Lightbulbs and moths

Do you know why moths and butterflies fly toward electric lightbulbs?

Unable to reach natural light sources in the sky and confused, these winged insects find their compasses scrambled when a light source is turned on nearby—that is, when a lightbulb is lit. Mistaking the bulb for moonlight, they begin to fly toward it. They circle the bulb in spirals. Then, they begin to collide with the bulb, sticking to it and perishing.

This is also why sticky moth traps designed to get rid of moths are illuminated.

The sun, the greatest source of natural light, is undoubtedly the symbol of gravitational pull and the source of life.

It is no coincidence that the LIGHTING REVOLUTION, the greatest revolution humanity has ever experienced, makes reference to the metaphor of light.

The path of the Enlightenment was opened by man's courage to use his own reason, and science opened the doors to an era of liberation by ending the captivity of dogmas.

We are living through days where we witness countless examples of the ruling party in politics taking the place of the stars that create gravitational pull in the universe, or, as we call them in our system, the suns.

Nazım's line, "There is a rush to the sun, a rush!", is close to being replaced by "There is a rush to the lightbulb, a rush!"

Those who change parties and take refuge in the lightbulb are racing toward a record.

We start every day with news of a new transfer. The question on everyone's mind is: which mayor or council member will transfer today? If there is no transfer news, the question changes: who will be arrested today!

A massacre is taking place in politics. We are watching the rally between those who commit the massacre and those who submit to it; with shame, with pain....

It is impossible to accept the excuses of those who try to justify this shameful picture we are living through by hiding behind various rationales.

On one side of this tragedy are those who win what they do not deserve by using the power of the government they hold and ignoring the law.

On the other side are those who run to the lightbulb to save themselves...

It is the nation's most natural right to question why those who sit in seats with the nation's votes and cannot stand against threats chose to wear the political mantle in the first place.

Then there are the bright spots of the process; the sources of pride in our politics who heroically resist threats; people like Sinem Dedetaş and Fatma Kaplan Hürriyet...

They shine like the sun against unprincipled, opportunistic, slippery collaborators and informants.

• Who is responsible for this dark picture where those who suffer in dungeons by resisting all kinds of pressure have almost fallen into the minority?

• How did politics rot so much?

• Who elected these rotten people?

• Why did a political party with the most equipped and honest human resources nominate these individuals?

• Is it possible to hide this moral deformation by dumping all responsibility on the ruling party and citing threats as an excuse?

The nation is looking for answers to these questions...

The candidate choices in the 2023 General and 2024 Local Elections clearly reveal that the management cadres of the CHP and the NEW Party need to question themselves.

The "ideology-free politics" initiated in the CHP during the Kılıçdaroğlu era has destroyed the CHP identity and created an identityless party consisting of converted candidates. In the New CHP, which has been redesigned with ideology-free, unprincipled, and populist choices, whose genetic codes have been altered, and whose sacred values have been demolished, loyalty to the party has been transformed into being equivalent to grabbing a seat through loyalty to the leader and making every kind of concession for one's own interests.

In the party's candidate choices; priority has been given to the candidates' potential to garner votes from different political views, their emphasis on religious and ethnic identities, their intellectual structures regarding the fact that the CHP is no longer the "old CHP," and their distant stance toward CHP ideology.

The break from this mixed political structure, where there is not even a deeply rooted sense of identification as strong as a football fan's loyalty to their team, and the taking refuge in the government for one's own interests, has not been surprising at all.

Ideology-free politics has built a "politician pool" that aims to maximize its own interests by accepting all political parties as equivalent.

The pool has expanded so much that whoever uses the best bait can get what they want. The bait can sometimes be a threat, sometimes a promise, sometimes money, or "being granted amnesty."

While the post-modern political wind is sweeping away Atatürk's Party, it is on its way to leaving a wreck behind.

For years, the CHP could not come to power. However, it continued to be the backbone of Turkish politics. It embraced the founding values of the Republic of Turkey. No political party dared to change Turkey's axis despite the CHP. It embraced the Republican ideology not in words, but in essence. Every CHP member carried the pride of being a protector of the Republic in their heart.

Until when? Until the "ideology-free politics" that started with Kılıçdaroğlu and was collectively accepted by all management cadres.

The process being experienced is part of an operation to destroy the CHP spirit. The opportunistic and rotten human model of neo-liberal policies that began with Özalism has been the accelerator of the process.

Those who swallow the bait in the politician pool today will one day, like moths flapping their wings at a lightbulb, feel the pain of a political extinction.

Principled, honest, and brave politicians who do not enter this pool will continue to write the history of a brand new politics in the heart of the Nation.