A Mümtaz Hoca had passed through this world

Exactly 7 years have passed since November 11, 2019, the day we bid farewell to Mümtaz Soysal Hoca for eternity.

He was one of the "Great People" of my beautiful country, who stood out with his nationalist-anti-imperialist and also anti-capitalist identity.

At the point we have reached, it is necessary to remind once again how accurate the assessments made by Mümtaz Soysal Hoca were on the issues he worked on. In other words, he was showing us what needed to be done regarding the issues he dealt with.

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Mümtaz Hoca advocated for the existence of the TRNC, Turkey's effective and de facto guarantee, and a two-state solution policy.

By serving as a constitutional advisor to TRNC Founding President Rauf Denktaş, he played an active role in shaping the legal and institutional infrastructure of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). He viewed the Cyprus Issue as a national and indispensable cause for Turkey; he advocated for the protection of the Turkish presence on the island and the gains achieved with the 1974 Peace Operation.

He harshly criticized any concessions to be made in Cyprus or attempts to "give away" the island, and he displayed clear opposition to the plan, especially by supporting the TRNC and Rauf Denktaş during the 2004 Annan Plan process.

Mümtaz Hoca had been the pioneer of the struggle against privatization.

One of the issues Hoca was most concerned with was the selling off of the young Republic's assets.

It is useful to show those who cannot see, cannot hear, and are not aware of how correct the struggle Mümtaz Hoca waged against privatization is today.

Mümtaz Hoca had seen that the Turkish economy could be easily collapsed through privatization.

Let us recall; in a tweet dated October 7, 2019, United States President Trump threatened to collapse Turkey's economy if it did anything wrong before its possible intervention in Syria, saying, "I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I've done before!)."

"Why was the economy Turkey's weakest link?" Because, over a period of more than 40 years, the Turkish economy had been transformed from a production economy into a consumption economy through new liberal policies hidden under the cover of privatization and globalization.

For privatization, State Economic Enterprises (KİTs) were first declared black holes, and whatever was necessary was done to make them harmful. They were transferred to the private sector or closed down.

However, the KİTs that were the target of privatization in Turkey were the products of the Republican era, which was established through the struggle against imperialism. They were established as a requirement of the approach that independence won in the political sphere could be protected through development in the economic and social spheres.

And so, Mümtaz Hoca stood out as a Republican intellectual who waged the most qualified struggle on this issue.

How did Mümtaz Hoca wage his struggle against privatization?

Hoca waged his struggle against privatization through the Turkey Public Management Development Center Foundation (KİGEM), which he chaired for a long time. Unfortunately, the privatization policies, which started with Özal and were subsequently used by all governments as a tool to shrink the state and find resources, were also supported by the social democratic, new liberal (left?) parties of the period.

KİGEM registered the illegality of privatization practices through court decisions. It obtained cancellation decisions from the Constitutional Court four times during the privatization process of Türk Telekom and three times for electricity privatizations. It also had the illegality of critical privatization transactions such as Karabük, Seydişehir, and Sümerbank registered through court decisions.

While conducting its legal battles, KİGEM also made the issue a cause for the masses together with labor and professional organizations. In the years when power plants were included in the scope of privatization, KİGEM spearheaded the organization of rallies in all provinces with unions affiliated with Türk-İş. The last of those rallies took place in Ankara with the participation of over one million people.

There are many people whose paths crossed with Mümtaz Hoca's nationalist-anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggle.

If you allow me, I would also like to share a memory of Hoca as a gesture of gratitude.

The US-backed military coup of September 12, 1980, had run over universities like a steamroller, just as it had over all patriotic forces. The President of the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) of the period was İhsan Doğramacı, who was described as a "Key Man"(*) in the Akis Magazine published by journalist Metin Toker. With the coup, many academics were removed from their universities by martial law decisions due to their patriotic identities.

I was one of them. And I had applied to the administrative court to be reinstated. At the end of the five-year trial process, two court decisions were issued for my reinstatement. However, the Rector of Ege University at the time announced that he would not implement the decision. He even told me that "I could go as far as Marko Paşa." I conveyed the issue in detail, along with the court decisions, to Mümtaz Hoca, who was writing a column titled "Açı" (Angle) in Milliyet Newspaper in those years.

In his article titled "Anarchy" dated January 7, 1986, Hoca explained the event in its main outlines and, noting that the state is obliged to implement court decisions, wrote: "...If anarchy means 'chaos born from the absence of authority,' the state, which represents authority, must be consistent with all its institutions, its university, its municipality, and its court."

This article by Hoca, and the criminal complaint I filed with the Bornova Prosecutor's Office, must have spurred the YÖK administrators of the period into action, because a while later, the Ege University Rector, who had suggested that I "could go as far as Marko Paşa," sent his official car to my house: "Where are you? I am reinstating you to your position," he said.

Years later, when I met Hoca at a meeting, I had him sign the article. I keep it as a medal of honor.

How should we protect Mümtaz Hoca's legacy?

The KİTs that Mümtaz Hoca championed were the tools of a "Publicist Economy" whose foundations were laid during the Atatürk era.

In this sense, protecting the legacy of Mümtaz Hoca, one of the most conscious and patriotic intellectuals following in Atatürk's footsteps, requires realizing a more egalitarian development model—not just growth-oriented—based on independence and relying on one's own power by moving away from the control of central countries, and an economy connected to this model.

I would like to end my article with a suggestion from Mine G. Kırıkkanat's article dated November 17, 2019, titled "A star fell, a Mümtaz went out..."

She wrote about Mümtaz Hoca: "...If Turkey had a Pantheon (**), he is a 'Great Person' who would more than deserve to be buried there. Perhaps one day his due will be acknowledged, who knows?"

I wholeheartedly share and support this suggestion of Kırıkkanat.

(*) Key Man means "Key Person." In the years following the May 27, 1960 military coup, while a prime minister was being sought for Turkey, one of the names mentioned was İhsan Doğramacı. It was written in Akis Magazine that İhsan Doğramacı, who had completed his specialization in America, was viewed in Ankara political circles as one of the first-class "key men" in Turkey (Akis Weekly Current Affairs Magazine, February 19, 1965, Issue 557, Volume: XXXIII, p. 12)

(**) Pantheon is the memorial tomb of French intellectuals. The memorial tomb contains the graves of thinkers, scientists, and literary figures such as Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Pierre-Marie Curie, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Alexandre Dumas. Why not in Turkey?