Reviving the idea of an Eastern conference, regional intellectuals met in Istanbul to talk ideas, reports Mustafa El-Labbad The flight to Istanbul comes with the bonus of a thrilling landing. The airport is right on the Sea of Marmara, and the plane dives as if heading into the waves. The ride to the hotel is slow in rush hours, but you're almost thankful, for it gives you the chance to admire the great range of architecture, as Ottoman styles alternate with modern European ones. It's only in Istanbul that East meets West, literally across a bridge. Turkey has been trying to join the EU for years now. Its attraction to Europe seemed to upstage its oriental origins. But recently some Turkish intellectuals have been looking eastward. Turkish intellectuals, including Hayri Kirbasoglu and Mehmet Bekargolu, have revived the idea of an East Conference, first propagated a century ago. Their idea was to get intellectuals from Arab countries and Iran to Istanbul for a gathering that would explore the cultural and political bonds among countries of the region. Thus, representatives from Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Tunisia, Morocco and Bahrain met in Istanbul from 9 to 13 November to discuss such questions as: What is the East? Who are the Easterners? What do Easterners have in common? These are not easy questions to answer. Since this was mostly a gathering of intellectuals, not policy- makers, the discussion was meant to generate thought, not policy. But policy, as always, is hard to keep out. For example, the Syrian delegation urged the conference to issue a statement of solidarity with Syria in its final communiqué. Other delegations were happy to express support to the Syrian people, but they wished to distance themselves from the regime and its human rights record. The final statement spoke of the ethnic and sectarian diversity of the region, asserting the universality of human rights while denouncing colonial onslaughts on the region. The conference coincided with the Forum for the Future, held in Bahrain under US auspices and attended by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. The East Conference comes 90 years after the Sykes-Picot Agreement that divided the Ottoman Empire between Great Britain and France. Sykes-Picot left the region divided and mostly occupied by colonial powers. After independence, each country followed its own national calling, and many became embroiled in Cold War politics. With the East-West rivalry of the Cold War gone, the region once again began examining its own identity. Even as the conference concluded, its achievement remained far from concrete. It offered no stand on the greater Middle East scheme. It offered no plan of action for the future. And yet it was useful in more ways than one. It reminded everyone that the East is capable of collective thinking. And it reminded the Turks that Europe is not the only way to go.
