The bureaucratic state elite drew its power through its control of the state apparatus, not by popular consent. That is why its policies were choices that emanated from abstract preferences of a “collective good” without obtaining any clearance from the “collectivity.” The dictum “for the people, without the people” became the guiding principle of the bureaucratic state elite that bore less responsibility to the populace than the apparatus they belonged to and served, from which they drew their power and privilege with little accountability.As the influence of the old elite lessened, Turkey’s foreign relations began to diversify. The old political bureaucratic elite of Turkey had adopted a Western stance but never Westernized their country. They promised modernization but never realized the development of their country that would make modernization a sustainable trend. The wide countryside and the bulk of the national population living outside a few cities remained traditional, uneducated and poor (underdeveloped). Unorganized and unable to exert political pressure on the central government, large segments of the nation remained in a time zone apart from the ruling elite that identified themselves as secular, modern and Western.
It is only after the ‘60s that the rural population began to migrate to the cities, changing the composition of both the social fabric and politics that increasingly became popular and more diverse. The response of the ruling elite (basically of bureaucratic nature) was to observe this trend as subversion, obscurantism (return to a religious form of government) and anti-Western. They tried to correct this “deviation” through military coups that followed engineered socio-political chaos.
As the countryside emptied its excess population into the cities, traditional local or parochial peoples became more visible with their traditions, habits, values and modes of conduct (including their traditional apparel). This fundamental change reflected on politics as changing political leadership and political organization that owed little to the state and its authoritarian ideology that put the state over society. The new political organizations/parties and leaders who were more responsive to popular currents and groups (that may be called “organic leaders”) garnered more votes than state-oriented political parties and leaders. Giving up hope on electoral politics, the old state elite began to plot new coups, and their civilian counterparts, which are called “opposition parties,” jumped on the bandwagon with provocations toward this end.
Additionally the statist elite abandoned its Westernist stance in the late 1990s, and especially in the 21st century, because the West after the European Union became the depository of the rule of law, human (and minority) rights and pluralist democracy. This was too much for the Turkish old guard, for each of these qualities meant fracturing the country and its partitioning by imperialist powers that support these qualities.
The political bureaucratic elite who claim to adhere to the principles of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding father of Turkey, gave up every ideal that Atatürk defended. They only remained loyal to the principle of holding onto the only instrument he utilized to shape society and to manage change: the state.
In regards to secularism, they thought they could safeguard this state of mind and choice of conduct by authoritarian means and laws. They never understood that secularization is a sociological process through which multiple frames of reference for social and political choices are acquired besides religion. Protecting secularism became an excuse to use arms against a society that was believed to be caving in to religious obscurantism.
The rift between the bulk of the people and statist elites set the state and society apart, a problem that has not yet been resolved. Many of the conflicts still prevalent in society between ethnic, religious and political groups are epiphenomena of the rift between the state (state elite) and different groups of society that are deemed to be unacceptable, unreliable or simply subversive. In spite of the fact that our most repeated official call is “national unity” (the primary goal of the republic), we have created a society made up of conflicting communities thanks to a state elite that defined the nation so narrowly and artificially. Our primary task is to initiate a new nation-building process with more democratic instruments and with an inclusive approach that leaves out no group.
Benzer Haberler 
