments, economic relations, everything else has taken shape within this main flow.
The synthesis, the composition, that is, the effort for unification of these two blocs is the fundamental political goal of the Abrahamic tradition, and the birth of great religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam is the expression of this goal. These religions have provided answers to the ontological questions and promlems of man and have ensured that the historical flow continues on the path of harmony, synthesis, peace and justice, rather than conflict. In the Indo-Iran region, the conflict of these two basins has produced dozens of heretical sects, tendencies and paths such as Hinduism-Brahmanism, Zoroastrianism, Majusism, Zervanism, Buddhism, Manichaeism, Yazidism, Babism, Kabbalism, Batinism, Hashshashinism, Durzism, Nusayrism, each of which produced itself by holding on to a part of holistic truths. These are tragic schools that arise from conflict and defend incomplete, fragmentary, fractal truths against the whole.
Abrahamic religions express peace and order based on justice, while heretic schools express chaos and confusion where differences clash. For instance, Judaism’s emergence concluded the Hittite-Egyptian wars, Christianity resolved the Persia-Rome conflicts, and Islam ended the Iran-Byzantium wars. However, over time, these major wars continued as civil wars within the new orders established by these religions. The Essene-Pharisee schools in Judaism, the Orthodox-Catholic interpretations in Christianity, and the Umayyad-Abbasid conflict in Islam can be interpreted as examples of such internal wars. Not only politically, but also theologically, the ways of thinking of the parties in these internal conflicts, their ways of looking at the world, things and events, are like a continuation of each other. It is not said for nothing that history repeats itself.
From the 19th century onwards, the world’s centre of political gravity shifted to Europe and then to the Atlantic. With modernization, that is, the scientific-technological revolution, the ancient flow centers of history have become marginal and the great historical flow has begun to continue on a globe-wide scale. If we look through the eyes of deep history, the playing field has expanded, the actors of the game, the technology they use, mobility, speed and other quantitative components have multiplied, increased and renewed. Yet the game remains the same. The rhythm of history continues to beat along the same laws, centered on the same metaphysical and political tensions. What has changed is the quantity of geopolitical zones. The fundamental dialectic continues. The inner war of man and the contradiction between the infinite and the finite, the ancient war between ideal and reality, master and slave, authority and opposition, justice and oppression, freedom and domination, continues. The generalization defined as the West, the modernization phase aimed at resolving this ancient contradiction of humanity, ensured the continuation of the Mesopotamia-Mediterranean basin on the basis of values-concepts such as the rule of law, reason, science, democracy, freedom and the individuality. However, in the same process, it has also prepared its own demise by producing aberrant Indo-Aryan values, such as monopoly capitalism, fascism, socialism, nationalism, racism and positivism. In this sense, it can be said that in the historical march of humanity, these general intra-Western contradictions will continue to set foot on ancient basins in the new age.
It is anticipated that the 21st century’s center of political gravity will shift to Eurasia. If this prediction materializes, the dialectic of the new century will align with the deep currents of long historical timelines, returning to the Mesopotamia-India axis. If a new world is to be established today -and the necessary condition for the ‘new’ in the expression ‘new world’ is that it should arise from a non-Western basin- this world will be the product of either the Indo-Iran basin, the Mesopotamia-Mediterranean basin, or a joint synthesis of the two. The historical phase that is called the West today, which actually consists of the civil war between the Anglo-Saxon-Protestant tribes and the Germanic-Catholic tribes spreading throughout the world, is in its last century. In this sense, as long as the West does not give up on carrying its civil war to Eurasia in the 21st century and solving its problems with ideological alienations based on partial truths rather than with a universal totality, it will become a parenthesis in deep history.
The Mesopotamian-Indian contradiction will also determine the recurrence of this general historical dialectic in new forms in the possible new cold and hot war in the Eurasian basin. Contrary to popular belief, a conflict between the US and China in this century would be considered an internal conflict in the Mesopotamian-Mediterranean basin. Because both the USA and China are the continuation of peace and order, that is, the Mesopotamia-Mediterranean basin. On the other hand, if a concentration centered on India in Asia acts together with Shiite Iran and Catholic Europe – such as Germany or France – this will rekindle the ancient dialectical tension of history and truly open a new page in human history. In other words, if a new world centered in Eurasia is shaped around the axis of India-China tension rather than the axis of US-China tension, the historical dialectic in question will continue its familiar historical flow.
The fundamental tension in the war between chaos and order, as described in the Bhagavad Gita, reflects the true dialectic of “us,” the Middle East-Mediterranean basin. This genuine equation, which is covered up through the West or continues as if it were the results of Westernism, should be expected to take its natural course in the coming decades. This equation divides the false dialectical tensions of the finite produced by the western experience, such as the east-west conflict, class war, and struggle of nations, in two. At the same time, in the ontological context, it is the essence of deep history, which gathers the same in the same place and the not the same in different places, and connects worldly contradictions to ontological contradictions and places them on a real basis, that is, the effort to reach the eternal.
The tension between the finite and infinite within humanity is the authentic ground for reevaluating religious, ethnic, class-based, and geopolitical contradictions in a higher unity and on a political plane. This ground expresses the essence of all issues, that is, the effort to become human. The finite diminishes, divides, and pulls people down. The infinite exalts, matures, completes… Being human is an effort to embrace the infinite in a finite world.
If the new dialectic centered on Eurasia is shaped on the India-China axis, it will ensure that this ancient war of humanity continues where it left off. However, if the peace and justice-based monotheistic essence of the Mesopotamia-Mediterranean basin is defeated in this historical recurrence within the new basin, humanity will face a global deluge akin to Noah’s flood. But if the possibility of an Abrahamic victory arises again, then not only capitalism and related problems, but also all the racist, ethnicist, pagan, ignorant practices of Indo-Iranian origin that tire our brains and souls, waste our time, and sacrifice our children to dirty wars will be thrown into the dustbin of history again.
In the 21st century, geopolitical debates should be defined and discussed not with misleading distinctions such as west and east, west and Eurasia, but on the basis of the ancient contradictions of the historical-universal dialectics inherent in both the west and the east. In this sense, Türkiye is still the heartland of the Mesopotamia-Mediterranean basin in terms of its geography, history, culture and politics. It is still Assyria, Egypt, and Rome. It is still the center of ancient synthesis based on order and stability. It remains the homeland of the Abrahamic tradition, the People of the Book, and the original monotheistic essence of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is a wall of Dhul-Qarnayn that contains the educational and monotheistic opportunities of being ‘Adam’ against the chaos and polytheistic animist-pagan humanity that we still symbolize with Indo-Iran.
Global waves and the rivalries and conflicts between so-called great powers are always the froth of history. The important thing is always the consistent protection of policies appropriate to its natural habitat and historical rhythm. In these lands, states that can maintain this stability will become permanent. States that cannot understand their own existence and are blown away by the blowing winds become garbage.
If the Republic of Türkiye can hold the right position in the dialectics of the new age as the inheritor of Muslim Rome, it can be an important actor in the new century. If it makes short-term choices in the balance of power in which it is not the decision-maker in the global winds blowing, it will break away from the historical rhythm that created it and prepare for its destruction.
New Türkiye, new regional order, a new world… First of all, it can be built with discussions that start on such a basis and at this depth.
It seems that Arjuna and Krishna will continue their debate where they left off throughout the 21st century.
Source: Özcan, Ahmet, Let’s Give Flowers to Defeated Rebels, Yarın Publishing.
