From Vernacular to Ventriloqual Politics

In fond memory of Prof. Ellis Goldberg, who enjoyed this blog and occasionally nudged me to comment on contemporary events in Turkey 

I have recently watched a Netflix comedy/murder mystery show (The Residence – spoilers ahead), which is about the murder of the Chief Usher of the White House. I have not read any reviews, but I thought the show was ripe with symbolism. It turns out that the murderer was the President’s Social Secretary, the daughter of a millionaire, who secretly hated everything the White House represented – including its Chief Usher who had run the House in accordance with traditions for decades. I do not think I need to elaborate much on the symbolism of the tradition-hating-daughter-of-a-millionaire-media-person murdering the bureaucrat who had successfully run the White House. What kept me thinking more was a detail in the somewhat exaggerated but quite well-done murder story. Apparently, the social secretary imitated the voice of the First Gentleman twice to give some orders to cover her tracks. This act of ventriloquism obviously adds another layer of dark symbolism to the show when the rich and elite murderess secretly and successfully speaks in the name of the President’s partner. Such symbolic use of ventriloquism led me to reflect on contemporary Turkish politics.

In her 2002 book, “Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics”, which focuses on the political Islamist leader Necmettin Erbakan’s Welfare Party (Refah Partisi – RP) in the 1990s, Jenny White argues that the success of the movement that carried Erbakan to the Prime Minister’s office lied in the ability of its grassroots mobilization, especially by women, at the neighborhoods. More specifically, based on her ethnographic work in Ümraniye (İstanbul), White identifies the main factor in RP’s success as its ability to engage in vernacular politics, “a value-centered political process rooted in local culture, interpersonal relations, and community networks, yet connected through civic organizations to national party politics” (p. 27). This argument, which also underlines the failure of the increasingly elitist secular Kemalist movements in failing to bridge the gap between the meaning worlds of the local neighborhoods with national politics, is firmly based in what is now identified as the post-Kemalist approach by its critiques. White’s study strongly resonates with the works of other “post-Kemalist” scholars such as Şerif Mardin and Nilüfer Göle, which also underlined the long-durée cultural rift in Turkish politics that historically limited the secular Kemalist movements in mobilizing the masses.

Another study that I always teach whenever I offer a course on Turkish politics, is Cihan Tuğal’s 2009 book, “Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism,” that addresses the success of RP’s successor AKP, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party. Although benefitting from the post-Kemalist scholarship, Tuğal’s approach is firmly based in the Marxist framework to analyze how AKP – an unabashed proponent of neoliberalism – overcame the RP electorate’s resistance to free-market capitalism whilst keeping their votes. His argument in some ways reflects White’s argument, as both studies assign the RP or AKP (and their satellite civic organizations) the role of bridging the gap between the local and the national. Tuğal argues that it was the “pious business community” (such as MÜSİAD) that established a hegemonic position by transforming “the vision of pious popular sectors and activists, through the AKP” (p.8.) Simply put, Tuğal argues that the pious capitalists successfully erased the pious communities’ resistance to capitalism through the AKP. Tuğal identifies the capitalists as the major actor here, unlike White who focuses on the key role that the political party plays. However, there is a more important difference that separates these arguments for the purposes of this short speculative essay. For White, the success of the political movement is based on its ability to engage the local culture and community networks and link them to national politics. However, for Tuğal, a more sinister process is at play when the political movement turns into an instrument in not only bridging the gap between pious communities and national politics but also transforming these communities, i.e. gradually converting them into neoliberal subjects.

Although I have my reservations about the rather straightforward instrumental link that Tuğal proposes between the pious business community and the AKP, I think he successfully captures the key role that AKP played in representing and transforming different conservative subjectivities across Turkey. The issue I want to discuss further here is the extent of this transformation. When White, like several post-Kemalist scholars, attributed the success of the Islamist movements to their ability to engage in vernacular politics, we can talk about a dialogue here. The pious community had their own voice that was somewhat represented by the pious political movement to establish a firm link with national politics. In Tuğal’s argument however, we see that the pious community’s voice is gradually being transformed through a hegemonic process, to become more in line with unfettered free-market ideology of the capitalist actors.

When we come to the contemporary period, after approximately a quarter century of AKP rule, I am afraid there is now much more going on than simply representing or gradually transforming the pious community’s voice. As today’s pious communities are deeply embedded in AKP networks, (most of them infested with corruption and/or nepotism,) is there really a genuine or somewhat transformed vernacular language that needs representation at the national level there? Or, are we truly speaking about ventriloqual politics where individuals in today’s pious (!) communities have become the puppets of the ventriloquist, i.e. the AKP and its media, loaning their bodies, voices, and even consciences? This requires more refined theoretical work. Is “ventriloqual politics” the ultimate result of hegemony? Or, do we see the Turkish version of what Lisa Wedeen described as “politics of ‘as if’” in her 1999 book, “Ambiguities of Domination” for Syrians?: Public compliance under Hafez Assad’s weak cult, which people paid public lip-service to, but also courageously, and humorously shared their collective unbelief in it. As elites amass so much power, can they truly turn individuals in their zone of control into puppets? Surely, there must be a more intricate process here with some sort of resistance.

Talking about ventriloqual politics in contemporary Turkey is walking on dangerous terrain, not only politically but also for ethical reasons. Belittling or undermining pious subjectivities has traditionally been easy in Turkey for Kemalists (another case of ventriloqual politics?) and I do not want to fall into that trap here. Additionally, I do not have anything more than my experiences as someone who lives here in Istanbul, so this is all speculation, befitting the title of the blog. Yet, we are at a political juncture as the thrice-elected metropolitan mayor of İstanbul, and the main opposition party’s presidential candidate, Ekrem İmamoğlu is arrested on bogus charges. His college degree of 35 years is annulled. Some of his colleagues and protesters (most of them students) who demonstrated against these government decisions are also arrested. I am perplexed to read about, or personally hear, AKP supporters who do not hesitate to repeat the weak rationale for these legal decisions, presented by official or (AKP-funded or AKP-fearing) independent (!) media outlets. Simply put, there is no doubt about the government’s political motivations in blaming İmamoğlu with corruption, with no substantial evidence besides secret witnesses’ hearsay testimonies. As some AKP supporters unabashedly defend the arrest in their own personal networks, I am increasingly befuddled with this ventriloqual subjectivity. Is this complete evaporation of individual subjectivity to the extent that it becomes a tabula rasa to be continuously revised anew with each update of official discourses? Or does this reflect a hegemonic merger of official and individual interests (both material and symbolic) that continuously mass reproduces compliant but eager subjectivities? Is there any hint of resistance here somewhere?

Going back to the Residence: The producers of the show offered a critique of contemporary US politics: The rich and elite murderess (representing the capitalist) is the ventriloquist; the President’s partner (representing the transient politician) is the puppet; and the Chief Usher (representing the bureaucrat) that successfully ran the White House (representing the country) is murdered. However, I think the show’s symbolism has more sinister underpinnings for the Turkish case. Here, it is no longer just the politician who is the ventriloquist’s puppet, but other residents, who simultaneously represent the rest of the official bureaucracy and the public that have become replica puppets (wholeheartedly or in fear). This is no longer a comedy but a horror show. The entire bureaucracy and a significant portion of the public, as the ventriloquist’s puppets, have become zombie-like partners in the mindless annihilation of the country. I am afraid there are lessons for the American public to learn from the Turkish example about the direction they are headed towards.

The Paradox of AKP Majoritarianism

Süleyman Soylu, Minister of Internal Affairs

In the wake of the local elections that cost AKP Istanbul and Ankara among many other major municipalities, I want to focus on AKP's historical alliances and struggles to make sense of these very important losses. Yet, I am afraid I will end up raising more questions than I answer. After almost two years of absence, I return with a somewhat confused post.

AKP's perhaps most important struggle had been against the traditional Republican establishment. Similar to her predecessors (such as Welfare Party or Virtue Party), AKP was a suspect despite incredible election wins throughout 2000s. AKP consolidated a broad and solid base of support, but faced strong pressure from the judiciary and the military. This story in itself was not new in Turkey at all. The Republic's counter-majoritarian guardians (embodied by the judiciary and the military) had taken down many quite popular governments in the 20th century. What was really unique in AKP's case was her ultimate success in subduing these institutions throughout 2010s and putting an end to the rule of the Republican guardians. This is the first axis I want to underline: AKP majoritarianism overcame Republican counter-majoritarianism.

How did AKP manage to dismantle the Republican establishment? Was it truly a democratic success story? In other words, can we comfortably argue that AKP was able to overcome Republican counter-majoritarianism thanks to her broad electoral support? The electoral support was inevitably important however, what we have learnt about AKP throughout the 2010s indicate how little we know about the state in Turkey. As we clearly know now, AKP won elections and subdued the Republican establishment with an unofficial coalition partner: The Gülen Movement. After the unsuccessful coup attempt in 2016, this movement is now known as FETÖ (a somewhat derogatory acronym for Fethullah Terrorist Organization) and its members are hunted down, although the entire AKP movement had embraced the Gülen movement throughout 2000s. We did not know much about the Gülen Movement back in 2000s, and honestly we still do not know much. What we know for sure is that this movement, which was inspired by a Muslim cleric, aimed for decades to infiltrate different echelons of the state structure and had been increasingly successful in that endeavor after AKP's rise to power. Since their break-up, tens of thousands of people had been fired and imprisoned.

In my earlier blogs, you can read about my take on the struggles between the Gülen movement and AKP. What has become more and more clear in the past few years is AKP's replacement for the Gülen movement: The ultra-nationalist movement which is often associated with the deep state. I am aware that the phrase "deep state" is increasingly popular in the American context, and even sometimes with reference to Turkey. What does the "deep state" mean? In essence, deep state implies the somewhat hidden existence of certain officials within the state structure that easily defy elected authorities, determine/derail policies and/or limit the spectrum of legitimate policy choices. After dismantling the Republican establishment, AKP literally fought a war with her former unofficial coalition partner (the Gülen movement), and entered into yet another unofficial coalition with the ultra nationalists. This new unofficial coalition is very clearly visible in AKP and Erdoğan's polarizing discourse, the end of the peace process with the Kurds, the imprisonment of HDP members and leaders (including the charismatic Selahattin Demirtaş), formal cooperation with the ultra-nationalist MHP in elections, and the appointment of Süleyman Soylu as the Minister of Internal Affairs. (To appreciate the power and immunity of this minister in Erdoğan's cabinet, please watch this interaction between him and Berat Albayrak, Erdoğan's son-in-law and the Minister of Economy). This will be the second axis I want to underline: AKP's changing alliances with shady/dark organizations which seem to share the identical goals of colonizing the state.

Here is the paradox of AKP majoritarianism: AKP had to fight the Republican establishment to establish herself as the legitimate representative of the people. In order to fight this war, AKP relied on a coalition with a shady religious cult/ movement which sought to colonize the state. Later, in order to fight this colonization that threatened AKP to the core, AKP relied on a coalition with yet another shady (this time ultra-nationalist) movement which also seeks to colonize the state. What we are facing is the continuous need of Turkish Republic's historically most popular government to ally herself with shady counter-majoritarian movements that want to colonize the state.

I might talk more about this in later posts, (if the cats decide to come back to speculate in their garden more regularly,) but I will conclude with three observations. First, I am quite aware that this paradox is a moot point for those Marxists who identify AKP as a peon of capitalism's hegemony. According to this perspective, the electoral success is one of the ways through which hegemony sustains itself. Although I do not completely reject the lessons we can get from such a critical outlook, I intentionally assign intrinsic value to overwhelming electoral support. Consequently, as my second point, I would like to investigate why AKP did not feel sufficiently strong with her electoral support in her fights against the Republican establishment or the Gülen movement. Because, in both cases AKP was forced to these ugly coalitions with shady movements. Finally, this question is relevant because the nature of these coalition partners force AKP to certain political and ideological paths that are ultimately costly. We might quite comfortably argue that perhaps the most important reason for why AKP lost Istanbul and Ankara municipalities is how AKP's coalition with the ultra-nationalists pushed almost the entire Kurdish vote to the opposition. In other words, AKP's counter-majoritarian shady coalitions are ultimately eroding her spectacular electoral base. There again is the paradox.

Rethinking "the Just" under Emergency Rule

In between the lines of this blog, you can see a dichotomous and hierarchical interpretation of Turkish politics and society. This is a perspective I am borrowing from the works of Şerif Mardin. I have recently re-read a Mardin piece on "the Just" where he is reiterating this interpretation that posits a westernizing and secularizing elite vis-a-vis the bulk of the lay folk who are best summarized by tradition and Islamic values. In Mardin's account, this divide is rooted in the very structure of the Ottoman Empire where a small military and bureaucratic elite governed the rest of the society. However, with the Tanzimat reforms, a cultural divide, once dormant, started to grow. As the Ottoman elite were making their peace with Western values such as progress and secularism, they were losing their cultural connection with the rest of the society - the pious and the just.

In other works, Mardin carries his argument on the divide between the modernizing elite and the traditional society into the Turkish Republic. In this account, it is the Kemalist elite (not only soldiers and judges, but also doctors and teachers) who took it upon themselves to educate the ignorant rural masses. It is possible to read Republican People's Party's political conflicts with the Democrat Party (or the Justice Party that came after) with these lenses that underline a repetitive meta-conflict between the center and the periphery. Mardin does not go that far, but it is also possible to interpret AKP's (Justice and Development Party) cooptation of the Republican regime as the periphery's decisive victory over the center. If we wanted to be fancy, we could identify contemporary Turkish politics as the centralization of the periphery and the peripherilization of the center.

My focus on Mardin's argument and extrapolating it to explain contemporary phenomena should not mean that the center-periphery dichotomy is the only significant fault line in Ottoman and Republican Turkish societies. Economic, religious, and ethnic divisions obviously played (and continue to play) important historical roles. Major issues such as the changing geography of the class structure, the Sunni-Alawi divide and the Kurdish resistance movement notwithstanding, I want to focus on the center-periphery dichotomy as it still signifies how power flows in contemporary Turkish society.

The unwavering belief of different official elites in the necessity of imposing overarching yet unpopular reforms in Turkey throughout the past two centuries was a sharp diversion from the liberal path West European countries followed. As new bureaucracies and institutions emerged in Europe to shape the modern subject, they were accompanied by the continuous development of a legal framework that imposed limits on the power of these institutions. In other words, after long struggles and lots of bloodshed, the individual's rights were protected against arbitrary state control. It is a separate discussion whether these protections were sufficient or whether they made a significant change in social and political hierarchies; however, it is my claim that the Ottoman and Republican Turkish story took a different path.

As I often do so on this blog, I will continue with broad speculations and generalizations (something that does not befit a lowly assistant professor I tell myself -- if only I could remain a grad student...)

State centralization, rule of law and legitimacy went together to a great extent in the European experience. Again, it is a separate discussion whether legitimacy was sustained through sheer coercion, social contract, or institutional discipline. However, it seems a foregone conclusion that almost all European societies accept the dominance of the modern nation-state, and accept the limits brought by the rule of law on individuals and the state. Moreover, this is considered as the blueprint for a just society. Mardin's key insight on how the top-down modernizing Ottoman central elite lost touch with the cultural priorities of the traditional and pious periphery constitutes the starting point for the different path that the Ottoman/ Republican Turkish centralization/ modernization took. The modernizing elites extended the growing tentacles of the centralizing state to the remote corners of the country and codified this expanding official apparatus in law. However, the state always operated in a fog of illegitimacy. The uneducated and uncultivated masses that the elites wanted to educate never completely believed in the process and in the legitimacy of the modern secular elites. Two centuries of institutionalization and indoctrination undoubtedly had many successes, however the central state and its rule of law never completely conquered the minds of Turkish citizens as it did in Europe.

This observation opens up many interesting comparative questions. Is the divergent Ottoman and Turkish experience because of a weak state vis-a-vis the society? In other words, did the supposedly strong Turkish state actually lack the power to penetrate its own society? Or maybe, it was not a weak state but simply a strong and entrenched civil society? These are important and interesting questions but I am more interested in tracking the evolution of the ambiguous relationship between the rule of law and the just when a consensus on either of them were never reached. In other words, when Turkish state centralization and modernization copied the path of legal codification as it took place in Europe, but never completely reached the hearts and minds of the people, what happened? Let me exaggerate the question: What happens when the rule of law fails to achieve legitimacy?

In Turkey, the immediate result was instrumentalization of law both by the official authorities and the public. One of my favorite people wrote her MA thesis on how the Constitutional Court, based on the changing dynamics of the Republican elite coalition, used the law for counter-majoritarian purposes (Belge, 2006). In this post's terms, the center interpreted the law in instrumental ways to limit the periphery's (Kurdish movements, leftist revolutionaries, Islamic movements) access to political power. In other words, the law was malleable - fitting to the immediate needs of the elite whether it was closing the political party of a Kurdish or Islamic movement; or granting almost complete immunity to law enforcement which were suppressing the members of these movements. Nevertheless, it is important to note that despite this heavy instrumentalization, the Republican elite never gave up the facade. Everything was done according to the book. There was always prima facie evidence for the existence of a strong regime of rule of law, unless you cared to scratch the surface.

Available studies show that the public also adopted an instrumental relationship with the law. Koğacıoğlu's ethnography on the everyday life of the law at an Istanbul court showed that the urban poor, even when they were not completely sure about the language or the promise of the law, did not hesitate to mobilize their rights when they thought it would benefit them. Neither befuddled with its glorious promises, nor angered with its perpetual failures, Koğacıoğlu argues that the urban poor in Istanbul went to the courts when they saw an advantage.

What changed in the 21st century with AKP's rise was the abandonment of the facade. The Republican elite in its last-minute efforts to block AKP, and AKP after its victory in eliminating the last remnants of that elite, stopped bothering about sustaining even the image of the rule of law. The list of the legal atrocities would take pages, but the bogus decision of the High Election Board at the recent referendum is a perfect example. Even though AKP still pays lip service to the rule of law, it practically and obviously defies it almost daily. The Emergency Rule that was declared after the coup attempt in July 2016 was perhaps the last nail in the coffin.

This leaves us at a dead end for prospects of democracy and the rule of law in Turkey. The rigid rejection of the old Republican elite in opening up the political arena for the "uneducated masses" was simply disgusting, yet hope remained as naive social scientists, such as myself, pointed at the facade that was the rule of law and identified it as slow institutionalization. When AKP dismantled the old elite and established its own rule, the premise of the center-periphery dichotomy did not change. Now we are ruled by another center that imposes its own order top-down. The history of counter-majoritarianism in Turkey ended with majority rule that imitates the authority structure of the regime it had conquered. The cultural divide remains. However, this time it seems that the new center has merged the state with the just and the pious, but left the rule of law aside, as it had become redundant. The new center does not need the facade of the rule of law to sustain legitimacy. It inherently represents the just and the pious.

We live at very sad and dangerous times. I am pathetically mourning for the loss of a facade. However, without the facade of the rule of law, we remain 50%-50%  divided with no immediate common ground to bridge the cultural gap. This is where two centuries of top-down modernization that could not instill a sense of legitimacy leaves us.

Trump, The Flying Man

Please watch this minute-long video, from several years ago, of a morning show in a Turkish channel to meet Sabri, the Flying Man.

They were discussing if he could fly or not; so he flew. Funny? Somewhat... Weird? Definitely...

Later, they asked one of my favorite comedians, Cem Yılmaz, what he thought about this incident. His response was pretty good. He basically argued that if you put someone on a show because he claims that he can fly and do not test it beforehand, you should not be surprised when he "flies" during live broadcast.

I remembered this rather weird incident as a somewhat imperfect, but quite revealing, metaphor for Donald Trump's presidency. I see many distressed friends posting on Facebook after the first disastrous ten days of the new administration, and I cannot help but think of Sabri, the Flying Man. But, as I said, this is an imperfect metaphor. We had never heard of Sabri before but the Americans knew Trump as a reality TV star, whose crude and cruel key phrase was "You're fired!" During the elections, the Americans heard about his crude and cruel remarks about women, Muslims, Mexicans, and a Gold Star family. Yet, he was still elected as the President. He was elected to make America Great Again. And, there you got it. Trump, the Flying Man, is "making America Great Again".

Hypocrisy of liberalism and the loss of truth

Recently, I have read a few articles on the similarities between Turkish President Erdoğan, who is about to institutionalize an authoritarian regime change, and US President-Elect Trump, who is about to assume power. Turkey and the US have quite different historical backgrounds, however the rise of Trump and Erdoğan's turn to authoritarianism, together with Brexit and the rise of xenophobia all around the world, share the same historical setting: Collapse of the liberal world order just a generation after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. Am I being too pessimistic or too trigger-happy? Maybe, but we should let the cats speculate in their garden nonetheless...


Hardt and Negri had attributed a revolutionary potential to the multitude, in their famous book, Empire (2000). This multitude, a widely differentiated group of people all around the world, is a product of global capitalism, i.e. the empire. With the globalization of production and the prominence of transnational corporations, we would see the emergence of this multitude all around the world. In quite a Marxist dialectic twist, they argued that this multitude which is widely differentiated but is subject to the same global forces everywhere, will bring the destruction of the empire. In a way, they repeated Marx's revolutionary call to the working class to rise against contemporary global capitalism.

With the end of the Cold War, the last challenger to the liberal world order collapsed. We cannot really deny that global capitalism is able to reach and reshape the remotest parts of the world today, more than ever. I am not sure if the multitude, a rather vague concept at best, is the new revolutionary force. However, the recent developments demonstrate that there is indeed increased disgruntlement across the world, including at home in the US, about the liberal order.

The liberal order is in crisis at a global level - a crisis of credibility. Global capitalism is creating a willing and winning class of consumers. However, the rapid changes inherent in global capitalism (such as the continuing de-industrialization in the US or the changing human geography all around the world because of migrations) unsettle many people. There are various facets and levels of these disturbances. Let me discuss three different unsettling consequences among many. First, global capitalism can mean working for below-subsistence level jobs as a worker. Transnational corporations today are more eager than ever to transfer to new locations where they can get more waivers on environmental regulations and minimum wage requirements. Many workers in the world are trying to just get by on incredibly low-paying jobs.

Second, global capitalism can mean getting in a vicious loop of unemployment, felony, and imprisonment. When the person is released, either through a violation of parole or another crime, going back to prison is very likely. There are countless studies on mass incarceration that provide details to this process. Essentially, what is going on is managing an undesirable group of people through the penal system. Besides those who work for a very low wage, those who could not even get those jobs need to be "warehoused", excluded from the rest of the society, sometimes for the rest of their lives. Western and Beckett (1999), in a very important article titled "How Unregulated is the US Labor Market?", argue that if the historically low US unemployment rates are adjusted to include prisoners, they appear at the same level with west European unemployment levels. Global capitalism has to exclude some people.

Third, globalization triggers migration, and migration brings different people to your neighborhood: Mexicans in an American town, or Syrians in a Turkish town. These people do not look like you; they do not speak like you; they do not live like you. It certainly changes from place to place, but this sort of mobility is inevitably unsettling for the natives and much more so for the immigrants.

I brought these examples to describe the contemporary version of liberalism's crisis of credibility. Liberalism is founded on the promise of freedom and equality. However, what we see and experience after liberalism's historic triumph is freedom and equality only for a select group. I am not here to condemn liberalism. I am basically arguing that the fast pace of global capitalism has created a dissonance across the world. On the one hand, we cannot even begin to think of an alternative way of life. On the other hand, we know deep inside that there is something wrong with what is going on. We want to believe in freedom and equality, but then we daily see, or experience, their failure.

Enter Erdoğan and Trump with their bravado. They speak to the disillusioned masses. They tell us "what it really is like". They point at the inherent fallacies of the current order and how we have been duped. I do not mean to say that people like Erdoğan and Trump have become the voice of the multitude. What I am saying is that the liberal world order, under the banner of transnational companies, lost its moral high ground. The stark differences between its message and the fast-paced daily realities it produces around the world neither match nor can be hidden. The multitude have seen or experienced the vices of global capitalism and some of them are rapidly falling into the fascist arms of charismatic authoritarian leaders.

Another common ground between Erdoğan and Trump are the loss of truth in their messages. In talking about how the current world order is staked against us and challenging our beliefs, they pull us into a bizarre post-modern world. When the very modern claims of liberty and equality are debunked, it feels like all claims to truth lose legitimacy as well. Both Erdoğan and Trump speak blatant fallacies and just move on without feeling the burden at all. During the presidential campaign, Trump openly mocked a disabled reporter. It was simply disgusting, but he recently just denied it. Moreover, just google it and you will see that many articles that support his denial popped up. So are we to believe our own senses or Trump and his supporters? Recently Erdoğan asked this question after a terrorist attack by a Jihadist at a nightclub on the new year's eve: "Is there anyone who can claim that their lifestyles are threatened?" Whenever Erdoğan makes such claims that distort reality, pro-Erdoğan media immediately pick those versions up and push them relentlessly.

In this post-truth era, intellectuals are often targeted as well. Examples from Turkey, where many journalists and novelists are jailed, would be redundant. However, such anti-intellectualism seems to be on the rise in the US as well. If nothing else, the substitution of a cerebral, rational and measured president by a bigot is a testimony to this change. Another example would be the attacks against political correctness. In recent Republican discourse, including Trump's, political correctness became a vice.

The loss of truth and its promotion by the partisan media is undoubtedly related to the dissonance created by the liberal hypocrisy I have discussed here. The promises of the liberal order on freedom and equality have failed so soundly, and we have been grabbed (you know from where) by charismatic authoritarian leaders so strongly, that reality as we know it has completely shattered. We now live in their reality, which changes according to their needs. Transnational corporations will inevitably reach a deal with the Clown-in-Chief and the Sultan-Reincarnate, however I am not so optimistic about the redemption of our liberal values.

Dystopia: Congratulations America! Welcome to the club!

 
I am dumbstruck, like the rest of the world, with the news about 'President-Elect' Trump. Congratulations, America! Welcome to the club!

As I am trying to make sense of this development, I'll just share my thoughts here.

In  a way, this can be seen as another swing of the pendulum that is American politics. In my mind, America represents both the best and the worst. Liberals in U.S. have become the spearhead in progressive politics. From gay rights to the occupy movement, we look up to them. On the other hand, well, America produced the Tea Party and Trump. I have the pendulum metaphor in mind, because, at least in recent history, major achievements by the liberals were followed by Republican governments that pulled in the opposite direction. The Civil Rights Act was a major achievement but it was followed by Reaganomics that abandoned the lower classes to the whims of the 'free market', and the war on drugs that resulted in mass incarceration of minorities, especially African Americans. Then came W. Bush and his war on terror. Perhaps, the heavens cautioned us (not only the Americans but the entire world) about what kind of wreckage a clueless American president could cause. First it appeared that that caution was heeded. Obama's inspiring election campaign with the motto, 'Yes, we can!', restored liberals to power. Obama achieved important accomplishments such as The Affordable Care Act, the Iran nuclear deal, and the normalization of relations with Cuba among others. The new president was a rational, reasonable, and decent man with amazing oratory skills. In addition, he was the first African American president. I believe many Americans could not make peace with that fact. The pendulum is swinging to the other side. Trump votes are a strong reaction to a progressive black president.

Trump received reactionary votes and I believe part of the blame rests on President Obama's shoulders. Obama promised change and he did not deliver. True, he was blocked by the Republicans along the way and that limited what he could achieve. This simply does not change the fact that his campaign that galvanized the youth and created so much hope did not bring change. And unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, this election, even more so than the 2008 elections, was about change.

Many people make this argument so I am not going to belabor the point: Very similar to other parts of the world, many lower-class Americans feel the effects of globalization that enables free mobilization of businesses, goods, and people. Not only the fast technological changes themselves are unsettling, but also loss of their jobs, and appearance of different-looking people in their neighborhoods are big changes in lower-class Americans' lives. Enter Trump (or replace the name with Erdoğan, Orban, or Netanyahu) with an appearance of grandeur and big promises of bringing back past times of greatness. These leaders' bigger-than-life charisma itself is a point of identification. People without much hope for the future look up to the fearless, wealthy, non-apologetic and self-righteous leader and find their betrayed hopes in him. A wealthy, crass, arrogant and simply inadequate man who brags about not paying his taxes (in addition to grabbing women by their genitals) shines as someone who beat the system with no repercussions - unlike the people themselves. Populist and discriminatory rhetoric directed towards the disillusioned masses is not a new phenomenon. Surprising news for American exceptionalism! Again, congratulations America, welcome to the club!

There certainly were other factors that contributed to Clinton's defeat and they raise important questions about the democratic system in the U.S. For example, the reports on the closure of voting stations in some minority areas is very disturbing. (I should also mention the disenfranchisement of felons as another major problem here.) FBI chief's bizarre and disturbing involvement in the elections with Clinton's e-mail investigation was also highly problematic. Simply put: If it was possible to investigate the files before the elections, why did not Comey wait until the investigation was over to warn the Congress? I believe, a bigger problem lies with the media - a problem we also suffer here in Turkey. This starts with the free airtime the sensational Trump received during the primaries, and follows to the different expectations imposed on the candidates. Using a private e-mail server as a Secretary of State is reckless behavior. Yet, is it equal in importance to bragging about grabbing women by the genitals, bragging about how smart someone is for not paying taxes while earning millions of dollars, or not even declaring tax returns? I understand that the ratings matter but this nexus of capitalism, media, and democracy bring us to our current predicament.

We are living through a period where global capitalism is searching for a solution to its perennial problem: How to deal with the masses that are needed (and sometimes not needed) for production and consumption. Democracy, human rights and the rule of law have been the traditional western liberal path to maintaining meaningful order. Emergence of unabashedly illiberal leaders that successfully appeal to people's fears with populist and discriminatory rhetoric is undermining democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Current developments in Turkey are a testimony to this. Turkey is becoming a bad copy of Russia, whose leader Trump is infatuated with. We should neither easily dismiss people's fears nor the illiberal solutions these authoritarian leaders' are offering them. These phenomena are a direct consequence of the unfettered reach of global capitalism that destroyed human lives and the nature with impunity for centuries. It faces yet another crisis, where disillusioned masses all around the world are not buying into the game. And surprisingly enough, either through state manipulation of the media, or partisanship of the media, or just because of how contemporary social media could block any oppositional worldviews out of your sight, individuals never get the full picture anymore.

We are facing a complete failure of the ideals of the Enlightenment. More than two centuries ago, Kant argued that we needed "public use of reason". It was vital for him that people had the room to speak up their minds, so that eventually each person heard others and eventually developed the skills to think for themselves. Where global capitalism brought us today is masses of disillusioned people who either do not care, or do not have access to different viewpoints. Trumpalike vultures are feeding on this. Two centuries after Kant, even with a robot on Mars, we still cannot think for ourselves. Liberalism is in crisis, is it time to get back to Marx?

The Sultan-Reincarnate

From Today's Zaman: Turkey's oldest olive tree uprooted to decorate Expo 2016 Antalya.

This is not an Onion piece. It is real. An olive tree (reportedly a thousand years old) had been uprooted to be planted somewhere else by the President during a ceremony. (And yes, there is a giant mascot there...)

There are many things to discuss in this picture: The notable absence of women; The subservient body language of most of the men in suits, especially the hands folded in front. However, I just want to briefly discuss the mindset that uproots a thousand-year old tree to replant it during a ceremony.

I did not research the issue, but I will assume that there is a risk in replanting a tree. It is possible that it could wither and die. The ruthless and reckless audacity in taking the risk of killing a thousand-year old tree for ceremonial purposes represents what Erdoğan has become. First, his decisions are backed up by almost unrestricted power. Erdoğan has dominated the state apparatus (including the judiciary) to a great extent; but he also controls and/or co-opts important social forces such as media and academia.

Second, Erdoğan seems more and more like Marx's sorcerer (in the Communist Manifesto) "who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells." Marx was describing the bourgeois society and how it is no longer able to control the enormous means of production that it created. Similarly, Erdoğan seems like he has unleashed a buried inner demon upon Turkey that devours dissent and gets bigger and more self-righteous after each feast.

He knows what is best and necessary. If he has decided that a thousand-year old tree could and should be uprooted, it will be done. It is a curious mindset. We as a country, embodied in the mascot and the men with hands folded in front, are expected to conform. If laws are not in congruence, they shall be changed. If academics do not agree, they shall be fired. If journalists criticize, they shall be jailed. I am not writing these in mockery. This really is the mindset. All other systematic sources of knowledge are deemed subservient to the needs and orders of the Sultan-reincarnate. Law, science and rationality need to adapt because he has decreed so.

What is really frightening is the dissemination of this model of power and authority in daily life. More and more people seem to be imitating this ruthless and reckless audacity in Istanbul, which makes daily life much harder and very unpleasant. In public transport, parking, traffic, and queues, I observe more and more self-righteous behavior that is unchecked by custom, religion, or rationality. He has done it. He has moved on. You will live with the consequences of his behavior.

Let me not end on such a discouraging note. Here is a picture from Erdoğan's visit to another park last year. In this visit, he was pictured poking the doves with an umbrella:

I think this picture is another perfect example of the mindset I have been discussing. But on a funny note, it became another internet phenomenon. Here are a couple examples that play with the image:

With Darth Vader and Luke

In the Sesame Street

And you can find some more here.

The Fairy Tale of Rights in Turkey

I will be teaching a course on law and society next semester. I have taught this type of a course back in the US, but this will be my first experience in Turkey. My advisor Michael McCann at UW used to teach this course by starting with Stuart Scheingold's 1974 book, The Politics of Rights. My thinking about law and the US is still very heavily influenced by this book. Scheingold initially focuses on the ideological appeal of the law: 'the myth of rights'. On page 17, he says: 'The myth of rights rests on a faith in the political efficacy and ethical sufficiency of law as a principle of government.' This widely shared myth then forms the basis of his analysis in explaining how it can provide opportunities for legal and political mobilization. I find all of this quite fascinating but what I am really interested in at the moment is the argument's Durkheimian undercurrent: The notion that this 'myth of rights' is widely shared by Americans. In Durkheim's language, the myth of rights would be a strong component of the collective consciousness that holds the American society intact. Let's put the empirical question - whether this is still (or was ever) an accurate assessment - aside. Now, to come back to my course next semester, and as a die-hard comparativist, I have always wondered how this particular argument would hold in Turkey: 1) The Scheingold question: Is there any basis for a myth of rights type of argument in Turkey? In other words, does the rights-bearing subject play at least a partial role in how individuals are imagined within the collectives consciousness(es) in Turkey? 2) The Durkheim question: Regardless of the question of law and rights, what is it that holds the society in Turkey intact? What has it been? What is it now? Is there such a common story anymore?

I am planning to think and write on this more. However, here is my brief take on these questions.

1) This is the type of question that my research is likely to pursue in the future, so no easy answers yet. However, from a comparative perspective, I can easily claim that the myth is more like a fairy tale in Turkey. Compared to a daily American context, you almost never hear the invocation of a rights-bearing subject here. Of course there is wide-spread formal and informal legal mobilization, but I daresay it is rather an example of mobilizing official tools that are external. These external tools may offer good opportunities for reaching our goals but they do not really shape our imaginations.

2) If not rights or law, then what shapes our consciousness? Well since this is their garden, I will let the cats offer some speculations. The Ottoman Empire consisted of different religious communities. I am not an Ottoman historian, but the fact that these communities co-existed side by side for centuries, implies an operational shared common set of understandings, norms and practices, (which were inevitably enforced by official violence).That legacy had been annihilated by the WWI and the establishment of the Republic. The non-Muslims had come to be perceived as the agents of European capitalists and enemies. They were purged and/or killed. Most of the remaining non-Muslims were eventually sent away through population exchanges. The state offered and imposed a non-apologetic tranformation that focused on westernization and Turkishness. This took place while the properties of the non-Muslims were being expropriated and redistributed. I am basically arguing that the new Republican collective consciousness was about forcefully becoming western and Turkish, all the while suppressing the historical guilt of killing and purging the non-Muslims. When that meta-story was finally challenged with AKP's cooptation of the Kemalist state in early 2000s, I am afraid we are now even bereft of that dirty story that somewhat connected us to each other in our guilt and ignorance. We have now become Durkheim's nightmare: A society still in the process of capitalist transformation with no common and accumulated story to connect us in these dire circumstances. Actually, the stories we have accumulated are pitting us against each other. We pretty much hate each other here now...

Path to Civil War

Please do not read this if you do not want to see graphic pictures of violence.

It is Christmas time, but it is not merry here. We are on our path to a civil war. The Suruç massacre on July 20, and the Ankara massacre on October 10, propelled the PKK (or some groups tied to the PKK) to respond with attacks on security personnel in eastern Turkey. Moreover, in the past few months, a new type of resistance emerged: Ditches in urban centers. The goal, as it appears, is to block the access of state security forces in urban areas. This is supposedly in congruence with PKK's calls for 'democratic autonomy.' The official response has been declaring curfews enforced with snipers (yes, snipers); surrounding these towns and neighborhoods with armored vehicles and heavy artillery; and marching these units to demolish ditches and barricades. As you might imagine, many civilians were killed by explosions or by sniper fire. Let me underline this fact: Turkish citizens have been killed by the Turkish military's sniper fire. Thankfully, our state declared that it regrets such casualties...

First, let me state that I do not claim to see the complete picture yet. Are these ditches built by the guerillas (or terrorists, in official discourse), or are they built by the civilians? Or, maybe, is there an organic cooperation? I hesitate to reach conclusions at this point. But let me say this: If this is the implementation of a decision taken by the PKK command, I have no sympathy for it and I believe they are as responsible of these civilian deaths as the state.

Here are some pictures:

A 13 year old girl was shot dead and could not be buried because of the curfew at Cizre. Her family kept her in the deep freezer until the curfew was lifted.

The body of a dead PKK guerilla was mutilated and was pulled behind a police vehicle at Şırnak.

A 70 year old man was killed by sniper fire in Cizre. His body stayed out in the streets for three days until the curfew was lifted.

And these pictures are a few months old. New ones are coming in, as the conflict over the ditches spread into a number of urban centers. However, I want to talk about a different picture that I saw at diken.com.tr earlier today:

This picture is from a house at Nusaybin and reflects my feelings on these recent events rather well. The photographer went into the yard and took the picture of the girl (who went outside) from inside. She is smiling at us, from the direction that the bullets came in. I just hope it was safe then, and has been so since. The fact that she is smiling is giving me hope that noone she loves was hurt. The fact that she is smiling is giving me hope that smiling is still possible there.

I appreciate that the photographer went inside and took these pictures, as I believe this is what we lack. We know what the state tells us: 'They are fighting the terrorists,' and 'they are in a legitimate fight to establish control in urban centers.' But, at what cost? Our own citizens are suffering under inhumane curfews and assaults. We need such journalism that goes 'inside,' and tells the story from there. And, of course, we need outlets that would carry those stories. Tough luck on that!

The only way to avoid a civil war in the (maybe not so) long run is to let the smiling face of this little girl pierce through our barriers, as those bullets did so to her house. And for that, we need to understand how war, funded by our money and votes, hurts fellow citizens inside those doors with bullet holes.

Attacks on HDP offices in Turkey: The Unholy Alliance of AKP and PKK

In the past few months, many HDP (Peoples' Democratic Party) offices had been (and is still daily being) assaulted by mobs. This poses a stark contrast to the election results (June 7) that catapulted HDP above the national election barrier by 13%. HDP's electoral success was a colossal achievement. In previous parliamentary elections, the Kurdish candidates had run as independents and could not reach beyond 6% of the seats overall. However, HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş's success in the presidential elections in 2014, led to the HDP decision to run as a party in June 7 parliamentary elections. Many people, including myself, criticized HDP for taking such a huge risk, because failing to pass the 10% national barrier would mean no HDP representatives in the parliament, and consequently, an AKP (Justice and Development Party) super majority that would benefit the most by the missing HDP seats (as AKP has been the second most popular party in the Kurdish regions). However, HDP successfully forged a left and humanitarian coalition that received many Turkish votes, in addition to the bulk of the Kurdish votes. HDP's almost unbelievable achievement is a huge development for Turkish democracy, and not only because it helped bringing and end to the AKP majority rule. HDP's success is extremely valuable for bridging the gap between the Kurd and the Turk with a democratic and peaceful agenda. I will most likely blog another post just on that topic. In this post, I would like to talk about the increasing hostilities HDP has been facing since before the elections.

Above is the video of a mob attack to the local office of HDP at Balıkesir, my hometown, on September 7. On that day, several HDP offices in other cities were also attacked. Here are some more pictures from that assault on September 7:

HDP headquarters in Ankara were also attacked in the evening on September 8. Some nationalist (!) protesters were recorded chanting: "We do not want [military] operations. We want massacres..." Merging PKK with HDP, these nationalist (!) mobs were indeed calling for mass killing of Kurds... Others were also targeted by the angry mobs. In a bizarre and ugly incident, a Kurdish man was forced to kiss an Atatürk statue... I am personally dumbstruck in finding out how so many people around me adopted a hostile, almost fascist, discourse almost overnight. This cartoon below represents my situation pretty well:

 One morning when you wake up: Columnist Yılmaz, Facebook friend Suat, Ayça from Twitter, Cab driver Gökhan, Cousin Serkan, etc.

So why did things go down for HDP after such an incredible electoral success on June 7?

The answer is clear: AKP and PKK are in an unholy alliance, using violence and terror, to undermine HDP, which emerged as a significant threat to them on June 7. Using violence to undermine a democratically elected political party is not a new phenomenon in Turkey. What we are observing is yet another incident of violent repression of a group which is eager to participate in a political system that is unwilling to accept it within. It appears, undermining HDP is beneficial both for AKP and PKK at the moment.

There had been various attacks to HDP personnel, offices and meetings during the election campaigns before June 7. The deadliest one was a bomb explosion during the HDP election meeting at Diyarbakır on June 5, only two days before the election. It was a miracle that only a few people died. It was also significant that the HDP leaders called for calm and peace in the wake of the explosion despite several deaths and many injuries. The worse attack took place at Suruç, a small town at the Syrian border, after the election on July 20. Most of the thirty two people who died were there as a part of a socialist youth federation (a HDP component) that was organizing a relief effort for the Syrian refugees at the border camps. This explosion was clearly the turning point. ISIS was blamed for both of the bombings, however many people, including myself, identified "deep state" forces as the culprit. Apparently, the PKK did so too. Since this event, PKK started to attack Turkish security personnel in south-east Turkey, delving straight back into the nightmares of 1990s. Two days after the Suruç massacre, on July 22, two police officers were found dead at their home at Urfa. PKK claimed responsibility for the attack. PKK, in an ambiguous statement, a week after the incident, claimed that the killing of the police officers was an independent action of local guerillas, not based on a command from PKK headquarters (link in Turkish). The conflict escalated nevertheless. In the past month, hundreds of people died. Turkish security forces attacked PKK targets not only inside Turkey, but also in Iraq and Syria. We do not know the exact number of guerilla casualties but the numbers seem to be in hundreds. Currently the southern town of Cizre is under permanent curfew and there are reports of civilian casualties under sniper fire. PKK reciprocated. Many security personnel were gunned down or bombed over the past month and a half. Most tragically, 16 soldiers were killed in a bomb blast at Dağlıca on September 7. On the next day, 13 police officers were killed in another explosion at Iğdır. Some people argue that this recent steep escalation indicates the entry of more experienced PKK forces, who had most likely been busy fighting against ISIS in Syria, into the scene.

I am not a security analyst and I will not try to speculate on why Turkey and PKK would go back into a dire military struggle against each other while they are both busy fighting a much more dangerous threat to the south: ISIS. That is just beyond me. However, I believe there is a very good domestic reason for both of them to attack each other: Undermining the burgeoning HDP.

The escalation of violence is undoubtedly the antidote to HDP's success in bridging the gaps between Turkish voters and the Kurds. HDP, with its unwavering call for equality and human rights, had managed to reach many people. HDP co-leader Demirtaş's easy innate charisma had captured many people's interest, and when they listened, they surprisingly found a humane and friendly discourse. Violence is in the process of undoing this unbelievable achievement. When people are dying left and right, calls for ceasefire and peace appear naive. They fall on deaf ears. People once sympathetic fall back on discourses of animosity. The memorized and internalized enmities resurface with stronger resilience. However, AKP and PKK meet in this unholy alliance because they are both threatened by HDP's success.

During the election campaign, HDP co-leader Demirtaş had a one-sentence parliamentary group speech on March 15, 2015.: "Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: We will not let you become the president!" The nationalists and Kemalists had been arguing that AKP and HDP were conspiring to exchange Kurdish rights for Erdoğan's presidency under a new presidential regime (with increased powers). To dispel such worries, HDP's response was: "We will not let you become the president!" (To avoid confusion: Yes, Erdoğan is the president of Turkey since 2014. The full title of the office in Turkey's parliamentary system is Cumhurbaşkanı, i.e. "President of the People." Başkan, i.e. "President", is used for presidential regimes.) This was arguably the most effective HDP slogan throughout the entire campaign. One of Erdoğan's close aids even called this slogan a provocation!

In essence, HDP's entry into the parliament by beating the 10% national barrier was sufficient to bring down AKP majority rule. The math is clear. It is very hard to achieve a parliamentary majority with four major parties. HDP had delivered. By blocking an AKP majority, they had crushed any hopes of a constitutional change that would deliver extra powers to the president. In the aftermath of the elections, the ultra-nationalist MHP (Nationalist Action Party) rejected a coalition with HDP in it, and this destroyed any chances of a coalition with no AKP participation. On the other hand, HDP rejected any coalition with AKP in it, especially after the June 5 Diyarbakır explosion and the Suruç massacre. This left few possibilities for a coalition and it became clear that AKP preferred a new election to hopefully force a majority in the parliament. How? By undoing HDP in elections where  violence and terror is rampant. The AKP government has shelved the peace process and escalated violence to force HDP down the 10% barrier, by disenchanting Turkish voters of HDP and/or by physically making it impossible to vote in various Kurdish towns for security reasons. In other words, AKP is playing with fire in escalating violence. The goal is to close down south-east Turkey and steal any sympathy for HDP in the rest of the country by forcing a mental equation of HDP with PKK. With more and more security personnel being killed by PKK attacks, PKK is further demonized. However, with each death, pressure on HDP increases. HDP calls for the state to cease military operations and calls for the PKK to cease attacks and drop arms. However, these calls fall on deaf ears. Declarations that equate HDP with PKK appear on paper and TV everyday. Especially the social media reeks with racist and fascist calls. It is in this bleak atmosphere that mob attacks against HDP offices increased. When coffins of soldiers and police officers are arriving daily, HDP offices are presented as the most suitable targets for the protesters' self-righteous fury.

If AKP is ready to drop the peace process and risk nation-wide ethnic violence to force HDP down, why does PKK cooperate with it? I will offer two speculations on this: A cynical one and a political one. The cynical speculation is short and simple: PKK had struck a deal with AKP over presidency in exchange for the recognition of certain Kurdish rights within a new constitution. In this scenario, HDP would fail to beat the 10% barrier, which would result in an AKP super majority to unilaterally change the constitution. HDP foiled this deal by its successful election campaign which was very hostile to AKP. Inevitably, both AKP and PKK are eager to punish HDP now. I have serious doubts about such a scenario. I really doubt such a strong understanding and agreement could have developed between PKK and the AKP government. Moreover, I really doubt HDP could afford to defy PKK in such a blatant manner. PKK, after all, wields the gun...

The second scenario is based on my reading of the politics of the Kurdish movement in Turkey. We have to acknowledge that the Kurdish movement had achieved its recognition by the Turkish state, thanks to the PKK and its armed resistance, despite the capture of its leader by Turkish security forces in 1999. The most significant actor in the Kurdish movement in Turkey is undoubtedly the PKK. HDP is strongly connected to the PKK. It is important that PKK holds the gun, but PKK also represents generations of resistance and sacrifice for the Kurdish population. Öcalan himself, despite capture and incarceration, is still a powerful leader. However, I believe HDP's recent electoral success and Demirtaş's personal charisma has challenged these dynamics. HDP now offers a democratic solution to the Kurdish problems. In other words, HDP had achieved what PKK could never imagine to: Reaching to the Turkish electorate. So the question arises: What would happen to the PKK if HDP takes over the leadership through increased public support and legitimacy across the entire country? I believe that some PKK leaders are not very happy about such increased popularity of HDP and Demirtaş. The violent responses to the state operations that killed dozens of state security personnel achieves several things: i) Undermining HDP's position; ii) Consolidating PKK components; iii) Demonstrating to the Kurdish population, once again, who wields the weapon and who is there to defend them. I am obviously not an expert on such organizations, and I do not believe all PKK leaders share this mindset, however I believe leaders are not always so eager to give up hard-won power and respect.

In summary, AKP and PKK both have their reasons to undermine HDP through violence and terror. Moreover, this unholy alliance which is based on attacking each other is a struggle over the control of a group of people (mostly Kurdish but also some Turkish) who deliberately chose to support a discourse of democracy, peace, and human rights. However, neither AKP nor PKK are ready to recognize this democratic choice. Instead, they have decided to suppress it with increased violence and terror directed at each other. It falls on us to recognize this deceit and offer a hand to HDP. It falls on us to defy calls that equate HDP with PKK. It falls on us to defy the ultra-nationalist discourse that aims to forge fascists out of regular people through manipulation of their fears.

Where do you stand in post-military Turkish politics?

My favorite counter-factual thought experiment is speculating on the different directions that political institutionalization in Turkey might have taken, if the 1960 coup did not take place. If the military intervention in 1960 did not happen, and the 1961 elections took place with Menderes' DP and İnönü's CHP competing for office, would DP lose the elections and leave office peacefully? I imagine a late-20th century Turkey where the military would have already accepted independent civilian control and would have no interest in toppling down popularly elected governments. Obviously, the 1960 coup was not just a historical mishap. The Ottoman political/military structure, the Unionist legacy of the 1910s, and the crucial roles the military played in the national independence war and the establishment of the Republic were undoubtedly determinant in shaping the interventionist Turkish military in the Republican era. Nevertheless, I indulge myself in political fantasy, imagining a different scenario where the military was held off just another year until the elections in 1961. Perhaps, that first fatal coup, which further entrenched the interventionist military would be avoided and a successful transfer of power through elections would foster a more democratic institutional framework in Turkey.

I started with this counter-factual thought experiment, because thanks to the interventionist Turkish military, I did not have any problems in situating myself in Turkish politics until recently. I was anti-military, period. In my opinion, the military had to be opposed because due to the military's restrictions, (which were simply internalized by almost all the political actors), on the political arena, real and meaningful political issues were simply taboo. For the military, the Alevi, the Kurd, and the Islamist were threats, and consequently, they could not legitimately exist in the political arena. For me, this was first and foremost the most important political issue that defined my political stance in 1990s and 2000s. One of the successes of the long AKP rule was kicking military out of politics and forcing it to accept civilian control. In a world where the military is not the obvious target, where do I stand? I have always identified myself as someone on the left and as a democrat. However, in post-military Turkey, where do I stand? I ask this question not because I am having doubts about my political allegiances. On the contrary, in this livelier political arena, I hold onto my values and visions for the future even more strongly and confidently. However, when the military withdrew, the political arena significantly expanded. In their rush to fill this arena, political actors muddied the waters to such an extent that it has almost become impossible to safely land your feet. In this post, I will try to describe these muddy waters, and will reiterate my question: In a political arena that is in almost complete chaos, how (and where) do you stand firm?

In the preceding paragraph, I mentioned AKP's effective elimination of the military from the political arena. AKP stood firm while the courts were going after those military leaders who allegedly conspired to overthrow AKP with a coup. Through fashionably titled cases such as Ergenekon and Balyoz (Sledgehammer), many military figures (including former Chief of Staff İlker Başbuğ) were convicted and imprisoned in 2012. We can arguably consider these cases as the first instance where waters started to get muddier. Ergenekon and Balyoz were landmark events where the big boss, i.e. military, was prosecuted and discredited. However, as many similar examples would follow later, these cases did not run smoothly and transparently. Many would argue that there was clear evidence for a criminal investigation but prosecution eventually approached persecution. Through leaked evidence to the media, the suspects were publicly humiliated and discredited.

The same method of public humiliation through leaked evidence was used in the Fenerbahçe match-fixing case. Fenerbahçe won the Turkish Süper Lig, after a very competitive season in the 2010-2011 season. I am an ardent Fenerbahçe fan and had watched all the games in the second part of that season. It was a very close call and I was very proud when we were the champions at the end. In July 2011, the police started an operation, simultaneously leaking recorded phone-tappings to the press. Fenerbahçe president Aziz Yıldırım, and some other high-profile figures from various teams across the country, were accused of match-fixing. Aziz Yıldırım was arrested and imprisoned. Fenerbahçe was not allowed to participate in European championships in 2011-2012, and was eventually banned for two more years. My initial reaction to the accusations, especially after listening to the leaked tapes, was deep hatred towards Aziz Yıldırım and his cronies who embarrassed Fenerbahçe. I wanted those responsible to get punished. I saw the match-fixing case as a platform to cleanse Turkish soccer from corruption with zero-tolerance. However, the investigation and prosecution faltered very similar to the military trials, and left me wondering whether I was too hasty in condemning Aziz Yıldırım. The controversy still continues as Aziz Yıldırım was eventually released. He sustains that he was persecuted with leaked tapes and that there was no real basis to the case. Since his release, he became a more influential public figure, mustering tremendous public support for himself and Fenerbahçe. Two weeks ago on a match day, approximately 500,000 people marched in protest on Baghdad Street, from Bostancı to the stadium at Kızıltoprak

Thinking back on both cases (the military and Fenerbahçe), I feel manipulated. Both of my desires, ending military rule and cleansing Turkish football were quite professionally manipulated. Leaked evidence was used as a tool to publicly condemn those suspects before they even appeared in court. It is not that I believe there is no substance to the allegations and accusations. However, the public support created by leaked evidence enabled the prosecution to catapult these criminal cases to witch hunts. The moral high ground of public prosecution, doubled with an extremely negative public opinion against the suspects, simply gave a free hand to the courts in dealing punishment. I have practically no sympathy for the military leaders or for Aziz Yıldırım, and I believe there very well might be reasons for them to be punished. However, the ways in which these cases unfolded, appear as a reincarnation of public lynchings in mass society.

It is quite impossible to prove, but it is widely agreed that members of the Fethullah Gülen movement, who were strategically positioned in the judiciary and the police, worked together with the government in these high-profile cases. It was this cooperation that enabled establishing civilian control over the military. However, this cooperation ended a few months ago and Cemaat and AKP engaged in a bloody battle with each other. This was a terrible blow to AKP which was heavily bruised after the popular Gezi protests in the summer. The leaked tapes of top AKP figures and Erdoğan himself emerged when he was already being criticized for increased authoritarianism. AKP's strong reaction to the tapes was widely perceived as even more authoritarian, and they seemed to fuel anti-Erdoğan feelings even further.

The followers of this blog would know that I was positively surprised and energized with the Gezi protests. Moreover, I was forced to re-evaluate my stance on Erdoğan and AKP, especially after Erdoğan's increasingly arrogant and authoritarian behavior. I would be very happy to see the end of AKP. As I discussed in my previous post, I have no doubts about AKP's involvement in corruption. On the other hand, I have no illusions about AKP's own involvement in the previous cases against the military and Fenerbahçe. Consequently, I have little sympathy when AKP speakers remind everyone of presumption of innocence. I just want to offer an evil laugh when I hear them complain about the police for leaking evidence to the media. Despite all these, I would like to approach the case of AKP's leaked tapes with lessons learnt from the previous experiences. The pattern is too familiar to miss: Early morning police raids, leaked evidence to the media, etc... Where do I stand in these muddy waters? As I said, I do not find it in me to defend AKP when I strongly believe that they are buried deep in corruption. However, I cannot endorse these means to get rid of AKP.

Let's rid ourselves of all pretense. High-profile cases such as Ergenekon, Balyoz, Fenerbahçe match-fixing, and December 17 corruption are all political cases. We cannot expect the courts to act as if there were no political consequences to their verdicts. The results of these cases were bound to depend on mobilization outside the courts. In other words, had the military and its constituency mobilized better during the trials, they could have received a more favorable outcome. Publicized police raids and leaked evidence to the media took place to pre-empt such mobilization. The now-familiar scenario was put in motion to silence the pro-military constituency even before they mobilized. Faced with seemingly overwhelming evidence in the media following police operations and arrests, even the most ardent defenders of the military preferred to keep a low profile for a while. We could safely argue the same for Fenerbahçe and Aziz Yıldırım. Please let me underline this again: I am not saying that the military leaders or Aziz Yıldırım were guilty or innocent. I argue that these trials were political at the outset. Recognizing this plain fact, AKP and their allies in bureaucracy, leaked evidence in the media to preempt their opponents' mobilization.

What we see in the case of AKP and corruption is exactly the same. The only difference is that AKP is now the victim. Regardless of AKP's involvement in corruption, the police raids, arrests, and leaked tapes are preparations for a future case. These leaked tapes are a mobilization effort for a future corruption trial (as well as a stab at AKP's popularity in forthcoming elections.) Now, where do I stand in these muddy waters? I started this post with a counter-factual about imagining how differently political institutions would evolve if the 1960 coup were not to happen. This was obviously a conscious choice. I prefer to analyze politics through the development of institutions in a specific country. Then, I believe the answer to my question has to start from political institutions. Upon military's controversial departure from active politics in Turkey, what kind of political institutions filled the void?

As the discussion of these high-profile cases demonstrate, the judiciary emerged as the main political institution that determined the fate of politics in Turkey upon the military's departure. It is not a coincidence that all major political battles were fought at the court or about the court in the past decade. Some examples besides those discussed would be the Constitutional Court's 367 decision, and the recent spat over HSYK (High Council of Judges and Prosecutors). I will go so far as to argue that devoid of military's limiting but defining and legitimizing existence in politics, political actors sought a similar authority in the courts. The courts became a new arbiter in politics. We could have welcomed this development, had the political actors recognized the courts' independence. However, as my discussion of  televised police raids and leaked evidence to the media shows, the legal battles were fought with incredible ferocity that significantly reduced confidence in the rule of law. When police officers and prosecutors themselves were involved in violating the presumption of innocence, trust in the legal system inevitably dissipated. Moreover, political actors did not hesitate in colonizing the judiciary. It is widely believed that the Gülen movement has many supporters within the police and the justice system. Similarly, with recent legal changes, the AKP government unabashedly showed an effort in controlling various parts of the judiciary. In short, the most important component of our post-military institutional structure is a colonized judiciary where legal battles are fought with no respect to the rule of law.

So, here we come back to the initial question: Where do I stand in this mess? I simply do not endorse televised police raids and leaked evidence that violate the presumption of innocence. I hesitantly welcome evidence of AKP's involvement in corruption but I do not hold very high hopes for the near future when a decent trial seems simply impossible. I am deeply worried about the possibility of toppling down a democratically-elected government through leaked tapes, even though I have become very wary of that government that is becoming more authoritarian everyday. I am even more worried about a future where any government that would replace AKP would be compelled to cooperate with a force that is entrenched in the bureaucracy and can topple governments with its leaked tapes. It appears, there are no easy answers in post-military Turkish politics.

Corruption and AKP

AKP's acronym stands for Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, i.e. Justice and Development Party. For years, the leaders of the party preferred using AK Parti. As you might know, "ak" means "white" in Turkish. The obvious reference in "AK Parti" was to cleanliness, transparency and innocence. In essence, the party climbed to power in the wake of many corruption scandals which marginalized mainstream parties such as ANAP and DYP in the 1990s. Fast forward a decade or so, and many AKP leaders, including Recep Tayyip Erdoğan himself, are now facing allegations of corruption through leaked tapes of phone-tapping.

The first wave of these tapes emerged on December 17, 2013, when many high profile figures were taken into custody by the police for interrogation. These figures included the sons of three ministers in the cabinet, an Azeri business tycoon, and the CEO of a state of owned bank. The police had recovered millions of Turkish Liras and foreign currency hidden in some of the apartments.

I might try to provide a full chronological account of what happened since December 17 in a later post, but the government simply identified the allegations of corruption, the leaked tapes, and the police operation as yet another attempt at forcefully removing AKP from power - a coup. This time, the attacking power was neither the "military," nor the "deep state." It was the "parallel state." Erdoğan and other AKP leaders identified the Fethullah Gülen movement (an Islam-inspired movement, also called Cemaat or the Hizmet movement) as the parallel state which allegedly controlled key nodes in the police and judiciary. Cemaat and AKP had cooperated since the latter's establishment in 2001. For reasons yet to be found out, the cooperation ended in late 2013 and AKP and Cemaat went for each other's throat. AKP leaders tried to discredit the tapes and police operations by arguing that the "timing was meaningful." In their argumentation, the prosecutors and the police of the Cemaat accumulated tapes and cases against prominent AKP figures over time to circulate them at the most suitable time when it would hurt the most.

The AKP government reacted swiftly against the police and the prosecutors. Hundreds of police chiefs and officers were removed from office over the following weeks. Eventually those prosecutors who were in charge of the corruption case were reassigned as well. After these removals, there simply was no hope left for a decent investigation, prosecution and trial. Turkish political arena is familiar to instrumental exploitation of the law, but not to such blatant disregard of the law by those in power. I would like to come back to this topic in later posts, but today I want to talk about AKP's rapid burial under allegations of corruption, despite its legislative strength and executive power, which successfully evades judicial control for the moment. How could AKP sink under such allegations when they appeared most powerful?

The answer lies in two main institutional factors: 1) AKP motto that prioritizes "getting things done" and "providing services"; and 2) Increased personification of AKP under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

1) Before forming the AKP and becoming the prime minister, Erdoğan had served as the mayor of Istanbul for many years in 1990s. He was renowned for getting Istanbul in order and providing many services which were neglected before him. As the mayor, he fixed the problems with garbage collection and improved public transportation among other issues. It is my belief that Erdoğan approached the governance of Turkey with a similar mindset. Within this frame of mind, Turkey faced important infrastructural deficiencies and Erdoğan would fix these issues. It is not a coincidence that the main item in AKP's developmental agenda had always been construction: Construction of roads, bridges, houses, etc... Recently, the AKP government has been adamant about building a third bridge over the Bosphorus. Another important (crazy?) project under discussion has been to open a second canal to the west of Istanbul that would mimic the Bosphorus... One of the key new official agencies in this construction oriented framework was TOKİ (Housing Development Administration), which has been operating in almost every urban center and beyond to build new large residential neighborhoods.

I am sure many citizens approve these developmental projects which turned Turkey into one large construction site over the last decade. Here, I do not want to discuss and evaluate the costs and benefits of a developmental agenda that prioritizes construction beyond anything else. However, it is a fact that such an endeavor fosters a colossal construction and real estate market. It also requires readjustment of city plans to accommodate these new roads, bridges, and neighborhoods. It requires destruction of old neighborhoods and relocation of many residents. I think it is at this critical juncture where the seeds of AKP's burial under allegations of corruption were sown.

In its haste to "develop" Turkey through construction, AKP wanted to "get things done" quickly. Judicial controls, legal requirements, and local assemblies were hurdles in AKP's path to development and modernization. In AKP's view, courts were throwing away valuable projects, and legal requirements were causing delays in important projects. I strongly believe that AKP institutionalized extralegal practices over the years to cut corners short. In their bid to "provide better services," AKP oversaw the crystallization of a collective ethos within its own ranks that sacrificed the law in exchange for rapid progress. We can come up with many examples but I will suffice here with a new case I read in my friend Tuna's forthcoming article on privatization of Sümerbank factories and lands across the country.

The Sümerbank (a state-owned textile factory) in Malatya, which was situated on 129 thousand square meters, was privatized in 2004. A conglomerate of local firms had bid and bought the factory and its premises. As had been the case for such acts of privatization in industrial zones, the factory was soon demolished and plans for building a shopping mall were underway simultaneously with a zoning change that turned the area into a commercial zone. In exchange for the zone change, a part of the land was given to the Municipality as the site of the new municipal building, (which is now operational,) free of charge! In addition to the shopping mall, which has been a huge success, new plans have been underway to build a private hospital, a five-star Hilton hotel, and a large mosque on the rest of the land.

This is a perfect AKP win-win scenario: i) A formerly inefficient factory was reintroduced into urban space with no cost to the public; ii) A new municipal building was built with almost no cost to the public; iii) With a new hospital, hotel, and mosque, a livelier urban space and economy was promoted with no cost to the public. I will not delve into the topic of lost jobs at the old Sümerbank factory, or the alternative ways in which that land could have been utilized, or the extra income that the dubious privatization could have provided if the factory land were declared as a commercial zone at the outset. Such routes would simply fail to achieve rapid urban development that the AKP leadership adamantly seeks. Here, I am interested in that collective ethos that seriously perceives this particular path of urban development as successful municipal service. In an ideal type AKP privatization of a public asset, the public would be appeased with no-cost urban development, businesses would thrive with favorable land sales or zone-changes, and those happy businesses would grace the public with donations or would renovate public buildings for free. Within this conception, which prioritizes fast-paced construction at the expense of the law, lies the roots of institutionalized corruption that now bogs AKP down. Because, this type of extralegal actions could (and did) easily degenerate. (I call these actions extralegal not because they defy the law, but because they defy a certain sense of right and justice. To be honest, zoning changes and public donations appear legal on paper. However, it is also clear that they are motivated by favoritism.)

2) So far, I have assumed that AKP was motivated by doing good, i.e. "getting things done" and "providing services." I will not succumb to the assumption of evilness that AKP members have always been corrupt. I just do not believe that large bodies of people happen to be bad. Instead, we have to search for institutional structures that condition them to act in such ways. As I argued, AKP's particular conception of rapid urban development set the stage for an ethos of extralegal activities. However, how could the entire party (including its almighty pious leader) get involved in corruption? There still seems to be a huge gap between doing business in murky extralegal terrain and outright corruption, especially within a party whose basis of foundation was being clean and transparent. I believe the answer lies within increased personification of AKP under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. As a consequence, AKP failed to develop necessary institutional intra-party mechanisms to combat and prevent corruption within ranks.

Over the years, AKP increasingly became a one-man party. Especially since the 2011 elections, AKP representatives have been hesitant about making definitive comments on key issues that fall outside the boundaries of their immediate roles. Erdoğan has increasingly become the sole authoritative voice of the party. His recent conflicts with Bülent Arınç, the spokesperson of the cabinet and an important senior member of the AKP movement, portray the rising tensions within AKP over Erdoğan's authoritarian tendencies.

Erdoğan's increased control over the party is reminiscent of mid-20th century corporatist regimes around the world, where a single leader had represented the entire constituency through a vertically organized party structure. This single-man rule is naturally very jealous in sharing power. Political advancement within ranks is based on winning the favor of the leader. Then, it is not a coincidence that Erdoğan preferred to appoint a significant number of his old friends (for example, İdris Naim Şahin and Erdoğan Bayraktar) to crucial posts in the cabinet over the years. Erdoğan's personal trust mattered the most.

I do not believe AKP was destined to follow this corporatist route. As Jenny White (2002) described in her important study, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics, AKP started out with a very active grasroots organization. This momentum could have formed the basis of a more participatory and accountable party structure that would enable more local participation within the party leadership. However, increased idolization and deification of Erdoğan did not allow the AKP to develop institutions, which would provide natural checks on abuse of authority. Increasingly, local AKP leaders felt accountable only to Erdoğan, but not to their own constituencies. I believe that the lack of institutional checks on local and national AKP leaders enabled the descent from extralegality to corruption.

Erdoğan's governing style i) that perceived Turkey as one big municipality; ii) that anchored development in rapid urban construction projects at the expense of the law; iii) and that relied on personal networks of trust and friendship resulted in the simple impossibility of personally overseeing the transfers of huge sums of money. Getting public projects done for free eventually degenerated into collecting funds for the party, which degenerated into taking bribes. Simply, this is why democracies rely on judicial control and legal regulations to oversee such expenditures. When the law is overthrown to cut corners short, and alternative disciplinary mechanisms are not employed, corruption ensues. In Turkey, Erdoğan and AKP are now buried under it.