A huge empire had caved in before the very eyes of the helpless royal and bureaucratic rulers of the country. What had to be done was obvious, but they neither had the vision nor the capacity to realize it.The founding of the republic was a response to the collapse of the Ottoman state. But the founders were well versed in the Ottoman hierarchy, where the society’s airtight obedience to the state, personified by the ruler and the royalty, was a matter of fact. The republic was established without a hereditary ruler or royalty. The bureaucratic elite, in the absence of a bourgeoisie, working class and challenging middle class, became the unquestionable rulers of the country. They were the state, and there was no social class wielding power that would challenge their power and hold them responsible for their deeds and decisions.
This group tried to create an “ideal society” of like-minded and obedient citizens placed in a corporatist setup. In this setup, fictively there were no classes, no cultural groups or differences of race, religion or opinion. Hence, the ruling group turned a blind eye to the realities of the society. When society began to show signs of discomfort and started to bulge out of the Procrustean bed, coups and incessant repression followed, moving Turkey further away from international, legal and political standards. The rulers closed Turkey to the world during the 1970s and 1980s. Despite periods of relief in the late 1980s and early 1990s (during Turgut Özal’s tenure as prime minister and president), Turkey’s door to the outside world remained shut. We are now all looking for the key to open up the regime to its people and to the contemporary world alike, but the key has somehow been lost.
The incumbent Justice and Development Party (AKP) is trying to fashion a new key but, alas, those who shut the door are doing everything in their power to prevent its “opening.” In the meantime, the last widespread resistance to the regime proved too tenacious and rooted among the people to be crushed easily.
The liberal resistance never reached fruition; individual democrats were systematically persecuted. The leftist resistance was brutally repressed with the 1980 coup. Now the Kurdish resistance is knocking on the door. If the door is not opened to take the Kurds in, there is a tendency by which knocking turns into kicking down or blowing off the door.
This picture carries home a lesson. The Kurdish issue started as a wave of dissent. The aim of the dissention was to be “allowed in,” despite the belief that it was a separatist movement. If it has transformed into armed resistance over time, it is either because politics have either been sidelined or completely prevented. It is now obvious that politics must be elevated to first rank as an instrument of problem solving, replacing brute force. But if political problems continue to be dealt with using force with the aim of getting rid of the problem by way of getting rid of the bearers of that problem, we have a long way to go and lots of blood and tears to shed.
It is my sincere contention that Turkey cannot be partitioned by ethnic strife simply because there are stronger popular forces (to say nothing of official ones) to keep the country intact. But then, it is exactly for the same reason that the protracted conflict will go on for an indefinite time, be more costly and be more destructive -- a division will not and cannot take place. Ethnic dissent will blend with class strife due to insufficient development and a widening gap between the haves and the have nots. Yes, the problems are very clear. But how about the solutions?
Considering that the cause of the problem is the state, expecting the final solution from it seems to be a serious contradiction. Hence, a different tactic has to be followed, such as designing a civilian initiative that will allow for the pooling of common wisdom prevalent in the society in all its diversity. This is only possible if trusted opinion and community leaders come together and agree on a list of principles and policy implementations to be put to work in the framework of a realistic calendar. This suggestion may look too romantic for the time being, but you will soon see that it will be the only approach accepted by all parties to the conflict.
