OPINION - President Erdogan’s UNGA speech: From Gaza to the "world is bigger than five"

By Dr. Mehmet Celik

- The author is Editorial Coordinator and columnist at Daily Sabah newspaper.

ISTANBUL (AA)- The world leaders convened for the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York City earlier this week, and they delivered their speeches on September 24.

- A powerful speech

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who spoke third and after United States (US) President Joe Biden, allocated a large part of his speech to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

President Erdogan delivered a frank, explicit, and at times emotional speech with a strong tone to draw attention of the international community to Israeli atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza. As opposed to Biden, who spoke about his political career and urged for a rather "vague and ambiguous" notion of hope, Erdogan offered solutions for a path forward.

Erdogan's frank and explicit style as a politician is known by his domestic followers and also the international audience. As a seasoned political leader, he has previously delivered more than a dozen speeches at the UNGA podium. Repeatedly, he has drawn attention to different crises and injustices around the world, particularly in the Global South, from Syria to Myanmar, from Palestine to Sudan, from Ukraine to issues related to climate change, xenophobia, and Islamophobia.

Rightfully and expectedly, a large portion of Erdogan’s speech was allocated to Gaza. Yet, his speech must be analyzed at two levels to fully understand the messages in between the lines.

- ​​​​​​​Criticism of the Western world order

Firstly, the Turkish President repeated his famous motto "The world is bigger than five" and drew attention to the dysfunctionalities and injustices in the global governance system. This point is important because even if the geographic location of the crises changes and their names differ, the current multilateral regime and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) fails to find solutions to the current crises, and at times, produced by the permanent members of the UNSC. This was precisely the case in Syria since 2011.

Secondly, Erdogan questioned the validity of Western values stating: "Gaza has become the largest cemetery for children and women in the world." The Western states, led by the US and major European Union (UN) countries, have portrayed themselves as the defenders of human rights, democracy, and freedoms. Yet, the idleness in face of Israel’s actions against Palestinian children and women, as well as the US' and EU countries' unwavering support to Israel, has once again shown that there are double standards and hypocrisy when it comes to the so-called universal values.

Erdogan rightfully criticized this insincerity during his speech, yet his emphasis on this hypocrisy is not addressing merely the atrocities in Gaza or Israel’s decades-long occupation. The Turkish president, in fact, points to the Eurocentric values regime and problematizes the reality that currently the interests of merely a powerful few are protected at the expense of many other members of the international community.

Lastly, while Erdogan drew attention to the need for a reform in the global governance and hypocrisy of the West on human rights and freedoms, in between the lines he also dwelled on the changing dynamics in the world order and underlined Türkiye’s historic role and mission as an active, effective, and global player in designing the new world order.

Though Gaza was in the center of the Turkish President’s speech, he also touched upon Türkiye's foreign policy engagement. Erdogan highlighted Türkiye’s growing international influence. In terms of disputes and conflicts both in close geographies such as in Gaza, Northern Cyprus, Syria, the Balkans, Ukraine, or the South Caucasus and in distant geographies such as in Latin America or the issue of Uyghur Muslims in China and in common issues as in terrorism, climate change, and xenophobia, Erdogan highlighted that Türkiye is an engaged and active player in tackling global issues.

Erdogan’s call to the international community and particularly to the countries who support Israel’s attacks on Gaza has come to the forefront in his speech. Yet, in the bigger picture, his policy proposals for a reform of global governance, his emphasis on the hypocrisy of the West when it comes to rights and freedoms and Türkiye’s growing international influence must be read in between the lines of Erdogan’s once again very powerful and historic speech at the UNGA.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu