A hell of a storm over the declaration of the obvious

Recently, Buket Müftüoğlu, a former Party Assembly member of the CHP, gave a speech on "Politics and Ethics" at the Kızılcagün Platform panel. While providing examples related to the topic, she recounted an incident she experienced in 2009. She shared the words Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said regarding the operation to "abolish the Student Oath" (Andımız) that began in those days, stating that he "approved of the abolition of the Student Oath." At the time of the incident, Kılıçdaroğlu was still the CHP Group Deputy Chairman.

What she described was not surprising at all; it was the declaration of the obvious. During his 13-year tenure as chairman, the attempt to create a Y-CHP (New CHP) from the CHP had taken place before the eyes of the public. What Buket Müftüoğlu described was merely a small point within Kılıçdaroğlu's attempts to "de-CHP-ize" the CHP.

However, a hell of a storm broke out. The news was blown out of proportion and turned into a social media lynching. Kılıçdaroğlu's lawyer even shared a message containing insults, announcing that they would file a lawsuit.

What was it that angered Kılıçdaroğlu so much, who in the early years of his chairmanship had met the harshest allegations and criticisms targeting him with "maturity"?

Could it be that he saw it as an obstacle to his expectation of becoming the CHP Chairman again as a result of the increasingly approaching absolute nullity lawsuit?

Was it the reminder that he had left the CHP without its essence while he was in need of an image refresh?

However, as people who have become accustomed to these organized troll attacks, there is no doubt that the attacks, threats, and insults have also triggered the memories of real CHP members.

As someone who served as a CHP Member of Parliament, a Party Assembly member, and even a member of the Central Executive Board (MYK) during the Deniz Baykal era between 2007 and 2015, having experienced the pains of the CHP's transformation into the Y-CHP has undoubtedly triggered my memory as well.

A Y-CHP was built where those who wanted the CHP to be closed down and turned into a foundation, those who said they were made MPs because they were not CHP members, those who declared the CHP status-quoist, fascist, and archaic, those who tried to restructure the Six Arrows and even add new arrows, and those who called Atatürk a "genocider" and Nationalists "skull-measurers" flocked and were protected with praise.

Who wasn't among the supporters of the New CHP! For example, Nagehan Alçı, who was among Kılıçdaroğlu's most sincere supporters, identified the old CHP with the Vatican structure. Murat Yetkin interpreted it as "a government of the elderly that has become reinforced concrete." Some advisors talked about the "fossilized CHP perception" and had the verification of the transformation and the changing of certain names praised.

Kılıçdaroğlu determined smearing the historical past of the CHP as a fundamental method. For example, Serdar Turgut, who appeared in Habertürk on March 11, 2012, shared his meeting with Kılıçdaroğlu in his article as follows;

"While fighting against the AKP government, I sometimes consider myself as if I am fighting against the 1940s CHP government. Because the AKP government has created exactly the conditions of the 1940s CHP government."

In June 2014, at a meeting of the Social Research Center (DİTAM) in Diyarbakır, he was saying; "Do not still see us as the CHP of the 1930s and 1940s. We are changing. We are saying new things. We defend democracy and freedom. We want to integrate with the contemporary world. It is not the old CHP, the world has changed, and we have changed too."

Did he not know that the CHP of the 1930s had achieved the most successful periods of our history, which the whole world watched with praise?

Kılıçdaroğlu, who specialized in using every opportunity to disparage the CHP, also met with conservative intellectuals via Zoom while preparing for his presidential candidacy.

He was hitting the PARTY OF THE REVOLUTION from pillar to post with the words, "You call yourselves conservative, but you are mistaken. The real conservative is the CHP, because it resists change."

Hitting the past of the CHP from pillar to post and denying the successes achieved was not enough. Devaluing the ideology of the CHP and thereby neutralizing the fundamental values of the Republic of Turkey was also in his portfolio.

Atatürk had built the CHP and contemporary Turkey on 6 fundamental columns. The principles were also guaranteed in the 1924 Constitution. However, there were two main load-bearing columns that actually carried the identity of the Republic of Turkey: Secularism and the Nation-State/Unitary Structure.

Kılıçdaroğlu's first act began by attacking these columns. In 2008, he exonerated the AKP, which had narrowly escaped being closed down for being "the focus of anti-secular actions" but had been penalized.

On September 22, 2010, he answered a question asked to him in Berlin: "I do not think that secularism is in danger for today... It is seen that it is necessary to expand freedoms in the name of religion."

On September 21, 2010, in a statement to Akşam Newspaper, he said, "I respect religious communities. People can be Nurcu or Süleymancı. A tariqat (sect) already means a path. People who come together on a certain path share their beliefs."

In the following processes, "shy secularism" defenses came into play. The definition of secularism was trimmed and reduced to "respecting beliefs."

The provision in Article 24 of the Constitution, "No one can base the social, economic, political, or legal fundamental order of the state on religious rules, even partially," and the golden rule of secularism, which stipulates the separation of religion and state affairs, were ignored.

During the process of discussing the 4+4+4 system in the Turkish Grand National Assembly, which changed the National Education System from top to bottom and abolished secular and scientific education and the Law on Unification of Education, a warning was sent to the MPs.

Group Deputy Chairman Muharrem İnce communicated, as an instruction from his Chairman, that "no emphasis on secularism" would be made during the discussion of the law, by going around to each one individually.

The headscarf, taken under Kılıçdaroğlu's protection, gained legitimacy by ignoring the decisions of the Constitutional Court and High Judicial Organs.

In February 2008, the CHP, which took the constitutional amendment regarding the headscarf accepted in the TBMM to the Constitutional Court and had it canceled, had the signature of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu along with Önder Sav, Kemal Anadol, and Hakkı Suha Okay under the cancellation justification. Not only was his signature there, but a photo taken at the door of the Constitutional Court also appeared in the press.

Kılıçdaroğlu wanted to take over the headscarf flag, which had been used as a political symbol for years, from the AKP. He believed that he would become the government this way. He didn't even care about headscarved babies in kindergartens, nor headscarved judges, officers, police, or MPs.

Milli Görüş member Mehmet Bekaroğlu was elected as a Party Assembly member from the Women's Quota at the Extraordinary Congress held on September 5-6, 2014, and was made Deputy Chairman by Kılıçdaroğlu. He had a record of calling Atatürk "Kefere Kemal" (Infidel Kemal). However, he rolled up his sleeves and started working on de-CHP-izing the CHP. By sending a 22-page letter to the MPs, he targeted the Six Arrows. He explained that the principle of secularism should be removed from the Constitution, the concept of "Türkiyelilik" (being from Turkey) should be accepted instead of the Turkish Nation, the Kurdish issue could be solved with "autonomy," the CHP should change with its organizations and members, a more conservative mass should take office, and even the Turkish language used should change. Despite these insolent statements, Kılıçdaroğlu answered the question asked to him on this subject on Habertürk (June 23, 2016) as follows;

"Now, it would be unfair to take a report Bekaroğlu wrote and criticize him for it. I mean, it's not a report accepted by the Party Assembly. Every MP sends me their views every day, many of our MPs' views come..."

What a perfect answer, isn't it? The CHP has never been left as ownerless as it was during the Kılıçdaroğlu era....

Before the 2023 Presidential elections, he even wanted the headscarf to be guaranteed by enacting a law by raising the stakes.

SEARCH CONFERENCES

As soon as he became Chairman, he started Search Conferences with TESEV. He had determined TESEV, supported by the SOROS Foundation, as a guide for the CHP he would rebuild from scratch.

The first of the meetings was held on October 10, 2010, at the Swissotel in Istanbul. The neo-liberal, second-republican, anti-unitary structure and anti-nationalist team would design the new CHP.

One month after its 87th anniversary, the CHP had been taken into surgery as the party that would structure Turkey's Second Republic by being purged of its founding principles and values.

In those days, the claim that Kılıçdaroğlu was among the founding members of TESEV fell onto the agenda.

Barış Yarkadaş was the one who clarified the claim most concretely; Yarkadaş made the statement, "Kılıçdaroğlu is the 183rd founding member of TESEV, which is supported by the Open Society Institute SOROS."

The CHP denied this claim as follows; "... The news and comments of Gerçek Gündem regarding the CHP organization and developments in the CHP are fake."

However, the news was true... And the one who confirmed it was Kılıçdaroğlu...

The Search Conferences also contributed to the CHP's determination of new ways and methods for its renewal needs regarding the Kurdish Issue.

2011 ELECTION MANIFESTO AND OPENING

In the 2011 Election Manifesto, the Y-CHP had begun to show itself. Election slogans and election music had changed. Slogans purified from CHP ideology were echoing in the streets.

The Y-CHP was promising that "the obstacles before the identities of Kurdish citizens will be removed, and the Dersim archives will be opened."

In fact, at the Tunceli Rally, he was winking at Öcalan by saying, "Let the way for a general amnesty be opened freely from east to west, from north to south with social consensus."

At the May 31 Diyarbakır Rally, Kılıçdaroğlu was addressing the public as follows;

"The New CHP is a more libertarian, more democratic CHP. We will face our past. Every person should be together on the basis of 'equal citizenship.' We will definitely bring the condition of autonomy to Local Governments."

Actually, the biggest part of the secret was in the Report prepared by Deputy Chairman Sezgin Tanrıkulu and distributed to all Party Assembly members on behalf of the CHP Management.

The name of the report was: "Demands for Rights and Freedoms of Turkey's Kurdish-Identified Citizens and CHP's Solution Approaches."

At the top of the solution proposals was

• "New Democratic-Libertarian Constitution and Equal Citizenship." In this article, which was also among Öcalan's proposals, "equal citizenship" meant that Turkish and Kurdish identities would take place in a dual structure in the Constitution.

• The second proposal was Confronting the Past and the establishment of Truth Research Commissions. It was aimed for Turkey to confront Dersim and the So-called Armenian Genocide.

• Another article was Cultural Rights and education in the mother tongue.

There was no Turkish Citizenship in the definition of citizenship that the CHP wanted to be included in the Constitution. It was written in the report as follows;

"The most important heading that should be included in the new constitution regarding Kurdish-identified citizens is a neutral definition of citizenship, purified from the emphasis on ethnic identity/belief/political thought.... There should be no place for ethnic identity emphasis in the New Constitution.

"Turkishness" in the concept of "Turkish Nation" had been accepted by the CHP as an ethnic identity.

• It was proposed that the new administrative structure be prepared in accordance with the European Charter of Local Self-Government. In other words, the door to autonomy was being opened with local governments.

CITIZEN OF THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY IN THE NEW CONSTITUTION

Kılıçdaroğlu was answering Ali Kırca's questions on March 9, 2012;

"We will not make an ethnic identity definition in the Constitution, it should not be done. We FOUNDED THE REPUBLIC FROM AN EMPIRE. We will make a super-identity definition, and we will respect all sub-identities."

Upon Ali Kırca's question, he was explaining the super-identity definition;

"Citizen of the Republic of Turkey"

Thus, the Chairman of the New CHP was moving Atatürk's Party to a point parallel to the political extensions of the PKK, throwing the definition "The Turkish People who founded the Republic of Turkey are called the Turkish Nation" into the trash, banning the cry "How happy is the one who says I am a Turk" that gushes from our souls, and ignoring the founding principles and values of the CHP.

Let's return to the incident I mentioned at the beginning of the article; let's remember the moments when she told Buket Müftüoğlu about the discomfort she felt about the Student Oath.

Wouldn't Kılıçdaroğlu, who reduces being a Turk to an ethnic identity, FEEL DISCOMFORT FROM OUR STUDENT OATH, WHICH STARTS WITH "I AM A TURK, I AM RIGHTEOUS, I AM HARDWORKING" AND ENDS WITH THE WORDS "HOW HAPPY IS THE ONE WHO SAYS I AM A TURK"?

Of course he would, and for this reason, when the Student Oath was abolished in 2013, he glossed over the issue in his speech at the CHP Group Meeting, downplayed it, but had to claim ownership when public pressure increased.

Kılıçdaroğlu, who reinforced the change of the concept of "Turkish Nation" with the statements he made one after another during his chairmanship, if he is uncomfortable with Müftüoğlu's statement about the Student Oath today, the real reason for this is to polish his rusted image again and to find support from the party base for the path leading to the CHP Chairmanship from the absolute nullity lawsuit he is eagerly awaiting.