In order for major capital to achieve autonomy, it should get rid of the support and custody of the state. This is almost impossible. It is used to thinking, living and consuming like the state; it cannot take the risk of challenging it.As the process toward EU membership is kept alive, the anxieties increase more and more. It is not Turkey achieving full EU membership that matters, what matters is keeping the process alive because as long as the process stays alive, the reforms will continue. Continuation of the reforms means changing the core's position in the center. In addition to the pressure caused by globalization and the process of EU membership, the postmodern political culture is causing further pressure.
For the first time in our history, internal and external pressure have emerged simultaneously. Society wants a change in its direction; it questions, asks for participation and transparency. Society wants to have a voice regarding mechanisms and processes.
More importantly, a capital movement called KOBİ (known in English as small and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs]) is on the rise in Anatolia, especially in the areas of Kayseri, Sivas, Malatya, Yozgat and Konya. When they are compared with major capital in the center, KOBİs have three features which are different from major capital. Firstly, they are not fed by the state, and they provide resources for themselves, whereas from 1929 up until recently, major capital had been fed by the state. Moreover, the state had been transferring the resources it got from the public to major capital, but KOBİs find their own resources. Secondly, most of them have conservative/Islamic lifestyles, which have an impact on both their development and their means of production. For example, major capital consumes before it produces because achieving a modern lifestyle is one of its missions. However, since KOBİs have conservative and disciplined lifestyles, they do not waste their money; instead they reinvest it into further production. They do not spend their profit in Paris or Bodrum; they go to the Caprice Hotel in Didim at most, nothing more extravagant because they do not have such a perception of vacations.
They use their income to open new production centers, which creates dynamism. Their third significant characteristic is that while the nucleus in the center of Turkey resists global trends and has become introverted, Anatolian tradesmen are open to the outside and often make contacts easily. This also brings fresh new dynamism. In the end, the system is clamped. Its general course is not backwards, and it will not break off from democracy. The first reason for this is that pro-freedom activities in Turkey date a long way back. In 1876 a multi-party system started in Turkey, almost simultaneously with Europe. This was the ideology that overthrew Sultan Abdülhamit II and brought the Committee of Union and Progress (İTC) to government. People from various ethnic and religious groups formed councils, and the Turkish Republic was founded using the same ideology. The 1924 Constitution was such a pro-freedom one that it is free enough to govern a country today.
Secondly, the future of a country depends on the founding ideology of that country. The rod of iron within the concrete of Turkey is Islam. Islamists in Turkey have favored freedom since 1856 and have advocated it. At times they called it “constitutional monarchy,” at other times “liberalism,” “democracy” or “republicanism.” Whatever the label, the major emphasis has always been on participation and freedom. Our most significant representatives of freedom have always been Islamists, conservative and/or religious people. Those who supported the overthrow of Sultan Abdülhamit II were Islamists. Therefore, the ground and history of struggles for freedom are sound. Thirdly, the region is not moving toward monarchies and military dictatorship, it is trying to get away from them. It would be a contradiction of the current general tendencies in Turkey if it were to return to a single-party period. Even if it is hard, this positive tendency will persist. People in the West struggled for this for 700 years and came to this point after paying a price. The Islamic world and Turkey are trying to achieve the same thing in a few years.
