I am on an Adıyaman-bound flight from Turkey’s Istanbul. The aircraft takes off, diving into a crazy cluster of clouds. We cruise like this for a while. Snow, winter, and the clouds begin a dance in the air. A while later, the sun joins in on their performance.
We travel for a while amid an intense mountain of snow. We virtually disappear in the mountain of snow and clouds.
Then, the sun suddenly makes an appearance.
As we continue to travel amid the crazy clouds toward a pure white uncertainty, the sudden appearance of the sun warms me to the bone.
The higher the aircraft climbs, the lower the clouds remained. There was a snow-white layer of clouds below, which was illuminated by sunlight. The ground had disappeared, the world no longer within reach; an entirely different world appeared over the clouds.
The sublimity of seeing sun rays in the world of clouds in winter is ineffable!
Both illumination and warmth inside!
I am in the front row of the aircraft. When I informed the flight attendants that I was going to write and requested for them to please set me up with a quiet and peaceful area, they very kindly arranged a good seat.
Before I could start writing, someone approached me saying, “Assalamu Alaykum (peace bu upon you), sir.” A good person who found his calling in life. My brother, İskender Araz. He is a businessman. He said, “Sir, if your students need any books, we are here,” and handed me his card. I said, “Thank you brother, may you live long,” and started writing.
Today, on my flight to Adıyaman, I am going to pen my article on the Balkans.
Writing in the air gives one the feeling that he possesses wings. You soar mentally in the air, amid the clouds.
I have written my most long-winded articles during flights.
Nobody disturbs you. Your focus remains intact. Flight attendants appear from time to time, asking, “Do you need anything, sir?” I thank them silently with a smile.
The Balkans have had dark clouds hovering over the region for some time now. These are not haunting the Balkans but the entire world due to the coronavirus pandemic.
On Jan. 9, Serbs held a horrendous celebration, marking the anniversary of the attack, the barbarism, and the savagery they subjected Sarajevo to three decades ago. What’s more, they did it with images that chilled one to the bone. Bosnia was encased by flames. It bore witness to horrific scenes once more, three decades later!
Their infernal shows were like a season in hell!
The Serbs once more displayed that they are, indeed, the children of hell.
Republika Srpska leader Milorad Dodic established a militia, putting on a show of force with thousands of marchers.
They are despicable!
They are primitive!
They are barbaric!
They displayed this horrendous, blood-chilling show in Sanjak, as if to challenge the Bosnians.
The people of Bosnia are unaware of what will befall them. They seem to have long-forgotten the Serbian genocide. Bosnians are stuck between yearning for Tito and yearning for NATO!
This is not the case in Bosnia alone. There is horrific indolence in all of the Balkans. They admire Tito, Europe, and the U.S.!
Muslims in the Balkans sustain their bonds with Islam through Turkey’s presence, and through their relations with Turkey.
The Balkans are dependent on Turkey.
Any action in Turkey is felt like an earthquake in the Balkans.
The sole source that will help the Balkans achieve true freedom is Islam. Muslims in the Balkans preserve their Islamic identity through their dependence on Turkey.
Even though Islam and the Ottomans are repeatedly insulted and face despicable attacks in our country, this is not the case in the Balkans. The Ottoman Empire is not dead in the Balkans; it is a great dream, a reviving claim to be rediscovered.
The dithering idiots in our country, the secular who are enamored with their executors, still see the Ottoman era as medieval!
Yet Turkey is the awaited one in the Balkans. The Ottoman Empire is a dream.
At the closing of one of the conferences I gave in the Albanian capital Tirana before the pandemic, a film director from Kosovo jumped up to the lectern, took the microphone and said the following:
“We pray for two things in the Balkans. The first is for God. The second is for Turkey. We pray that Turkey does not collapse, that it recovers and helps us recover.”
The Balkans rely on Turkey, particularly on President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Any dramatic change in Turkey, or isolation of the Balkans is sufficient for a state of purgatory to ripen.
The Balkans are a bomb ready to explode right now. What the Serbs did, this blood-chilling commemoration is a horrific indication of how the Balkans could suddenly become infernal.
Turkey must keep its attention on the Balkans through long-term, in-depth, and permanent strategies.
If we abandon the Balkans, the “infernal children” will turn the Balkans into hell – God forbid.
You have been warned.
