“Dream is not what you see in sleep, dream is something which doesn’t let you sleep”. This quote by a ‘determined’ APJ Abdul Kalam never fails to inspire us to live our dreams.
Dreams have no boundaries. They may be small or big enough. The power of imagination bestowed on human beings is huge. But those dreams which really dare a man to achieve are the challenge which we must be ready to accept. If our dreams don’t scare us of achieving it then they aren’t big enough. The dreams may be in social sphere,economic sphere, spiritual sphere or in the sphere of one’s own development. What matters is our determination. All the self made millionaires, great authors, motivational speakers and politicians begun with dreaming their own fantasies, yet came out facing every obstacle and carving a path leading them to achievements.
Today’s world speaks of achievements by a man leading Turkish politics for over a decade with a vision for his nation – President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. President Erdogan has family origins in Turkey’s Rize province in the Black Sea region. A father of four, he was born in Istanbul’s Kasımpaşa quarter on Feb 26, 1954. Playing football as an amateur, Erdoğan took his first steps into politics in between 1969 and 1982.He recently termed the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) as his “fifth child” at Tuesday’s extraordinary party congress.
Erdoğan was elected Chairman of the Beyoğlu Youth Branch of the National Salvation Party (MSP), later to be elected chairman of the party’s Istanbul Youth Branches in 1976. When the Welfare Party (RP) was established after the military coup in the 1980s, Erdoğan returned to politics, and in 1984, he became the Beyoğlu district chairman of his party. Erdoğan was later elected as the Istanbul mayor in the March 27, 1994 local elections. But, then he was sentenced to a term in prison because of a poem he recited on Dec. 12, 1997 during a public address in the province of Siirt in southeastern Turkey. Certain Turkish dailies, during his imprisonment, hit the headlines with assertions that “Erdoğan cannot even be the head of a village.”
Contrary to these headlines, Erdoğan established the AK Party and won every election ever since. A host of new dams, housing projects, schools, hospitals and power plants were inaugurated at a pace never before witnessed in the history of the country. All of these positive developments were named “the Silent Revolution” by some foreign observers and Western leaders.
The election-after-election victory of Erdoğan, who has been leading Turkish politics for over a decade, has led to the general acceptance among AK Party supporters that the AK Party equals Erdoğan. Yet, bidding farewell to his “fifth child” as he takes the presidential chair, Erdoğan said Tuesday that the AK Party will never be a one man party. This showed his determined nature in spite of every hurdle he faced.
Failure is always a stepping stone to success. Optimism, self confidence, determinationand the will to challenge ourselves help us dream big and achieve big.The distance between our dreams and reality is nothing except our ‘actions’.
“You can never cross the Ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore”.
SUMAYYA TABASSUM (Member GIO TS - HNK UNIT)
