Harsh reaction to the government from Erkan Baş! 'They are turning people against each other'

The Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP) held its 3rd Workers' School program today at the Nazım Özbay Cultural Center in Çatalca, Istanbul. TİP Chairman Erkan Baş also attended the event, which included Polonez workers who had been dismissed for union activities and were reinstated as a result of their struggle.

“We are facing a bombardment of lies. We must unite the truths against those lies,” said Baş, continuing his remarks as follows:

“The government is trying to divide us, tear us apart, and turn us into enemies. This is the most important characteristic of this government. Everyone has become enemies with one another during this government's term. There is no peace left in homes. Parents are fighting with their children. Relatives are at each other's throats. They are turning everyone against each other, but this government, which turns everyone into enemies, gets richer every day. We, those who are enemies to one another, are becoming poorer every day for various reasons. We, who try to live by our labor and the sweat of our brow, are living in worse conditions every day. They are getting richer every day. So what will we do? We will unite our truths. People who rejoice at the same things and grieve for the same things will come together. Religion, language, race, belief, sect—none of these distinctions are important to us. All over the world, people have many differences, but take note: the color of sweat and tears is the same all over the world. We saw it with the Polonez workers. We saw it in the banned strikes of Birleşik Metal. When workers put aside the differences between them and unite, they absolutely, definitely win. It might take until tomorrow, but it never stays on the side of the bosses and the government. We can definitely get what is rightfully ours.

'BOSSES HAVE THEIR SECTS AND CONGREGATIONS'

We are all reacting to and struggling against the same injustices all over the country, but while one is struggling, the other cannot be aware of it. That is why we have to start the same struggle all over again. However, bosses are not like that. For example, bosses have their TÜSİAD, their employer unions, their sects, and their congregations. They look out for one another. They are not even 1% of the country, perhaps. They are a small group of people, but they try to establish dominance over us by looking out for one another. We need to come together and stand side by side against this. This is often discussed. For example, I am most annoyed by this phrase. Let me be very clear. ‘They are trying to change the agenda.’ For example, keep your distance from this phrase. What did we experience in January? In the first days of January, we were talking about the minimum wage, civil servant raises, pension raises, and inflation, and we were talking about how these would not be enough. We were talking about how millions of people would have to work in worse conditions this year compared to last year. These are 100% true. The real truth of the country is that we are becoming impoverished. Last year, the money earned by 45 thousand people in the stock market was 98% of the stock market. The profit these men made in one year was a profit that wiped out all of Turkey's debt and debt interest. A handful of people...

'DIDN'T TAYYİP ERDOĞAN RECEIVE APPROVAL FROM AMERICA?'

There are 85 thousand dollar millionaires in Turkey. Sometimes I say 99% and 1%, but they are not even 1%, they are 0.1%. A stadium's worth of people takes more than 60% of all the wealth in Turkey. The rest of us are trying to share what is left. And then we say, ‘It is not enough.’ The AKP is a party that was essentially placed in the seat of power to ensure this. When we arrived at 2001, before the AKP came to power, Turkey was a country that had, so to speak, fallen to the bottom of the sea due to the crisis created by international capital and the big money bosses in Turkey. Cash registers were being thrown, shopkeeper protests were taking place, there were worker protests. The constitution was thrown, etc., a crisis erupted. I say that Turkey fell into the sea. We, the laborers and the poor of this country, all fell into the sea together. While we were falling into the sea, a hand dropped a snake there. Those who fell into the sea clung to the snake. The Justice and Development Party came to power. In other words, it was not the votes cast by the people of this country that actually brought the AKP to power. Remember, didn't Tayyip Erdoğan go to America and receive approval? Didn't he receive a medal of distinguished service from Israel?

'THE STRUCTURE CALLED FETÖ HAS INFILTRATED ALL PARTIES'

Today, the structure called FETÖ has infiltrated all parties; in 2001, it participated in the establishment of the AKP with all its might and poured all its resources into it. Why? To make them the government. In other words, the AKP was actually a party tasked by the United States, the sects and congregations in Turkey, and the big rich and money bosses in Turkey to make that crisis sustainable in favor of the bosses in Turkey, the crisis that they were placed in power to manage. Remember those ‘I am the co-chair of the Greater Middle East Project’ remarks in that context. Now, if you went out on the street in Turkey and said to any citizen, ‘Come on, let's be soldiers for America,’ 99.9% would say ‘Get out of here,’ but when you say to the same people, ‘We will establish the Great Ottoman Empire. We will re-establish the Ottoman Empire. Come on,’ and say ‘Homeland, nation, Sakarya,’ this becomes something believable. The AKP can do this. The AKP is a party that was placed in the seat of power because it could feed the public the Greater Middle East project under the guise of ‘we are rebuilding the Ottoman Empire.’

'THEY TAKE ON EVERY COLOR LIKE A CHAMELEON'

The AKP is a party that was placed in the seat of power because it could spread the idea that ‘You are being oppressed and exploited, but you will be very happy in the afterlife.’ ‘He steals, but he prostrates in prayer’—put a mark on this phrase. With this idea, the AKP is kept in the seat of power. For 22 years, there has been one unchanging truth about the AKP government. They take on every color like a chameleon, but when you look at the 22 years, what has not changed? The share that Turkey's richest receive from the total wealth has increased every day. The rich have become richer every day. Under the AKP government, there is not even a rich person who has lost money from profit. Those big rich people have become richer every day. We have become poorer every day during the AKP government period. Now, the AKP's main goal is to sustain this. So how do they sustain this? Let's come to that. For example, what happened? The Gezi case was reopened. Some friends say, ‘They opened the Gezi case to make people forget about this hunger and poverty.’ No; because they saw that the public's reaction to hunger and poverty was growing, and because they were afraid of the public's rebellion, and with the anxiety of the public coming together again to hold them accountable, they opened the Gezi case with trumped-up justifications at a moment when they currently feel strong.

'THEY ARE TRYING TO MAKE FEAR DOMINANT'

Gezi was one of the most honorable public uprisings in the history of this country. Remember the instructions given by Tayyip Erdoğan. Everyone rebelled from where they stood against the idea of a country where they wanted everything that came out of Tayyip Erdoğan's mouth to be law. All these rebellions came together in the development of the demolition of Gezi Park in a way that no one can argue about anymore. In other words, Gezi was actually a public uprising where millions of people of different colors, beliefs, cultures, and ages came together and said, ‘We are the people,’ and made their voices heard in the most powerful way, saying, ‘The fate of this country cannot be left to a word that comes out of the lips of any one person.’ Now, if you are bringing this back to the agenda in a trumped-up way 12 years later, the main message is not to the manager arrested there, or the artists or intellectuals there. The main message is to us. They see that they can only govern us with this fear. They are trying to make this fear dominant. 'TURKEY IS ADVANCING WITH A ROAR' One day a manager is arrested. The next day artists are taken in. Then lieutenants are dismissed. Then a lawsuit is filed against Ekrem İmamoğlu. The Mayor of Beşiktaş is arrested. The Mayor of Esenyurt is arrested. There is a rumor about Tayyip Erdoğan, right? ‘He forms alliances very well. First he formed an alliance with FETÖ, then he formed an alliance with the liberals, then he formed an alliance with those.’ I think the thing we should keep in mind is this: What has kept Tayyip Erdoğan in power for 22 years is not that he forms good alliances, but that he breaks good alliances. I think this is very important. Do not forget this. For example, remember the last presidential election, think about how he broke the table of six. Turkey is advancing with a roar toward a one-man regime. For example, he conducts an operation on the Esenyurt Municipality. He etches this into the minds of some citizens: ‘This is not CHP, it is Kurdish,’ he says. You hesitate, or he conducts a Beşiktaş operation: ‘It is one of the teams within the CHP.’ Finally, he targets the lieutenants. He says, ‘These are already coup plotters.’”

'WAS THERE A STATE DURING THE FEBRUARY 6 EARTHQUAKE?'

Regarding the approaching 2nd anniversary of the February 6 earthquakes centered in Maraş, Baş also said, “Was there a state in Hatay, Maraş, or Malatya during the February 6 earthquake? There was not. We got out of there by looking out for one another. Do not forget. We are facing such a system that people were left under the rubble and died in this country while listening to their own funeral prayers. We survived by struggling against an understanding that sells the tents they needed for money while the state should have provided them,” he said.