Turkey should embrace democracy to keep up as a nation

The question recently rooted in the back of my mind as our parent newspaper, daily Hürriyet, launched a series of interviews with prominent figures from Turkish society to rediscover the shared values of the Turkish people, who have long been suffering from political, social and ethnic divisions. 

Doğan Holding chair Begümhan Doğan Faralyalı, in her introduction for the project titled "Let's walk to the Future Together," drew attention to the fact that the Turkish society nearly came to a point where it forgot all of its common values and interests as a result of enduring polarization.

As she underlined, the starting point of this project suggests that we, as the Turkish people, have more commonalities than differences but we are yet to rediscover them, especially in the aftermath of the July 15 failed coup attempt. What happened on that night bitterly taught the whole nation the vital importance of being one and united, as well as keeping around the great values of democracy and universally-accepted norms. 

The resurfacing of commonalities that make up a nation and paying full respect to ethnic, cultural, religious and political differences are the only ways for a country to strengthen its democratic fundamentals against all kinds of internal and external challenges. 

Given these deep divisions amongst the Turkish people and political polarization that paralyzed the entire political system from addressing the country's fundamental problems, one would not be wrong in asserting that today's Turkey is much more vulnerable to these challenges because of its own weaknesses. And the source of these weaknesses derives from the fact that we are quickly losing our ability to act like a united nation. 

Today's picture of Turkey...