The Republican intellectual and revolution from yesterday to today

Millions of people, watching with concern as Republican values are being eroded, have continued for years to emphasize that the fundamental problem is a lack of education.

While this concern has grown under the AKP government, we prefer to pin our hopes on a change in government rather than turning toward a historical analysis of the situation.

However, the emphasis on "lack of education" has completely lost its significance today. Aside from the fact that 99% of the population is literate, 45% of young people in the 25-34 age group are university graduates.

Therefore, it is necessary not to shy away from making a historical assessment of the reasons behind the outcome we are experiencing, and to seek ways to correct the mistakes that have been made.

Could what we are experiencing today be the result of what has accumulated over the years?

When searching for the causes, it would be useful to reach back to the early years of the Republic, to the socio-economic and cultural structure inherited by the young Republic, and even  to take a look at the consequences of the socialization of individual perceptions.

What we are experiencing tells us, “It is easier to follow individuals than to follow ideas” points to how much truth this statement contains.

To make an accurate analysis of what we are experiencing today, let us first take a look at the social, cultural, and economic conditions of Anatolia.

In the early years of the Republic, only 8.6% of the population was literate. Minorities accounted for approximately 60% of this group.

75.8% of the population lived in villages. The country was inherited with a majority of poor and uneducated people crushed under feudal structures.

Looking at the results of the 1941 census, it cannot be said that there was a significant change in the rural population (75.6%). However, the literacy rate had risen to 27%.

In summary, it is clear that the young Republic had to initiate a Renaissance movement with a peasant society that had defined itself through religious identity for centuries, lacked national consciousness, was uneducated and conservative, was struggling in the grip of infectious diseases, and was very poor.

With the proclamation of the Republic, superstructure revolutions were carried out, a positive legal system was enacted through laws, institutionalization was achieved, education reform was implemented, the infrastructure of a secular state was established, cadres to serve in the state were trained, and the spirit of the Revolution began to permeate the countryside through the teachers of the Republic.

 However, the infrastructural revolutions could not be completed.

 The deprivation of the peasantry and rural ignorance had not yet been broken. The only refuge they had to overcome the difficulties they faced was their faith, a product of the religious identity through which they had been accustomed to expressing themselves for centuries.

In his research examining cultural changes, which he conducted between 1936 and 1948, Prof. Dr. Mümtaz Turhan  observed that the situation in the villages between Erzurum and Kars was surprising along the axis of "religion."

Turhan's; "while in the past, religion occupied a central place in thoughts and constituted the main cause of actions, today religion has ceased to be a collective issue and has become entirely individualized" assessment was very important.

Turhan, “that the villagers' approach to secular education was also very positive, that the once-renowned  religious teachers were no longer wanted by the villagers, and that there was an admiration for Republican teachers” he explains.

The villagers were satisfied with the construction of roads and railways, the State Farms, the Soil Products Office (TMO) which created opportunities for storing their produce, developments in healthcare, the fight against epidemics, and most importantly, the increase in prosperity and security.

These research findings are very valuable in that they reveal that the Revolutions had positive effects in the villages between 1935 and 1948. The revolution, albeit slowly, had begun to meet with the peasantry.

However, the villagers' expectations were also high. They were longing for the breaking of tribal dominance and the implementation of Land Reform, in short, to have their own land to cultivate.

Unfortunately, this promise of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, or as the villagers called him, the “Sarı Paşa” (Blond Pasha),  remained unfulfilled.  could not be realized. In his final Republic Day speech, which he prepared on his sickbed and was read in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, Atatürk repeated this wish almost like a testament. However, the extensions of the feudal structure in the Parliament did not allow this.

While the 1929 World economic crisis and the subsequent economic problems created by World War II slowed the pace of infrastructure revolutions, the closure of the Village Institutes resulted in the Enlightenment Revolution remaining incomplete.

The gap between the peasantry, which made up 75% of the nation, and the urban bourgeoisie grew steadily. The resulting "DUAL STRUCTURE"  gradually became permanent. The Republic's Cultural Revolution remained limited to the cities.

Once the TURKISH RENAISSANCE lost its Leader, the countdown began.

The Republican Intellectual

Here, the most important task undoubtedly fell to the Republican intellectual. What was expected of them was not only to produce knowledge but to bring this knowledge to the public and, with a sense of public responsibility, to act as a bridge between the traditional and the modern.

Now let us return to March 20, 1923, and recall what Atatürk said to the youth in his famous Konya speech;

“The Islamic world consists of two distinct groups. One is the masses, which make up the majority, and the other is the intellectuals, who make up the minority. There is a complete contradiction and opposition between these two classes. The intellectual class wants to lead the main body (the people) toward its own goal. The people, however, do not want to follow the intellectuals. When the intellectual class fails to persuade the people through suggestion and by showing the right path, it begins to dominate and act arrogantly toward the people, attempting to suppress them.

To be successful, the ideas that the intellectual class suggests to the people must be derived from the spirit and conscience of the people...

When we say ignorant, we do not necessarily mean those who have not attended school. What we mean by knowledge is knowing the truth. Otherwise, just as the greatest ignoramuses emerge from those who are educated, true scholars who see the truth can emerge from those who do not know how to read at all...”

While criticizing the Ottoman intellectual, Atatürk also revealed what he expected from the Republican intellectual.

Undoubtedly, in the early years of the Republic, the country's “intellectual” cadres were very limited. It was also difficult to claim that the entire intellectual class, consisting mostly of former soldiers, members of parliament, new merchants, teachers, and bureaucrats, had fully identified with the spirit of the Republic. 

Alongside some conscious and true revolutionaries, the existence of those who perceived the revolution merely as a “European-style change” in their own lifestyles, as well as the new rich and those fond of luxury and ostentation, could not be denied.

This second group saw themselves as the owners of the state and power, playing a significant role in deepening the 'DUAL STRUCTURE' that began in the cities and spread throughout Anatolia. Furthermore, by looking down on the people, they normalized 'arrogance and oppression,' as described in Atatürk's words above.

The process of corrupting the importance, value, and respect Atatürk placed on the people began in those years.

THE REVOLUTION HAD NOT BEEN COMPLETED. Atatürk's early passing left no time for the wounds that had opened to be healed.

The chasm between the urban bourgeoisie and the peasantry deepened over time. The peasant, who expected to be the 'Master of the Nation,' was crushed under the arrogance of the urban bourgeoisie and left disillusioned.

Yet, Atatürk had said, 'Even among those who cannot read, scholars who see the truth can emerge.' 

The peasant, who was only remembered during wars and not treated as a human being in the Ottoman Empire, began to feel humiliated once again in the face of the new 'tyrants' created by the Republic that was supposed to heal their wounds. Now there was 'us' and 'them.' There was the 'upper class' and the 'lower class.'

This perception became increasingly widespread. The acceleration of migration to the cities also carried this perception into urban areas. 

The peasant from Küçükçekmece, whom Atatürk hosted at his table at the Florya Mansion and for whom he gathered all his ministers to amend the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law that had caused his ox to be seized as tax, had been forgotten. Just as Satı Kadın, the peasant from Kazan who was one of the first female members of parliament, was forgotten...

Merchants of Religion

The merchants of religion did not delay in stepping in. They began to incite the conservative Anatolian public against Republican values and turn this into political profit. They declared Republicans and Atatürk to be "irreligious" and secularism to be "godlessness." Lifestyle became a political issue in this country for a century. They tried to sabotage the transition process from religious identity to national identity. Politicians entered into cooperation with representatives of the feudal structure and reactionary sects.

They tried to make the public forget that Atatürk had saved not only the homeland and the nation but also religion itself. They glorified the Caliph Sultan, who had collaborated with the enemy.

Yet, it was Atatürk who brought the people together with their true religion. The Ottoman Empire, which was able to establish a printing press 277 years after Europe, was forced to wait another 147 years to print and share the Holy Book of Islam with the public at the press established by Ibrahim Müteferrika. It was Atatürk who brought the Islamic religion—which had been left to the monopoly of the ulema, sheikhs, and ignorant imams and sacrificed to superstitions—to the people by having the Quran interpreted in their own language.

It was Rıfat Börekçi, the first President of Religious Affairs of the Republic, who cleared the stain cast upon religion by the collaborator and traitor Sheikh ul-Islam Dürrizade Abdullah Efendi, who had issued a fatwa for his execution. 

When asked where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's funeral prayer should be held, Rıfat Börekçi replied;

"Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's funeral prayer can be held anywhere on the soil of the homeland that he made pure." had touched hearts with his words.

One day before the occupation of Izmir by the Greeks (May 14, 1919), when the Governor of Izmir, Izzet Bey, called on the public to remain calm and resigned, the Mufti of Izmir, Rahmetullah Efendi, opposed this and, pointing to his beard, said, "Governor, this beard may be stained red with my blood. But I cannot appear before the Divine Presence with the shame on my forehead of having met the Greek scoundrel with calm and resignation," he shouted, ordering the sela (funeral prayer call) to be recited in all mosques to inform the public of the situation.

It was the Muftis of those provinces who led the rallies organized to mobilize the public against the occupation in many Anatolian cities (Denizli, Konya, Afyon, Acipayam, Sarkoy, Erzurum, Bursa, etc.).

In fact, when Atatürk arrived in Samsun, he asked for Sitki Hoca, one of the local Imams, to speak at a rally held in Havza, telling those around him, "The public does not understand Mustafa Kemal,  they understand the language of Sitki Hoca." thereby demonstrating the importance he placed on religious figures.

However, whose duty should it have been to explain and remind the public of these things, and to convey them to their souls and consciences by speaking in their own language?

TODAY

We are carrying the burden of past mistakes. Now, only 17.2% of the population lives in rural areas. Villages have moved to cities. Those of urban origin have become a minority. Cities have become conservative. We are facing a new sociology.

The ruling party, which advances through religious exploitation by picking at the wounds of the past, is creating a new “arrogant generation” is creating.

“I hold the power of government”, “I am the owner of the state” this generation, which says, supports the government for the pleasure of “gaining status,” independent of their material conditions. We find it difficult to understand this support from those outside the conservative wealthy, and even from those experiencing economic hardship. 

However, they are voting to “share in the power of the government,” for the “social status they believe they have gained,” and for “those they believe are one of their own.” They are voting to be promoted from second-class citizens to first-class citizens. They are voting for those who allow them to experience the arrogance of religion. In doing so, they even believe they are securing their afterlife. They think they will overcome the difficulties they face through submission and that this is a test. 

They are afraid of losing all of this.

We must understand this new socio-cultural structure.

Those who define themselves as Kemalists and Republicans also have great concerns. They watch with anger and anxiety as the new and arrogant conservative elite dismantle the revolutions one by one, wage war on Atatürk's principles, and nurture a century-old grudge against secularism alongside a covert, ongoing hostility toward Atatürk.

The time has come to realize that the problem can no longer be reduced merely to a distinction between the educated and the uneducated, or to the economic support being distributed.  The cultural structure of the conservative base and the cultural structure of the contemporary segment stand as a dual structure that carries their respective lifestyles with them.

To tear down the wall between the people and the Republican intellectual, and to overcome the remnants of century-old arrogance lurking in the depths of our souls, we need to embrace Atatürk's populism and the light radiated by his love for the nation even more.

It is possible to seek a new path, free from prejudices, to strive to integrate the great love and trust our nation feels for Atatürk with the Republicans who are the defenders of his principles...

To reach the goal of his ideas and to rebuild the secular Republic, perhaps we need to confront ourselves, cleanse ourselves of our anger, and make peace with one another.