To the Voters of Çankaya: If I Come Back Again, Don't Elect Me

The election is approaching.

But this is not an election article.

I couldn't write one anyway; I've never had any interest or connection to it.

I will only attempt to provide a brief WASP-Republican-Secular analysis.

What is a WASP?

White,

Anglo-Saxon, meaning European-English-German,

Protestant, meaning Religion-Denomination.

Everyone knows the equivalent of this in our country.

They call it Muslim-Sunni-White.

I am aware that this is a nonsensical translation.

Because we are all “Muslim, Turkish, White” anyway.

There are not many of us who are Catholic, Orthodox, or Black.

Let us open a parenthesis;

Except for those brought from Africa to Muğla, Köyceğiz, and Dalaman by Kavalalı Mehmet Ali Pasha in the 16th century.

Esmeray, an important name in Turkish music; the "Arab Bacı" Dursune Şirin in Yeşilçam films; and Yasemin Esmergül, the nanny of Leyla Hanım in the film Tosun Paşa, are all names we know.

And let us close the parenthesis.

Even when you ask Google Translate, which has shown significant improvement in recent years, it gives the translation of “WASP” as “yaban arısı” (wasp).

That is not our topic anyway.

If we briefly define WASP as the “European Population” that evolved following the Reform-Renaissance movements, the French Revolution, and other progressive currents in the region, its equivalent in our country can be understood as the “Contemporary Republican Secular Citizen” profile that emerged after the Republic process and its revolutions.

In other words, there is a translation problem.

Much like how it wouldn't work when an Arab says “la,”

While the prefix “la” in Arabic gives a clear meaning of negation, “Laiklik” (Secularism), which is associated with irreligion, is defined in the Turkish dictionary as the clear separation of “Religion and State Affairs.”

Although the sentence “Secularism is good” in the speech our President gave to Arabs during his visit to Egypt was translated as “Irreligion is good,” the incident was prevented from escalating by calling it a translation error.

In fact, the translation from Arabic was correct.

Secularism equals Irreligion.

A large part of the “Republican Contemporary Citizen” profile, which defines secularism not as “irreligion” but as the relationship between “Religion and State” affairs, lived in cities and city centers, in sterile environments.

Especially after the Cold War policies that emerged following World War II, the resulting NATO membership, and the subsequent urbanization and industrial movements, these sterile environments were besieged and threatened by the intense migration from rural to urban areas that began after the 1960s.

Just like in London, where migration from the countryside began immediately after the industrial revolution and put the “Urban Londoner” in a vice, it began to squeeze the “Urbanite” in the Anatolian geography 200 years later in the 1960s.

The migration from the countryside, which settled in shantytowns on the outskirts of the city, flows into the city during the day and returns to their shantytowns—the places where they established a life similar to the one in the countryside—in the evenings.

The film “Düttürü Dünya,” starring the unforgettable actor of Turkish cinema Kemal Sunal, is one of the most well-known films describing this period of migration and shantytown life.

The other is the 1977 Yeşilçam production “Kapıcılar Kıralı” (King of the Doormen), which we all know with the character “Seyit Efendi,” a cunning black marketeer who buys the apartment building where he works as a doorman.

The migration movement, which gained even more momentum with the arrival of Özal, peaked after the 2000s.

Just as the urban person, tired of the “traditional-conservative-archaic social behavioral patterns” imposed by the migration from the countryside, had given up and was cornered, the civil wars and conflicts in our region and neighboring geographies turned the migration to Turkey into a mass migration of peoples, causing it to climb logarithmically.

The migration rate, which had increased relatively over the last fifty years, suddenly increased 10-fold, 20-fold in a very short time.

Our urban demographics were turned upside down.

Following the geographical migrations, when the cost of living in cities became unbearable, people from the countryside were forced to migrate back, like a natural selection.

This reverse migration seems likely to make the lifestyle of the urban person easier.

Since refugees or asylum seekers live in their own closed social environments, they have almost no chance of pressuring the urban person.

Like Chinatown or Little Italy in America.

The children of families who came as refugees in their time have adapted to the American lifestyle and gained national consciousness through an “ORGANIZED EDUCATION SYSTEM.”

They don't stand out at all.

The fact that America has soldiers from 76 nations in nearly 800 military bases in 170 countries can be proof of this.

We will wait and see what kind of situation we will have. Because there is no “ORGANIZED EDUCATION SYSTEM” based on integration yet.

Even if some find it “dogmatic,” let's see what the result will be when there are no elements that contribute to the formation of national consciousness, such as the Student Oath and the National Anthem!!!!!!

Or will we experience a second Balkan or Hejaz Tragedy!!!!!

Just as we abandoned ancient Turkish cities like Thessaloniki, Skopje, Niš, Kosovo, Plovdiv, Mitrovica, Deliorman, Razgrad, Mosul, Kirkuk, Sulaymaniyah, Aleppo, Tripoli, Crete, and Kos, where we lived for 500 years, will we also abandon our cities like Istanbul, Trabzon, Diyarbakır, Izmir, Van, Antep, Maraş, Hatay, and Antalya!!!!!

Will we be squeezed into Central Anatolia, between the east of the Sakarya and the west of the Tigris-Euphrates!!!!

Anyway, I suppose the authorities will think about that.

Let us return to our topic.

The Republican generation attaches great importance to education as a family.

They direct their children toward art and language learning through Western-style education.

If possible, they also want them to pursue higher education abroad.

Although they may possess ancestral inheritance, the vast majority are never spendthrifts.

They follow the path of the Great Leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who said, “Societies that want to live comfortably without working, without getting tired, and without producing are doomed to lose first their dignity, then their freedom, and then their independence and future.”

They have their children circumcised with ceremonies, observe Islamic law at the moments of birth and death, and encourage their children to receive basic Islamic education.

If they think they are not receiving sufficient religious education at school, they ask the imam of the neighborhood mosque, whom they love and respect.

The imam does not refuse and tries to teach enough Islamic-religious concepts to the children free of charge.

At least that was how it was around us. There is almost no one among us who did not go to Quran school in the summers. Most of us have a short experience of being a muezzin on our CVs, even if not being an imam.

The sensitive point of this profile is to keep religion, religious figures, and religious affairs—which have been looking for a direction outside the mosque for 3-4 centuries—inside the mosque and to prevent them from interfering in technical matters.

They want to draw the boundaries of their otherworldly and worldly lives with a sharp line.

Because they know the world well and follow developments closely. They do not want to experience the problems faced by societies that cannot separate otherworldly and worldly life.

Well, after all this flattery, let's get to the point.

In Çankaya, where such a free-thinking, free-knowledge, free-conscience, faithful, Sunni, educated, and contemporary population lives, why did they pave the way for a candidate who stood against all of this to be elected as a deputy?

Why did they contribute to their election as a deputy?

Why couldn't they develop an election strategy and why did they cast their votes on a ballot that included one of the main actors of an overseas movement that swore to destroy or enslave the Turkish State and Nation?

Why couldn't they understand that the presidential and parliamentary elections consist of separate, independent, simple algorithms?

While there were 2 parties that took a stance in favor of the Turkish Nation and stood out with their nationalist lines during the process of purging the Turkish army, why didn't they see this in the parliamentary elections?

Anyway, may God grant wisdom and common sense so that they do not make similar mistakes in this election.