From the 1920s to the 2020s

April 23, 1920, is the day national sovereignty was declared. It was the day the country was cleared of invaders and national independence rose! 104 years have passed, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, and today we have fallen into a state of begging from dozens of foreigners. 

Why did this happen? Did we button the first button wrong, causing all subsequent buttons to be misaligned, leading us to where we are today? Analyzing this, beyond these writings, means examining the conditions of the country and the world over a whole century. Still, let us try to look at some main outlines briefly.

The day of April 23, 1920, lacked a philosophy of enlightenment. For the enlightenment movement, one had to wait until the principle of secularism was accepted as a constitutional provision on February 5, 1937. Another deficiency is that the April 23, 1920, movement, as a political democracy movement, was far from an understanding of economic democracy that would encompass the entire public in the context of the economy. 

When national sovereignty is constructed with an understanding of top-down governance through parliament without including the entire nation in social decision-making, it is an inevitable fate for the structure to turn into bourgeois dominance. The parliamentary system, built on political parties and over parties, drifts away from the people as capitalism develops over time and income distribution deteriorates, tending to become an agent of capital. Even in the early periods of the establishment, when income distribution was relatively fair, the parliament might have resembled a people's assembly, but as income distribution deteriorated over time, the parliament and the decisions taken moved away from the understanding of national public interest, and the interests of the bourgeoisie began to be perceived as the interests of the people. In the early periods, the bipolar world system provided peace. However, when the bipolar honeymoon period ended and we faced the real world, we saw our true reflection. While calmness replaces fear when waking from a nightmare, anxiety and fear replace calmness when waking from complacency. These are those days!

We have talked a lot about how we got to these days, we blamed imperialism, but I think we have not fully placed this story in its proper context. Discussing whether it was a foundational error or a walking error sheds light on today as well. If we look at the issue from a bit of a distance, I think two serious technical errors were made in this regard. The first is looking at Turkey independently of the conditions of global capitalism and conducting analyses solely within the framework of domestic political weight or partially internal economic decisions and/or political behaviors. However, nothing can be clarified or understood under the shadow of purely political decisions without focusing on the maneuvers of global capitalism and how it shakes/tosses the domestic economy. History is examined not by the decisions of politicians, but by objective conditions. The second, regarding the analysis method, is trying to reach a conclusion with futile effort by confusing the envelope with the letter in the fields of politics, economy, and social life. As an example of the first issue, the type of imperialism Turkey has entered in all periods—except for the short-lived Statism period in the 1930s, which also had specific conditions—must be clearly analyzed and understood in the context of the Turkish and world economy. Not only has this not been done, but the anatomical structure of the 2000 IMF-Dervish program and the purpose of the "Transition to a Strong Economy" program, which are the secondary causes of this process becoming knotted and Turkey being dragged to these days, have not been examined as if slapping the faces of the "it's not enough, but yes" fools, and they are still not being examined. As an example of the second issue, it is the failure to conduct a strong socio-economic analysis by separating the main factors from the carrier mechanisms in economic and political events. For instance, attributing inflation solely to budget deficits, money printing, or wage increases is, at the very least, foolishness, and at an analytical level, nothing but ignorance. Dealing with the country's economy by abstracting it from the broad framework created by the socio-economic pool in which it swims is insufficient; it does not cover the whole picture and reflects the image incorrectly. Economies like the US, UK, or Germany can be explained with a partial analysis method, but unfortunately, Turkey never has such a chance. Beyond this, familiarity with foreign literature or sources also alienates researchers from Turkey.

Although a lot of water has flowed under the bridges of April 23rds with 104 years in between and the meanings have changed significantly, I hope that by examining the beginning and the process, at least today's children will walk toward a bright future! 

* This article is a shortened version of the piece I sent to Gazete Manifesto on May 21, 2024.