The great embrace…

I came to America for two weeks for a family visit and a vacation. On the first day of my trip, when I got off the plane, I received the news that Halk TV Editor-in-Chief Suat Toktaş and Halk TV Program Manager Kürşad Oğuz had been detained, that Kürşad Oğuz, Barış Pehlivan, Serhan Asker, and Seda Selek had been released under judicial control, and that Suat Toktaş had been arrested. I was truly very saddened… Suat Toktaş is a virtuous, honorable, and experienced senior journalist. Suat Bey is someone who has earned the respect of media members from every viewpoint in the press community, whether they have worked with him or not. I hope he regains his freedom as soon as possible…

Generally, my friends living abroad used to follow developments in our country with great anxiety… In some of our conversations, I would feel that they were more worried than we were. Perhaps I experienced this feeling for the first time. Being far away and not being able to get the news fully makes one much more anxious. After following the developments regarding our journalist friends on the first day, we woke up on the morning of the second day to the news that five lieutenants who had taken an oath by saying “We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal” had been dismissed for indiscipline. One really doesn't know which one to be sad about. Every day brings another piece of tragic news… The dismissal of the lieutenants wounded the nation's conscience. Of course, it didn't just wound the conscience; it also raised the polarization within society to a much higher level. It is clear that the AKP government will never give up on increasing this polarization and controlling its own base through it. In fact, it seems that it will continue to try this path, perhaps not as a choice but as a necessity, and even because it has no chance other than polarization.

If you ask what the opposition is doing while anti-democratic practices and lawlessness continue at full speed, the opposition has already begun to build a great Turkey alliance and make preparations for primary elections to determine its candidate. In an article I wrote for 12punto a few weeks ago titled “The remedy for CHP: the great embrace,” I wrote that the most important task for the Republican People's Party (CHP) from this point on is to ensure unity both within the party and within the large opposition bloc. It appears that the CHP's stance against the anti-democratic practices applied to the opposition and the press, and especially against the lawlessness directed at Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, will be to ensure the formation of a broad social opposition, just as in the 2017 referendum.

Just as suppressing society more and increasing polarization more is the government's only chance, mobilizing the social opposition and ensuring unity appears to be the only chance for the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party.

In the 2017 constitutional referendum, the great 'no' bloc that formed included political parties, organizations, and platforms from very different viewpoints. Reviving this unity and sentiment is, of course, important. However, one must not forget—and as I have written before, I would like to remind you once again—that at that time, the Republican People's Party's internal unity was complete. Today, it is important to focus more on this unity, to call the party's meritorious cadres, who have been excluded and pushed outside the political circle for many years, to duty, and to create a common mind together.

We must not forget that the government, while playing on social polarization on one hand, is playing on division within the opposition on the other. Be careful…