So being Turkish, Kurdish, Muslim or Christian rests on how one lives with these identities and under what circumstances. If these circumstances offer protection, freedom and relative ease to express these identities, the individual (citizen) has confidence and her/his rhetoric is moderate and conciliatory. But if these circumstances are restrictive and oppressive and freedoms are limited, then one is unhappy, insecure and antagonistic toward the conditions and the power structure behind them.To varying degrees, the system in Turkey has made many groups of its citizens unhappy, insecure and distrustful of the regime that they feel has victimized them. Kurds feel they are left out because they are not Turkish. Non-Muslim minorities feel they are discriminated against because they are not Muslim. Alevis feel they are excluded because they are not Sunni. Pious Sunni Muslim Turks feel they are oppressed because they are not deemed to be secular enough. In turn, the dominant faction that has controlled the executive branch of the government until recently and the judiciary, which is still effective in enforcing the original principles of the regime, feels threatened by the forceful resistance of all these groups (the majority of the people), who are unhappy with the oppressive nature of the regime that was concocted back in the 1920s and 1930s.
If a regime makes almost all of its different groups of citizens unhappy and insecure, there must be flaws that need to be mended. Redundant and increasingly dysfunctional institutions and rules must be replaced with ones that are more in tune with the social realities of the day. But resistance to this comes with the battle cry: “Oh no! We cannot change the basic principles of the republic.” This is what is being said by the old ruling elite, which still has enough clout to bring the system to a grinding halt. And we are close to that moment.
A republic derives its legitimacy from a constitution and public support. The source of legitimacy is public consensus, which is carried out in the form of a constitution. A people (public) that has not been permitted to create a constitution is neither the bearer of sovereignty nor the source of legitimacy. It means an oligarchic group has usurped its power and authority.
If the members of the oligarchy claim to be the followers/heirs of the founders of the republic rather than the people, we are confronted with a quasi-monarchy. And if this group insists on upholding the founding principles of the republic sculpted in the first quarter of the 20th century as a tutelary regime over an undifferentiated peasant society, it fails to see that it looks very much like its sworn enemy, namely the religious fundamentalists. Both groups have their sacred codes; they both have unchanging and unquestionable authorities or authority figures that they submit themselves to absolutely. So what is the difference except outlook and rhetoric? They act alike and think alike.
How can democracy flourish under these circumstances when absolutes and fundamentalists of different kinds rule the day? Furthermore democracy is a process whereby new deals are constantly struck, bargaining (negotiation) on new rules takes place and ways of problem solving that avail cohabitation and cooperation are utilized.
Today Turkey needs to put an end to disagreements emanating from this conflicted political system via a new constitution that does not leave out any group of citizens and offers equal opportunity to all. So far it has be the raison d’état that has prevented it. But we still expect the state to be the main actor in a peace deal among social groups. Hence, the peace we have been longing for must be achieved within society, with the vital role to be played by civic leaders and organizations, by bringing together the conflicting sides and trying to find common denominators of citizenship and the basic fundamentals of the regime (republic) that will offer the means of integration for excluded groups and a non-ethnic and non-religious (territorial) identity for citizens as a whole. Only then we will feel that we are a nation rather than communities living in parallel to each other and full of suspicion.
