'Ateşten Düşünce' and Yalçın Küçük: Our great drought?

This summer, a documentary and book, likely titled “Ateşten Düşünce” (Falling from Fire), will leave its mark on the legacy of Yalçın Küçük. Advertisements are already circulating on Odatv. Everyone is aware of it. It is known that the documentary was produced with the support of Soner Yalçın.  

Let us prepare for a sensation. A beautiful sensation...

This documentary and the voluminous book about our teacher Yalçın Küçük are the first products of years of work by our academic friend Dr. Coşkun Soysal. We know that our teacher Yalçın, whom Dr. Soysal knows closely, also spent time in prison at a young age.

We are waiting with curiosity.

But we want to draw attention to something else entirely.

It is this: Leaving aside what came before, have any heroes been raised in the last 40 years who could truly be the subject of documentaries? We are talking about people with the intellectual and political capacity to leave their mark on an era.

Let us ask more clearly: Are there people among the young generation of “activists” with the capacity and audacity to be the subject of a documentary or a book? Are there candidates? What are those candidates like?

More important than that void is another: These people will surely appear on the stage suddenly and surprise us all with their presence. Isn't social history, in part, social and history because it contains such surprises? It is. But have people been raised who will notice these individuals, announce them to the public, understand them, work on them, and develop theses?

Let us assume they are hidden somewhere.

Let us not be too hopeless.

But let us not exaggerate either...

HOW DOES FROZEN GROUND THAW?

Lives comparable to the heroes of the 1960s and 1970s have not yet taken the stage. We are talking about those born after September 12. They are in the 45-year-old age group. Regardless of everything, we cannot currently encounter young Behice Hanıms, Doğan Avcıoğlus, Yalçın Küçüks, Mahirs, and Denizes who possess a high and engaged culture, and who can question many things with their intellectual dynamism, political involvement, and search for transcendence. What about those born after 2000?

The climate has become quite arid... Is it perhaps because the ground has frozen?

Are no new “icebreakers” being raised who could plow this frozen ground?

Let us not draw a profile of a great void from this.

Our concern is different: Great intellectual and political breakthroughs are not the product of warm, wet, and fertile climates, but on the contrary, of arid climates.

Let us look at ourselves: Was our republic not born into a famine of intellectuals? Is this a negative thing?

On the contrary. The new generation being raised may dare to make extraordinarily large leaps to break and balance this arid climate (frozen ground). Okay, we do not yet have heroes of the intensity comparable to the young lives that marked the 1970s, the streets, high schools, universities, and factories, but very interesting surprises are hidden precisely at this point.

Would it be overly optimistic to expect a “heroism” from the children of “Özal’s Turkey” that rejects that Turkey and renders the traps—primarily the filth called Islamism and left-liberalism, and of course Turkism—null and void?

“ATEŞTEN DÜŞÜNCE”: A “SHIRT OF FIRE”

We will say that the last 46 years look like an inflated corpse of the 1950s, and it will be an exaggeration. Still, let us write it: Because the mortar at the foundation of the intellectual-political rise in the 1960s and 1970s had the hands of young intellectuals who resisted the tyranny of the Democrat Party. Even the “Second New” (İkinci Yeni) is there. Let us not forget the three very young poets of the '51 arrests: Arif Damar, Ahmed Arif, and Enver Gökçe. To summarize: We have the right to call those who marked the 50s the Doğan Avcıoğlu-Yalçın Küçük generation. However...

However, our concern is truly something else.

It is true, if we think within the broad vitality of the Turkish language, we cannot yet encounter personalities who can be called heroes and who can leave their mark on the era. Or they are very well hidden, and we cannot see them. The “babies” of the 1980s and 1990s have not yet been able to pull themselves together. More importantly, even if they appeared on the stage suddenly, are there artists, writers, and documentarians, etc., who can understand and explain those people?

The youth of the 1950s had these signs. Today, we are suffering from the lack of those signs.

Let us not pass without giving an example: Taking a look at the intellectual wretchedness, political servility, and “mandate-seeking” incompetence in the executive cadres of this CHP, DEM, and the “Third TİP” can give an idea about the dimensions of the deficiency.  

The collapse of the Birikim-İletişim reactionism into such a “leftist void,” and its showing its flag in every sector related to art and social sciences, should surprise no one.

Heroes are missing, but they could emerge.

The problem is the absence of writers, illustrators, filmmakers, musicians, painters, etc., who could understand and explain them to society if they were to take the stage.

Did we really exaggerate? Okay, we cannot deny some signals. But still, with a collective look, we have the right to say, “the stage is empty for now.” (Let us not say “completely empty.”)

Let us return to the beginning...

We said the title of the Yalçın Küçük book would be “Ateşten Düşünce”

In this field and among the young generation, we feel the lack of eloquent intellectual militants, transcendent politicians, and militant unionists who could wear a “shirt of fire.” Of course, there are exceptions.

We do not see this as a handicap. Because every revolution is born into such droughts. That is, there is a direct proportion between the possibility of revolution and drought: They increase or decrease together. We know this.

Dr. Soysal will likely be opening quite a few doors with this comprehensive documentary and book project.

We are waiting.