Is 'There is no salvation alone' a song or a call for collective action?

Judging by the decisions of the courts and the YSK (Supreme Election Council), from now on we will either have an electoral system similar to countries like Azerbaijan or Russia, or the public will take a strong stance and repel this coup.

For the public to take a strong stance and repel this coup, a pioneering political party is needed. It is not possible for the nation to organize and take a stance on its own. No matter how strong it may be, the chance of success for unorganized reaction is very low. And the one that can provide this organization most easily and quickly is the CHP...

I hope it turns out to be like the saying, "every cloud has a silver lining." The CHP's current members of parliament and its existing organization are not an organization that came from space in the last two years. It is an organization that repeatedly elected Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who repeatedly lost elections.

After getting rid of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the CHP still has not presented a new program to the voters. The two declarations they have presented to the voters are still there. One is a 2400-article program they prepared for the Table of Six. The other is the CHP's Second Century Vision... Both contain neoliberal policies that are far from Atatürk's principles and disconnected from the left. Now, they are holding a workshop for a new program between September 4-9. I hope it doesn't get lost in the shuffle amidst all these judicial coups. I don't know what they will do from now on, but I will remind you of the policies that were consciously made to break away from Atatürk and the left. I am not talking about their mistakes over 23 years; I am talking about what they did consciously.

Since the Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu fiasco in the 2014 Presidential elections, and especially since the Table of Six disaster, I have written about this constantly. I explained it on my own YouTube channel and in the programs I attended as a guest on Tele1. The essence of what I wrote and said was this:

“The CHP has moved away from being the party founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It cannot defend the principles of the 6 Arrows in its emblem. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and the CHP have legitimized the illegitimacy of the government. Kılıçdaroğlu acts almost like a figurehead of the counter-revolution. He purges Atatürkists from the party and brings a political Islamist man who calls Atatürk an infidel into the Party Assembly through the women's quota and makes him a Deputy Chairman.

The Table of Six process was a complete disaster. They were supposedly going to fight against the political Islamist AKP government, but instead of taking Atatürkists with them, they formed an alliance with political Islamist parties that are AKP larvae. The two statements made by the Table of Six after the first meeting contained direct attacks on the secular structure of the Republic and its unitary state structure.

One of them was the concept of “Libertarian Secularism” that they invented... According to this, the gains of conservative segments until today would not be touched. I asked then: “So, will the sects that have taken over the ministries and the state remain in place?”

Another promise was of a nature that would put dynamite at the foundation of secularism and the unitary state. From then on, the path would be opened for citizens to engage in politics according to their ethnic identity and religious beliefs. While we were heavily criticizing these and saying that these promises served the Counter-Revolution, the CHP organization and the partisan media tried to lynch those of us who thought like this by saying, “Does one oppose the opposition? You are playing into the AKP's hands.” Those who lynched us during the period when we called Kılıçdaroğlu a figurehead of the counter-revolution are now attacking Kılıçdaroğlu more than we are.

Let's say they were election promises written together with the alliance partners of the Table of Six and move on. But there is also the CHP's Second Century Vision Document. In the meeting they held with a fancy presentation, they abandoned the left and social democracy. As guest speakers, there was Daron Acemoğlu, one of the defenders of the neoliberal economic trend, and Jeremy Rifkin, a credit marketer for the neoliberal financial world who appeared to be an environmentalist (also Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's chief advisor). Jeremy Rifkin was preparing to weave a new foreign debt spiral for Turkey. According to Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, 300 billion dollars of foreign debt and direct investment were guaranteed... And in the same meeting, the 2003-2006 period, which was defined by the public as “They steal but they work,” was described as the brightest period of the Turkish economy. Daron Acemoğlu said that no corruption took place during this period, and Kılıçdaroğlu approved. Kılıçdaroğlu didn't stop there; he praised the economic policies of Ali Babacan, who plunged the Turkish economy into a debt trap and made it dependent on hot money. He explained that they benefited greatly from the intellectual background of Ahmet Davutoğlu, who brought millions of refugees upon us and who described the ISIS militants who burned Turkish soldiers alive as “angry Muslim youth.” These were discussed not at the Table of Six meetings, but at the CHP Second Century Vision meeting.

There is no need for more examples or to prolong the discussion. Neither the Table of Six declaration nor the Second Century Vision Document, which carries neoliberal influences from beginning to end, has the slightest connection with Atatürk's principles and revolutions, the left, or social democracy.

The organization is the same organization, the members of parliament in the assembly are the same people. The new management created hope in the public with rallies. But the discourse is important... I hope that in the Program Workshop between September 4-9, the CHP will rediscover Atatürk and the Six Arrows. I wish that a few of the intellectuals who will attend this meeting would remind CHP Chairman Özgür Özel and presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu of Atatürk's understanding of nationalism, the concept of equal citizenship and the equality of citizens, and what the nation-state means.

When I say Turkey needs the CHP, I am talking about a CHP that has rediscovered Atatürk. And yes, it is natural for the CHP to be once bitten, twice shy after the Table of Six... But in all polls, there are nearly 30 percent undecided voters. Most of them are Atatürkist, center, and former center-right voters...

The 2024 local election success and becoming the first party must be analyzed realistically and correctly. Compared to the previous Presidential and parliamentary elections, the number of voters who did not go to the polls has increased by 6 million. These are AKP and MHP voters. A significant portion of them are former center-right voters...

At the rally squares, the song of İlkay Akkaya, who excites the entire society with her lyrics, music, and interpretation, is playing.

“There is no salvation alone, either all together or none of us”

These words should not remain in the song. The formula for being all together is not to say “Follow me.” It is to be able to build a very broad alliance that centers on Atatürk's principles against imperialism and the separatist movements that want to destroy the unitary state with their collaborator political Islamists.