EN - FR - Yükselen Afrika ve Türkiye / Rising Africa and Turkey 3

The New Turkish - African Economic Relationsand the Old obstructive Discourse:Afro - PessimismSedat AybarI. IntroductionAfrica has recently been firmly placed on Turkey’s international agendain a way that was perhaps unthinkable a couple of years ago. Television documentaries,newspaper articles, photo exhibitions, music concerts and aboveall, current government’s unprecedented support have all helped invigoratingthis recent interest on African ‘affairs’. Africa have become one of the maintourist destinations for many Turks. Despite a long history of Turkey’s involvementin the continent, particularly in North Africa this recent upsurge of interestis a new one with a variety of underlying dynamics worthy of investigation.Two particular developments can be put forward to claim central prominencefor this recent rise in interest on Africa.The first is external. The debates across the globe following the launch ofCommission for Africa (CFA) report set up last year by the British Prime MinisterTony Blair, compromising 18 commissioners, did not escape the attentionof the Turkish intelligentsia. The CFA report was published in the monthbefore G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, in July 2005, with the hope thatG8 leaders might endorse some of the report’s recommendations. The secondis internal and relates to the announcement made in the beginning of 2005 bythe Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdo¤an, that ‘this year is going to be theAfrica Year’. Soon after, following his words Prime Minister Erdo¤an carriedout official visits to Ethiopia and South Africa.There also exist some fundamental reasons for the recent surge of intereston Africa, in Turkey. The apparent political and geo-strategic reason comes inthe from of ‘Greater Middle East and North Africa Project’ proposed by theUS administration under President George W. Bush. The ambitious aim putforward by that project, calls for the introduction of democracy that would