One would think that we are in the middle of an all-out war. The business community is scared stiff of financial tidal waves hitting the country from the ocean of global economy or a domestic caving in of the economic system due to a growing current account deficit. The secularists are frantic about the onslaught of fundamentalism that they see around the corner. The lower echelons of society are anxious about the dilution, if not the inundation, of their primary identity -- Turkishness -- in the lack of any other meaningful refuge in their lives, by a probable acknowledgement of sharing their country with other citizens with equal rights that are not called Turks. The bureaucracy is horrified at the prospect of European Union legal and administrative standards being adopted for transparency and accountability wiping out their privileged position in the system.Above all the bulk of society is convinced that the whole world is lined up against their beloved country to undermine its sovereignty and territorial integrity. They are quite determined that Turkey will either be partitioned or snatched away from them. So everyone is getting ready, at least psychologically, for the final battle to hold on to their present positions. This antagonistic atmosphere is robbing Turkey of much needed solidarity and common sense, with an emphasis on common.
What fuels this suffocating atmosphere is on the one hand US adventurism in the Middle East (on Turkey’s doorstep) exacerbated by fears that the Kurdish entity created in Iraq will inseminate its twin in Turkey and of the EU’s humiliating treatment regarding membership on the other. The cumulative effect of all these factors is a widely shared feeling of siege. Indeed most Turks believe that they are under siege from within and without.
This psycho-pathology prevents sanity in our decision making when we need it most. Lower-class youth become assassins of the domestic “enemies” of the nation or waste their lives on mountaintops chasing more significant causes that are larger than that which their lives can offer them. At the other end of the spectrum the military categorizes media organs and authors as “patriotic” or not according to their pro or critical stance concerning the military’s intervention in politics.
Football games and traffic jams become battlegrounds where people literally attack each other with lethal weapons or deadly intentions because they see each other as enemies or at best opponents rather than fellow citizens participating in the same activity.
What is happening? It is quite simple: The system is no longer delivering. The system can neither produce enough wealth or social opportunities nor can it provide justice, freedom and room for creative solutions to reform itself. The end result is a collective frustration that emanates from the general feeling of deprivation.
In the void of creative and corrective change (proactive stance) we have become defensive and have closed in upon ourselves. Recent polls hint toward a surge in nationalism. This is not a correct interpretation of what is going on. Nationalism requires a collective fervor to upgrade the nation’s lagging standards and to carry it to prominence in the international system. What we see is quite the opposite. What is labeled as rising nationalism on the one hand is in fact defensive communalism of vulnerable groups at the bottom of society that feel they have no future. On the other hand are the frantic efforts of the old guard, mostly of bureaucratic background, to hold on to the precarious system in order to maintain their privileges at the top of the socio-political hierarchy. For them change is the end of time. And they are quite right. It is the end of their time.
Both groups know that they cannot compete with global challenges, for they are unequipped with the professional and intellectual qualities of a more modern world. Hence they besiege society from the top and bottom in order to halt change. And they call this futile endeavor “nationalism.” Well, the nation deserves better.
