The Return

For a long time, I was unable to write for 12punto due to personal reasons. Upon checking, I realized my last article was written in February 2025. I am writing this “return” piece now, fully aware that as much has happened in these five months as might have occurred in five years.

Let us admit that these five months have brought Turkey to one of the most significant breaking points in the history of the Republican era. Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB) Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was detained and arrested on March 19, 2025. The subsequent sequential operations against the IBB and other CHP-led municipalities have shown that the government has entered a new phase in its way of governing Turkey. On the other hand, as could be quite easily predicted, significant progress has been made in a peace process that lacks any justification such as democratization. While there are mayors in prison under the pretext of “urban reconciliation,” the alliance bloc has both redefined Öcalan and decided to walk a path together with the DEM Party.

Where this path leads, we do not know. We will live and see. However, I think we can agree that the place where we stand is a moment of rupture. Ultimately, there is a daring political environment where even the year 1923, when the Republic was founded, can be called a “coup.” The question is, will the Republic of Turkey be able to remain “forever”? Will our nation-state model evolve into an ummah-based model consisting of the “Turkish-Kurdish-Arab” brotherhood, to use a fashionable term, or a “sectarian” model that includes an “Alevi” vice president? It seems we will discuss these models one by one while the Constitution is being debated.

It should not be forgotten that all these ideas have many buyers and supporters on the outside as well. From the glorification of the Ottoman millet system, which has been taken down from dusty shelves recently, to the claim that Israel does not want a strong nation-state in the region, many discourses have found a place for themselves in the media and on social media. Clearly, imperial projects do not always conflict; sometimes they overlap. Everyone who defines themselves as a republican in Turkey needs to read these international dynamics thoroughly, take a position accordingly, and, so to speak, be prepared to row against the current. In other words, this is how I interpreted what the ambassador said in my own way.

However, it is seen that this entire political process also brings with it a political environment that reminds one of the saying “everything returns to its origin.” In short, another return... For example, the ummah-based vein of the conservative political movement in Turkey seems to have - once again - prevailed over the Turkish nationalism that has dominated politics for the last ten years. Just like the paradigm before 2000. Or it is also understood—or rather, understood once again—that the dominant parties of the Kurdish political movement look at politics in Turkey only through a single dynamic, which is the Kurdish dynamic, and have nothing to say about Turkey as a whole. Otherwise, why would words like “Let the CHP also sit at the table, maybe İmamoğlu will be out” be uttered? Without forgetting, I would like to say that in this whole process, the CHP has also remembered its republican vein. It must be added that for the future of the party, it has to keep this vein alive. Let us admit it. The existence of the CHP will not be defended by Serap Yazıcı, who signed the summary of proceedings prepared regarding the immunity files of 61 CHP deputies after being elected as a deputy from the CHP list.

We will talk more in the future about the mathematics of all these lists in politics and the tables that are set and sat at. However, we will also see the reflection of the decisions taken by the parties and made at the table on the public. Republicans are in their weakest phase in terms of their relationship with the state apparatus in 100 years of Turkish political life. In short, there is no state mechanism supporting them. But the arithmetic of the people does not reflect the same weakness. If it did, a unity that has not been needed for the last ten years would not be needed today. I am not writing this as a hopeful final sentence. On the contrary, I am leaving it here as a note that will clearly need to be remembered from time to time. The more it is remembered, the better...