Modern day Turkey, under the leadership of a President accused by many of being an Islamist or Islamist in disguise and loved by many for being a loyal and devout Muslim, is leading the way in helping to develop many developing countries that have been left abandoned by the developed nations.

While the Arab leaders loot the natural resources of their nation and the western world obsess over generating and accruing more wealth, Turkey is taking a different approach. They are arriving at the doorsteps of the most impoverished nations with genuine desire to help with economic growth, infrastructure development and sharing the respective countries' richness with the locals.

At the heart of Turkey's political belief are three key principles: fairness, excellence and compassion - the ideal recipe for growth and development without greed, exploitation or resentment. Poorest countries with natural minerals have been sucked bone dry for decades by many western countries while mistrust and anger has been rising at the grassroots. Local people seldom benefit from these foreign investors, it's the corrupt government and their cronies who gain the most. They make their money through bribes, backhanders and lucrative partnership offerings that are given to the sons and daughters of ministers. Western companies have been accomplices to this corrupt culture and our governments have often turned a blind eye to these rotten practices in the developing world under the pretext of national interest.

Turkey has a powerful and growing economy that has grown consistently under the current leadership and over the last 15 years. Turkish people are feeling more confident about their nation again and able to demonstrate their growing self-esteem on the international stage. Turkey has adopted a brilliant foreign policy agenda - strategy of peaceful and honest statesmanship where they are taking direct risk in providing money and expertise for basic infrastructure development in war torn countries such as Somalia, championing the causes of people who have been suffering long running injustice such as Palestine and being the benevolent neighbour for the fleeing refugees from the brutal war in Syria. The above combination is a gold standard foreign policy template that the Western democracies could emulate.

Our unethical foreign policies have contributed to the polarisation of people of the world and proliferation of extremism and terrorism in the world today as well as has unashamedly sustained awful and illegitimate rulers in the Muslim world. Turkey's foreign policies are winning the hearts and minds of the masses in the Muslim world. Ordinary people in the Muslim world are so besotted by Tayyeb Erdogan, the Turkish president that many are giving theirs new born boys the name Erdogan and calling their daughters Istanbul.

Our government in the UK and our good friends in the USA should take a page from the Turkish way and rethink their foreign policies towards the Muslim world. Why are we failing to win the hearts and minds of the masses from the Muslim worlds while Turkey is winning it so seamlessly. Our bombs, drones and security measures have backfired while Turkish diplomatic master strategy is bearing unprecedented access and good will. The biggest question is will our governments ever learn and embrace change or will they join the nasty neocons and fascist rightwing lobby groups and greedy multinationals to vilify Erdogan, blame Islam and call the Muslims of the world potential terrorists?

I travel a lot across the poorest countries and the richest nations in the world and I get the distinct impression that the Ottomans are back but their return is most welcomed by the Muslims masses!
(Facebook)