Turkish citizens have long been intimidated from questioning their rulers over, for example, where their taxes are spent and for what purposes.One could pose hundreds of similar questions to the rulers and ask for an account. But from childhood through the school years, including university education, curriculums are not designed to bring up the Turkish people in a way that enables them to challenge ideas instead of learning textbooks by heart. Nowadays, we have been witnessing developments that once again have started to worry me, developments that have mostly been the result of an education system that leaves no room for opposing ideas to challenge and discuss the status quo.
Even your friends around you or some of your family members, supposedly well-educated people, have become so tough in their staunchly secular ideas that they do not want to see what real dangers await all of us if rallies, which are spreading across Turkey with the last one held in the Aegean coastal town of İzmir over the weekend, continue to neglect the grievances of the silent masses in this country.
It is, of course, every Turkish citizen's right to protest the decision makers and proclaim their loyalty to the secular character of the Turkish Republic. But what those masses appear to have neglected in the slogans they were shouting during those rallies are the real problems of the country that stem from the economic situation while intolerance to our different cultures has reached a peak, paving the way for possible polarization.
The slogans shouted by protestors targeting the current Islam-based AK Party government in power concentrated on the preservation of the secularism of the republic. Some, however, shouted slogans saying, "No to privatization, not the EU nor the US, but an independent Turkey." Those protestors also failed to stress the importance of democracy despite the fact that, paradoxically, a majority of them represent the educated segments of Turkish society. One should have expected them not to shout slogans against the EU or privatization since an inward-looking Turkey, a result of such demands, would at the end of the day badly hit those exact same protestors because they are the primary beneficiaries of Turkey's increased openness with the world economy -- a state of affairs that necessitates political stability, too.
Unfortunately, some of those protestors have also been playing into the hands of organizations, involved in organizing the rallies, who have neither cared about Turkey's integration with the global world nor its membership in the EU, but rather, cared more about the preservation of their institutions' never-ending privileged status and power over people. Fears that the ruling AK Party has a secret agenda of introducing an Islamic state should not be a good enough or convincing reason for protestors to, knowingly or unknowingly, play into the hands of those who are indifferent to the social problems of the country but rather aim to end AK Party rule no matter what the consequences could be.
We should also bear in mind that it has been under AK Party rule that Turkey witnessed major political and military reforms, with surprising support coming from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) back in 2003 and 2004. Any opposition to the existing political leadership should also be coupled with alternative ideas that could help the nation further its democracy rather than develop an inward looking society.
What really matters at the end of the day is the well-being of society, and Turkey cannot carry the burden of the possible repercussions of this polarization in society between secularists and Islamists, a divide which may prove irreparable. We must not forget that secularism may also be threatened when the whole nation does not unite in the fight against any efforts that could inflict damage on our already fragile democracy.
Unfortunately, the education system that has encouraged the Turkish people to learn facts by heart instead of, when necessary, challenging and arguing the ideas that are imposed, has now signaled the dangerous resurfacing of polarization. The only way out of this stalemate will be the tolerance and respect that everybody needs to show to each other rather than playing into the hands of those who will be the only beneficiaries of polarization, no matter how much the majority will suffer.
