Nowadays it is the “deep state”, xenophobic nationalism, the murderer of Dink posing with a Turkish flag in his hands, a list naming 13,500 individuals as “traitors” by a retired colonel that we are talking about.What has happened? How we have arrived here?
The answer is very clear to me; because we have refused to name, face and destroy the worm within. This is the culture of security, or more accurately, of insecurity. It has been eating up our confidence re-built recently, our determination to go along with the requirements of a full fledged democratization, and Turkey’s interaction with the world. This culture of insecurity overwhelms any other concern, and paralyzes our capabilities to do deal with real issues.
We remember how governments in the last six years have encountered resistance at political reforms they were introducing. These resistances were justified by fears, fears about national independence, territorial integrity, and secular and the Kemalist nature of the state, all constituting a particular culture of security/insecurity. In the light of the Semdinli cover up, the resistance over the 301 of TPC, and finally the murder of Hrant Dink, the question to today, is to what extent this culture of insecurity will allow consolidation of political reforms in Turkey. Many are losing their optimism.
The culture of insecurity is not just institutional, influencing security circles but also prevail among the people. People of the left and the right, with nationalist, Islamist or socialist creed, also incline to share this culture of insecurity. Many feel that Turkey is surrounded by enemy nations, it does not have any friend in the world, separatists and anti-secularist elements are supported by foreigners who also engage in missionary activities and buy extensive properties in Turkey as part of their ‘grand plan’.
To tell the truth “securitists” have discursive means to reach out the masses in which recent Turkish history is used to buy off the support of various social segments. Sometimes it is disintegration of the Ottoman Empire at the hands of European Powers, sometimes the national war of independence, Cyprus, the Armenian question, and sometimes historical enmity towards the Arabs, the Persians, the Greeks or the Westerners. By references to historical events raising animosities a socially internalized notion of (in)security culture is being constructed.
Daily political issues, foreign policy matters or even simple signs of globalization like the inflow of foreign capital and purchases of property by foreigner are immediately turned into a matter of life and death, a matter for survival, a process of encirclement of Turkish nation. The institutional banners of this (in)security culture communicate well with the masses with an alarmist discourse. Issues like Cyprus, Armenian genocide claims, the Kurdish demands, bullying of the EU or the USA are all proper items for reaching out to people by the securitists .They are able to infiltrate into the national psyche. As a result the institutional/bureaucratic notion of a total security/insecurity is spread into the minds and hearts of the people.
And the people have almost always fallen into this trap of securitization of politics without realizing that this culture of insecurity deprive them of the right to rule the country though democratic process. They do not realize that securitization, which is to lead to rule by fear, establishes the hegemony of the bureaucratic centre over the periphery/people. In other words out of these provoked fear and insecurity that opposition of the periphery/the people is broken down, eliminated and disarmed by the bureaucratic centre. The centre overwhelms the periphery with this language of fear and insecurity, and then emerges as the saviour, a saviour with a right to rule. When the nation is at war it is the warlords who will rule not the people.
While struggling for a rule by law to reign in this country we are to end up with a new wave of rule by fear, which will display itself with political authoritarianism and intolerant nationalism.
We have been witnessing a revival of the culture of security/insecurity that constitutes a major obstacle to the prospect for full realization of democracy and human rights in this country. The AK Party government is equipped with political and institutional means to fight against this. Failure in doing so means abandoning the claim to govern this country.
