AKP policies and national unity!

According to standard political science theories, political parties compete fiercely with each other before an election, but after the election, the party or coalition that comes to power carries out its political activities in a way that embraces the entire nation.  In Turkey's political life, with the exception of the 1918-1923 period and beginning towards the end of the Atatürk era, unfortunately, social divisions of varying intensity have been experienced. While not as severe as they are today, governments have not refrained from pursuing policies that divide rather than unite society. In short, the fabric and understanding of different ethnic communities from the Imperial period have unfortunately continued into the Republican era. Since the 1924 Constitution period, attempts to establish unity within the framework of a definition of Turkey independent of racial origin have unfortunately persisted to the present day through conflict and oppression. 

Following the War of Independence, all communities that broke away from the disintegrating Ottoman Empire established their own states and even paid their share of the reparations. In contrast, the ongoing conflict with the Kurdish people, who showed the will to remain with Turkey, has opened deep wounds on both sides. The abandonment of the administrative autonomy in the spirit of the 1921 Constitution and the populism built upon it has remained a fundamental problem in the unitary state structure, with regional issues in language, education, and other areas consistently serving as a source of conflict between the two sides. While it would be presumptuous for me to discuss the differences between the 1921 Constitution and the 1924 Constitution and beyond—which deep historical research could reveal—I cannot help but note this: Just as the incurable collapse of the Ottoman Empire made imperialist intervention in Anatolia under British rule necessary during a period when the Soviets were at their strongest and their reactions to reaching warm seas were at their peak, I believe that ensuring the new state remained pro-Western was seen as equally necessary. Because, besides being an important state in the Middle East, Turkey's critical position in the Soviets' expansion to the south meant that leaving it uncontrolled as a new, economically weak state could not have been consistent with the British policy of the time. If one way to control the new state was Islam, the other could be ethnic groups that could be used against the central state! There was a need to be one body during the War of Independence. After the victory was won through joint efforts, the shift toward a unitary state structure may have been necessary to close off a potential channel for foreign intervention. However, it was not considered that the Westerners' close interest in the Kurdish people could not be cut off this way, but rather that they could be provoked—or perhaps the politicians were deliberately misled! Indeed, the conflicts that lasted for years and left unimaginable pain for all parties continued indefinitely. As the saying goes, 'Water sleeps, the enemy does not.' During periods when Turkey focused on development moves, partly due to Western influence, partly due to the relatively industrialized Western part of Turkey resisting resource sharing, and the malice of viewing the people of the East and Southeast as a reserve army of labor, things became difficult. Just as blood ties are not necessary for friendship, ethnicity cannot be seen as a primary necessity in the formation of a nation. Sub-identities are sacred and cannot be suppressed, but they are not seen as primary factors in the solution or agreement conditions of a governance problem. Let us hope that recent efforts do not manifest as a superficial reconciliation by falling into the trap of Westerners again, but rather as an integration where peoples unite in fate and joy, as they did in the War of Independence, defying the imperialists. Ignoring the reactions of the Kurdish people by running affairs through the appointment of trustees to induce passivity in the public is seen as sociologically misguided and politically inept.  

Another important phenomenon that divided society during the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey was the radical change carried out in superstructure institutions. Very serious changes that could only be realized in the long term, such as the clothing revolution, the alphabet revolution, and the closure of dervish lodges and shrines, were implemented in the short term with certain coercive measures, creating a significant social trauma. It was obvious that the costs of internalizing the distances that society could cover over centuries through ordinary processes in just a few years could be heavy. Sociologically, the political overlap between the superstructure pressure on the Turkish people and the pressure on segments with ethnic differences is striking. In some academic circles, the issue regarding these reforms has been addressed not just as the compression of long-term projects into the short term, but as a problem of all efforts undertaken under the name of modernization creating deep shocks in the country. In his book 'Where Are We in Westernization,' Professor Mümtaz Turhan of the Istanbul University Department of Experimental Psychology compared Turkey and Japan, arguing that while Japan adopted Western technology, it maintained its own traditions and superstructure institutions, whereas Turkey fell into a sociological error by Westernizing its superstructure institutions while adopting Western technology. While there are a number of debatable points in the comparison between Japan and Turkey, it can be argued that the violent change in the superstructure created an alienation that hindered the formation of social unity. The similarity between the alienation among different ethnic segments and the feelings of alienation caused by reform movements carried out rapidly within the same ethnic segment has affected economic processes as much as social unity. 

Over time, as the deep tremors of the early Republican period subsided somewhat, Turkey was hit by the rhetoric and practices popularized internationally by neoliberal policies emerging across the world. In these new policies, the view of being an individual—aimed at preventing anti-capitalist segments from uniting against capital—and the emphasis on sub-identities as qualities of the individual being brought into the political arena did not shake the wealthy central economies, but caused serious political division and conflict in peripheral economies struggling with poverty. How tragic it is that while all oppressed laborers and the general public should have stood as one against capital, they were divided among themselves by their racial or religious views and drifted into conflict with one another. Yes, the individual may have become free, but they did not reach the heavens, because they could not even live this artificial freedom in the slavery of capital, nor could they have! 

Having political parties that divide the people in power in peripheral countries was the sacred goal desired by neoliberal conservatives along with imperialists. The fact that the AKP was birthed from Erbakan's party and brought to power in a short time with the support of the Fetullah group, in accordance with neoliberal policies, fit perfectly with the very accurate opinion of British parliamentarians that the easiest way to divide Turkey is through religion. The genetic helix created by ignorance with the religious institution is enough to keep the country running to serve wealthy central countries for generations. The moment this role, which was initially fed to the Fetullah group, was transferred to the AKP as a political party, the knot of hostility that the imperialist wanted and planned between the two sides was actually tied as determined; indeed, two tightrope walkers could not play on one rope, but everything had its time; and that time was July 15! 

There was also a very serious difference in style between these two segments. Specifically, while the Fetullah group followed a policy of uniting society under one goal, the AKP group, more in line with the imperialist's goals, chose the path of herding society by dividing it into different goals. It is this difference in style that brought the AKP to power while it was still raw, and cast the Fetullah group, which was waiting for its maturation phase, out of the game. The headscarf, which was brought into the field as a party badge, did not actually liberate citizens who wanted to cover their heads; on the contrary, it enslaved them to imperialism under the shield of politics. Just like the laborers and peoples who were divided by neoliberalism policies against the tyranny of capital and pushed into conflict with each other, peoples who should unite to form a line of struggle against imperialism are being divided by AKP policies—which are copies/imitations of neoliberalism—and dragged toward an unknown fate. The political cadre that shields capital against laborers while keeping itself in power through its success in the policy of dividing its people does not hesitate to shield itself for the imperialists against its own people at the same time. What a folly it is that a political cadre, at the expense of sacrificing its people, can deem itself worthy of passing into the depths of history with the most unbecoming expressions for the sake of a few terms in power!