The core principle of Obama’s new immigration policy is to bring skilled, well-educated, English-speaking young people from all around the world to the US, regardless of their home countries.

I sense a tendency to assess Obama’s policy on Syria as weak and unresolved. I beg to differ. I think that Obama’s policy belongs to the present, not the past. I do not see any weakness on the US side. On the contrary, I believe that the decision makers of countries like Turkey have to put their thinking caps on if they seek to become a more prosperous country. Let me tell you what I think.

In the past, the main reason for opening up to the world and reaching beyond national borders was to search for and import raw materials for domestic production. The local people of the country where the raw materials reside were of no interest to anyone. What mattered was the country’s location, not its people. Today, however, countries in quest are becoming like head hunters as what matters today is to search for and import talent. Today, the local people matter, partly if not completely. Today, the location of the country is not as important the qualifications of its local people. It should be for a reason that Americans organize numerous contests around the world. The core principle of Obama’s new immigration policy is to bring skilled, well-educated, English-speaking young people from all around the world to the US, regardless of their home countries. Obama seeks to bring Syria’s well-educated young population to the US instead of sending American soldiers to Syria. There is no need to occupy a country in order to steal its most precious asset in the current economic climate. The outcome will be good for the US and bad for Syria. It is essentially no different than the policies of the colonial era. But I see no reason in trying to help someone who is not willing to help himself.

First, let me elaborate on the head hunting issue. What is the reason for the close attention to a certain part of the local people? One fourth of the technology companies founded in the US in the 2006-2012 period had at least one immigrant partner. In the Silicon Valley, one in every two company has an immigrant partner. Immigrants with new ideas contribute to the replenishment of America. Transferring creative minds is of greater importance for today’s economies. We are at the dawn of a new era in which regulations on qualified immigrants will be liberalized rapidly. Are we ready for competition? We have to see what is coming and act proactively. We will deeply regret otherwise.

Our civilization is a technical one. If you are a physicist, what matters is that you are, not who you are or where you were born. All of the universities around the world teach physics with the same textbooks and methods. Excuse me, all excluding bush-league universities. This is the main factor that drives the current mobility of qualified immigrants. If you do not tap your resources, someone will. In this debate I see two issues for countries like Turkey: the first is to not push away your assets, and the second is to attract qualified people from abroad. Both are equally important and both require the same steps to be taken. The issue is to create the ecosystem that will keep the skilled labor force. Tolerating differences is a key feature of such ecosystem. Some time ago I asked why Greek engineers did not consider coming to Turkey to work given the present conditions of crisis in their country. The answer came rather quickly. “I thought about it and gave it a try. I found the approach toward immigrants quite doubtful.” Indeed, the migration regulation of Turkey dated 1934 has a prerequisite among others as “coming from the Turkish culture.” How can we talk about tolerance here?

So, what is the bottom line? Here it is: The Martin Prosperity Institute releases a global creativity index. According to this, Turkey ranks 68^th amongst 82 countries. Why? Turkey is a talent-deprived country. Its education system is like a scratch pad. It is in an acute need for immigrants. This is the first thing to consider. It has no tolerance for differences. It pushes away the graduates of top universities. It even lacks a solid immigration policy.

This is the second. On a list of 61 cities, Istanbul ranks 57^th in terms of creativity. The same reasons apply. In the current times, no country can become prosperous unless it tolerates differences. In Turkey, we are extremely intolerant. We are introverted. We are doubtful about everyone who is different from us.

Why? Intolerance to differences is a key trait of heavy-handed, bush-league politics. That’s why.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 13.09.2013