I also enjoyed the chance to have lengthy discussions with the leading figures of the city. At the panel discussion, titled “Media and Democracy” and held by the Kahramanmaraş City Council, we discussed at length the negative and political roles the national media played in Turkey’s painful process of democratization. A large audience listened attentively to the speeches Oral Çalışlar, a senior journalist at the Radikal newspaper, and I gave, while we took advantage of hearing the city’s success story and how this Anatolian city grew, developed, changed and transformed.
I believe that Turkey’s democratization proceeded in parallel to the process by which “deep Anatolia” became stronger and developed self-awareness. Consequently, I tend to give credit to the late Turgut Özal, a former prime minister and president, for laying the foundations of Turkey’s bid to boost its economic growth, as well as demilitarization and democratization in the 1980s. If a country’s democratization can be said to rely largely on the expansion of the middle class and increased decentralization of capital independent of state-distributed concessions, then virtually everyone will agree the legal and economic infrastructure that made this possible was laid down by Özal, a religious and liberal democrat who put faith in a market economy. It is also a widely accepted fact that this entrepreneurial and competitive spirit, which was founded in Özal’s time and motivated and supported by the Hizmet/Gülen movement and similar social movements, started to emerge in the form of Anatolian Tigers in the 1990s. This emerging Anatolian bourgeoisie -- which provided the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), a party which has won three successive terms in office, with a socioeconomic basis and launch pad -- is the main hero of a big success story.
Although Kahramanmaraş was not among the first generation of Anatolian Tigers, such as Gaziantep, Kayseri and Denizli, it well deserves its place among the second generation, which also includes Malatya, Çorum and others. It offers us a good opportunity to understand the very basis of the sociopolitical struggle and processes that caused the military/bureaucratic tutelage to retreat and empowered the democratic civilian government. Those who seek to make sense of how the periphery for the first time assumed a stronger decisive role in the history of the center-periphery relations that made its impression on the country’s republican era should look at Kahramanmaraş and similar examples. With its population exceeding 1 million, a rapidly growing exports-oriented economy, mushrooming civil society organizations (CSOs) and initiatives and an ever-diversifying social life, Kahramanmaraş, formerly an agriculture-centered city, is a typical Anatolian city that managed to change the sociopolitical texture of the country along with itself.
Here, I should note the phrase “typical Anatolian city” does not correspond to what it meant 10-15 years ago, that is, an underdeveloped, isolated, failed city that lacks any self-confidence, has limited ties with the external world and is characterized by a dormant social life. In stark contrast to this, this phrase today signifies a self-confident city that eyes the world and global developments, makes products for a number of international brands and engages in the race to secure markets in the international arena. It can also be used to denote dynamic and lively cities in which inhabitants are now demanding more freedoms and democracy, with the awareness their achievements could be secured only with democracy-induced stability, continue to lend support to their political representatives and react to any bureaucratic and military attempts to meddle in the civilian administration. Please do not misunderstand this analogy, but I want to depict these cities as “deep Anatolia,” which emerges as an opponent to the “deep state,” which is identified with murders, corruption, conspiracies and all sorts of shady business. “Deep Anatolia” represents a mentality that is as open to the world as it is loyal to its own values, as socially conservative as politically against the status quo and pro-change and determined to achieve economic growth in economy. As such, it is the greatest guarantee for the country’s hard-earned democratic achievements.
The experiences of Anatolian Tigers like Kahramanmaraş give us a good opportunity to see how democratic demands grow in parallel to economic growth. As Anatolian cities grow economically, middle classes in these cities become more prosperous, which eventually leads to an increase in demands for rights and freedoms. While this dynamism constitutes the sociopolitical infrastructure of the change and transformation in Turkey, the AK Party, as a political superstructure, is the natural outcome of this process. Surely, in return, this superstructure further consolidates this infrastructure. However, I think the democratization steps in the center would not have been successfully taken without the vital support of the periphery.
As I said, Kahramanmaraş represents a good example that can be analyzed to get deeper insight into emerging center-periphery relations that enable revolutionary transformations. Kahramanmaraş, which has 26 local papers published daily or weekly, managed to boost its exports from $188 million eight years ago to $748 million in 2011, with 86 percent being textile products. Providing employment opportunities for 30,000 people in 249 textile firms, Kahramanmaraş has done a remarkable job of solving the unemployment problem at a local level. With a production volume of 405,000 tons, the city supplies 30 percent of the nationwide need for thread. Capital investments have been made in cement and steel kitchenware industries, creating new job opportunities.
With its productive economy, entrepreneurial investors, dynamic and solidarity-championing CSOs and vivid social life, Kahramanmaraş has already broken loose from the traumatic memories of the bloody events of 1978, which served as a catalyst for the infamous 1980 military coup. Nowadays, this city, just like other Anatolia cities, is preoccupied with enabling social democratic consciousness to take root so that military juntas, oligarchy-based bureaucratic structures and the deep state network are not given any chance to act with impunity again. Illicit gangs and the deep state that laid the groundwork for anti-democratic military interventions, which plunged society into chaos, will now stand a lesser chance against a “deep Anatolia” that is growing stronger and more conscious each day.
