From self-efficacy to despair

For sociologists, Turkey is an incredibly rich laboratory. Starting from the early years of the Republic to the present day, almost every period of transition or leap in development offers researchers a wealth of data on social mobilization. The structural transformations of the Republican era, the public's reaction and adaptation mechanisms to these changes, as well as the social impacts of coups or political shifts experienced over the nearly century-long period, provide invaluable data worthy of study. If such studies had been conducted and we had a robust body of documentation available today, we could have reached significant findings by comparing social transformations across different eras with today's social dynamics and effects. Unfortunately, we do not possess such social research material today. The most important reason for this is that, despite such social fluctuations, we have failed to produce original researcher sociologists capable of forming theories about them or applying data theories to clearly reflect these developments to society. This situation must be the natural consequence of copying the West!  

That being the case; unfortunately, while we do not possess a rich resource for today, it does not fully reflect the truth to say that we have nothing to say. Because despite all the negatives, we can, to some extent, compare the transformations of the early Republican period with today's pressures and efforts for social transformation, and reach a general, albeit simple, conclusion about the tragic state of the present day. The early periods of the Republic carried the pains of efforts to reach the contemporary stage of the capitalist world in terms of social structuring and economy.

Especially alongside the industrialization moves of the etatism period, the efforts to bring classical Western music to the remote corners of Anatolia were an advanced move that is difficult to grasp with today's reactionary approach. All the moves between these two extremes were made during the single-party period. The policies and actions implemented in a state at the foundation stage cannot be compared with the methods of the stage where the period has become normalized. The administration, which is eager to embark on a second foundation that cannot win the grudge and hatred struggle it has waged against the first foundation period, should know that it cannot reach a healthy conclusion by seeking a remedy for its despair in such a meaningless comparison, because for a meaningful comparison to be made, the conditions must be the same or similar.

Adhering to this necessary condition requires at least a minimum level of political morality and conscience. To summarize briefly, the practices of the First Republic period aimed at a social goal; and that goal was to reach the level of contemporary civilization! In today's conditions, where the dogs are unleashed and the stones are tied, what could be the goal of the second republic enthusiasts!

So, what is today's goal? Would it be wrong to define the goal pursued by the politicians' action plan as transforming the country and society into a compliant little island of imperialism! In countries caught in the web of globalizing imperialism, obedience to a single authority that will carry out the orders of imperialism is demanded behind the word democracy, under the guise of harmony and freedom. In the application of this policy, which will go down in history as "Social Darwinism" in political theory, under today's global imperialism conditions, no authority, office, or body is wanted that can object to the orders and practices of the single authority in power. The society, which has had its bones and nerves removed to comply with this request, is not aware and will not be aware that while it absolutely obeys the single authority that will implement the orders of imperialism, the political cadre it carries to power with its own hands is actually enslaving its country and transferring energy to the melting body of imperialism. The exit of hot money from the country by earning interest without realizing production, the transfer of the majority of the value created as profit to the center in cases where production is realized, and the ensuring that all the country's laws are made suitable for such exploitation can only be realized with a single authority in the country.

In our globalizing world, economies are ranked vertically according to their capacity to create added value. The only condition that can disrupt this technical ranking is the feature of countries possessing valuable natural resources. However, just as the global dominance of natural resource ownership is limited by the natural lifespan of the resource, the technology production capacities of countries possessing such resources are, unfortunately, quite insufficient. This contradictory situation reveals that countries that are quite devoid of technology production capacity in the face of natural resource insufficiency, while being located on the relatively lower rungs of the global hierarchy, are also deprived of the opportunities to rise to higher levels over time.

It is such an inadequacy that can make such countries dependent on countries at the higher levels of the global hierarchy. Leaving aside the question of which rung of the said hierarchy Turkey is on, we must ask ourselves this question: In the not-insignificant half-century time period between 1950 and 2000, what did Turkey, which had transitioned from single-party rule to multi-party rule, spend its time on? Why could no meaningful progress be achieved in Turkey, which swung from liberal foreign trade policies to import-substitution and protectionist policies, and from fixed exchange rate policies to free exchange rate and financial policies? In the last twenty-five years, where the single-authority regime imposed on our people has been effectively dominant, and in a period where billions of dollars of hot money could be used, the AKP government cannot boast about the subways it built with the West's idle construction machinery and moles, provided through the generous aid and support(!) it showed by providing a market to firms that became unemployed in advanced countries through the build-operate-transfer or public-private partnership system, at the cost of burying even our grandchildren in debt up to their necks.

We are so unaware that Western subcontracting has begun that we can discuss the vote between today's monarchy, which is a disgrace even to think about, and democracy, even if partially, and not a sound comes from the bourgeoisie, which is called the democracy element of capitalism. I want to believe that our people's common sense will, at least partially, erase this process, which will go down in our history as a deep stain, a kind of regression, the process of transition from multi-party to single-party!