By Sergio Rodriguez Gelfenstein *
These days, I have tried to make a greater effort to obtain credible information that allows me to better understand political processes that are taking place in remote parts of the planet, on which it is difficult to obtain reliable information that leads to accurate assessments in the analysis. Three conflict situations have captured my interest most recently: the South China Sea, the war in Ukraine, and the rising tensions in West Asia, considering the go-ahead that the United States has given Israel and Saudi Arabia to commit all kinds of excesses.
In this endeavor, I have had the extraordinary fortune of coming across the studies and research of the Turkish socialist leader Doğu Perinçek who, precisely in these days, reaches eight decades of life. It has been extremely useful to find information that makes it possible to understand the aforementioned conflicts from the perspective of scientific theory.
Doğu Perinçek was born on June 17, 1942. He graduated from Ankara University Law Faculty in 1964 and began his academic work at the Department of Public Law (State Theory and Civil Liberties). He received his doctorate in Law in March 1968. While studying at the university, he spent 10 months in Germany in the years 1962-1963, where he was employed as a laborer and learned the language.
In 1963, he embraced the views of scientific socialism. In 1968, he led the largest mass student protests and university occupations against imperialism in Turkish history, in his role as president of the Revolutionary Youth Organization. In November 1968, together with a group of colleagues, he founded and started publishing the newspaper “Aydınlık” (Enlightenment) which continues to be published to this day as one of the most influential daily newspapers in Turkey.
Since 1969, he has been chairman of the Revolutionary Workers’ and Peasants’ Party of Turkey (TIIKP), the Workers’ and Peasants’ Party of Turkey (TIKP), the Socialist Party (SP), and the Workers’ Party (IP). He is currently chairman of the Vatan (Motherland) Party, a vanguard organization of Turkish workers.
He has spent 14 years in prison during periods of US-backed coups and repression. He appealed three times to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and has won all three cases, demonstrating the righteousness of his actions. Between 2008 and 2014, the Fethullah Gülen Terrorist Organization (FETO), guided by the CIA operation Gladio organized a conspiracy and imprisoned. The conspiracy also targeted commanders of the Turkish Armed Forces who were resisting US imperialism. He led the fight against the conspiracy until he achieved liberation from prison in 2014.
As a result of this victory, the Turkish Armed Forces launched the military crackdown on US-led terrorist organizations both inside and outside Turkey, effectively disrupting the planned US-Israeli corridor in northern Syria.
Perinçek played a major role internationally in thwarting US plans to establish a second Israel under the label of “Kurdistan.” On July 15 and 16, 2016, he was the first political leader to publicly reject the US Gladio coup attempt. He currently plays a leading role in the international organizations that seek to build the Eurasian Alliance, in which Turkey cooperates with its neighbors Syria, Iraq, Iran and Azerbaijan and with its Asian allies, such as the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, Pakistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the countries of Central Asia. He has a highly respected presence in international initiatives and conferences organized by countries such as China, Russia and Iran.
Perinçek has published 55 books and more than 1,000 articles and interviews. His books and speeches have been translated into several languages. He is the Turkish politician most singled out by the US media and its propaganda apparatus.
In a recent speech on the occasion of the NINTO (New International Order) Conference on May 7, Perinçek made a detailed analysis that allows a more precise understanding of the events that are occurring in Eastern Europe.
From the beginning – and to leave no doubts – he establishes the transcendence of the conflict to which he grants “historical importance”. Likewise, he points out that the Russian military operation is making a contribution to the construction of a New World. In this sense, he refutes the false positions that are hidden behind an apparently pacifist and humanist rhetoric. With these positions, he says, it is intended to cover up the imperialist nature of the origin of the conflict, actually caused by the expansion of the United States and NATO to the east.
For those of us who live in this part of the planet, Perinçek’s assessment of a strategic nature is of great interest. We point it out verbatim: “Currently, a front has been formed from the Black Sea to the Aegean, the Eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus, the Suez Canal, northern Syria and Iraq, the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman. ın this confrontation, forces of humanity based in Asia are facing the United States and NATO on the other side. Efforts to produce singular and local solutions in different areas within this confrontation are unrealistic. The confrontation is between humanity against Yankee imperialism. The position of each individual country on this front is the position of all countries. The Asian-based powers go hand in hand in all areas of the front”.
In his book “Pioneers of the Asian Age. Lenin Atatürk and Mao in the XXI century”, published in Spanish in 2022 by Ediciones Fides de Catalunya in Spain, Perinçek recreates the studies of Marx and Engels on the Asian mode of production and brings these together with the thoughts of Lenin, Atatürk and Mao to point out a course that allows him to affirm the following: “The relocation of the center of the world economy to Asia is the beginning of a new era […] The emergence of Asia is the emergence of a new civilization. Our world is going through the pains of a transition to a civilization based on sharing in the public interest, and humanistic relationships. Our world can no longer carry Western capitalism on its shoulders. Capitalism in the era of imperialism acquired a character that devastates human beings and nature. Capitalism is blowing a hole in the roof of the world, poisoning the oceans and killing what we love. Humanity is on the verge of a new wave of revolutions and Asia is the central point of the world agenda.”
In this context, at the NINTO conference, Perinçek summarizes the situation in Asia, showing that the struggles developed in various latitudes and longitudes of the region are an expression of the failure of the United States to dominate it through weapons. Now, the peoples Central and Western Asia are going on the offensive, all in alliance with Russia and China.
Perinçek calls for the formation of a large front of sanctioned countries in order to reject the threat of the United States, understanding that a great strategic confrontation has begun in Asia. He claims that there is no room for neutrality and that the task of the moment is to reject Western sanctions against Russia.
He ends by assuring that a new world is being formed that has expression in the fields of economy, politics and weapons. For this reason, he considers that the “Manifesto of the Great Eurasian Association”, declared in Beijing in February 2022 by the Presidents of China and Russia before the Special Operation in Ukraine, established foundational aspects in terms of principles and values that should unite “countries that seek independence, democracy, prosperity and peace”.
For this reason, he points out bluntly that: “Russia’s Operation Ukraine has added a new dimension to the frontline of the armed struggle and has forced the United States into war on multiple fronts. US imperialism’s claim to rule the future of humanity has failed. The Atlantic era is left behind. Humanity is entering the era of Asian civilization. Africa and Latin America form the wings of Asia. A humanist, pro-public, solidarity and peaceful world that guarantees the independence of nation-states is on the horizon of humanity”.
* Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein is a Venezuelan international relations expert, who was previously Director of the International Relations of the Presidency of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, his country’s ambassador to Nicaragua and an advisor for international politics for TELESUR. Gelfenstein has written numerous books, among them “China in the XXI Century – the awakening of a giant” which has been published in several Latin American countries. You can follow him on Twitter: @sergioro0701