New Diplomacy 101 for Dummies

Forget diplomats, academics and foreign correspondents! In Turkey, it is the barbers and the cab drivers who always know what to do in international relations. Ever since I stepped - no, was pushed - into international relations as a timid diplomatic correspondent back in the 1990s, those two professional groups have been sure that if they were just given a free rein in diplomacy, they would be able to carry their communication skills into the international arena. After all, haven't they been dealing with difficult people - the old man who does not know where he needs to go, the hysterical blonde mama worried about menopause and competition from young people and the boastful CEO who is desperately trying to cover his bald spot - all their lives?

So, faced with his professional nous, there you are in the barber's chair, unable to tell your barber just where you want your highlights because it would mean interfering in his profession. By contrast, off he goes to tell you why Turkey, if it had any sense, would have suspended the Customs Union with the EU long ago and joined the Shanghai Five. They also have a high grasp of all the conspiracy theories that would put Dan Brown to shame.

Thus, when I learned that a new Barbers Museum was being opened in İzmir, I rushed there to get some sound advice on how Turkey could solve its problems with EU member states. After all, what I learned in the political science departments of Middle East Technical University and Université Libre de Bruxelles no longer provides the right tools in the diplomatic world of the 21st century. The new age, where leaders talk about building walls rather than bridges, clearly requires a new style that is not in Satow, the so-called diplomatic bible written by a British diplomat in...