I don't think there is a need to discuss at length how great benefits were brought to the country by the political stability that continued for only a few years between 2002 and 2006 and the resulting economic and social stability, just as there is no need to mention what this deprivation of stability has done to Turkey and made the Turkish nation lose in the last couple of years or to highlight the limitless loss this deprivation will probably bring us in the coming years. I think the main problem is that Turkey is still going through a very radical process of transition. This transition process -- if we are to explain it in Marxist terms -- is not limited to a transition from less democracy to more democracy in politics, which is only a "superstructure," or from less individual rights and freedoms to more of them. I believe it would be more accurate to interpret the socio-political conflict that has reached its peak in the last two years as the tension caused by the transition from the paradigm of an industrial society to the paradigm of an information society. Or more precisely, the level of transformation which Turkey has achieved during this transition period is so high that the resulting tensions are accordingly as high.
As is known, processes of change and transformation -- in whatever field they may be -- are traumatic. It is not an easy mission to convince all segments of society of the need for change and transformation. And most of the time, it is not possible to include all the segments in this process of change. It is also quite natural for the strongest resistance to be waged by those who benefited from the current/old system the most and those whose interests lie in the continuation of the system in question. If we are to base our argument on this view, we can state that it is perfectly natural for the military or civilian bureaucracy -- which envisages a bureaucratic and hierarchical society and which benefits the most from the old/current system -- and the bourgeoisie -- which has a symbiotic relationship with the old/current system -- to wildly reject to the bitter end a change that promises less hierarchy and less bureaucracy and that consolidates the initiative for a more equitable distribution of wealth. Now, let me explain what I want to say by borrowing certain terminology from the discipline of business administration.
Turkey, like the rest of the world, is suffering the traumas of the transition from an industrial society to an information society, albeit a little differently and more violently. As we have failed to develop our democracy as much as the countries that have crowned their industrialized character with democracy, and as we have always left our democracy sitting in the shadow or the guardianship of the military and bureaucracy, we have failed to save ourselves from the exclusionary bureaucracy and the peremptory military during our transition from industrial society to information society.
As is known, industrial society is based on a positivist scientific method, a machine-based production mechanism, a centralized administration, a hierarchical structure, a representative democracy, a military-like organizational model, the economy of scale, IQ, and -- in Douglas McGregor's formulation -- on the rules of Theory X*.
However, information society, in which the entire world is seeking a good place for itself, is based on human relations instead of a positivist scientific method, on people instead of machines, on a decentralized administration instead of a centralized one, on a flexible structure instead of a hierarchical one, on participatory democracy instead of representative democracy, on an orchestral structure instead of a military-like organization, on efficiency instead of the economy of scale, on Theory Y instead of Theory X, and on emotional intelligence (EQ) instead of IQ.
If you asked me to which of these structures Turkey is closer, I would undoubtedly say the structure of industrial society. However, it is obvious that this structure is no longer meeting society's demands. Turkish people now want to advance toward a socio-political organization as required by an information society and to an atmosphere of freedoms. And retreating from this path that means more democracy, less state influence and more individual rights, no longer seems to be possible; however, strong the resistance of the military and civil bureaucracy may be.
(*) Theory X and Theory Y are used in the discipline of business administration and they were formulated by Douglas McGregor. According to Theory X, people/workers (let's say we, the citizens) are lazy by nature and thus should be monitored; they are unreliable, and security is important for this reason; they don't claim responsibility, take initiative or risks, and thus need a hierarchical structure. According to Theory Y, on the other hand, people/workers are aware of their responsibilities; they take the initiative and risks; they are creative, innovative and prefer flexible and loose structures.
