Time to Face the Realities of Politics

In Turkey, it is normal and healthy for all of us to have a political view, to have different political perspectives. Wanting everyone to be the same happens in one-party states. For the Republic of Turkey, which is governed by democracy, probably none of us would want or approve of this uniform, one-party state mentality. Our differences are undoubtedly our richness. As long as there is no separation and separatism. 

On the other hand, when we run after the political views or ideas we believe in, sometimes we do not even know what they are, and while we act as if we are doing something good, we hardly realize what they actually cost our country and us. When people ask us what our political views are, we say that we are right-wing or left-wing. 

So now I ask you: What is right or left wing? 

Over time, leftist started to mean the following. Those who advocated constant innovation, those who argued that the living standards of the people should be improved and those who advocated replacing the system that was not working with a better one acted on the assumption that they belonged to the leftist view. 

The right wing, on the other hand, included those who were satisfied with the status quo, those who were against changing the system, and those who believed that the rights of capitalists should be protected before the rights of workers. 

What I say about both the left and the right is of course a generalization. In itself, the right and the left have 50 different shades of gray. 

What do right and left mean in today's world? 

Right and left refer to politics and economics when analyzed from an ideological perspective. 

If a party is right-wing, it is expected to make decisions in line with the wishes of the owners of capital, in a sense representing their interests. They call this capitalism. This is how giant corporations with capital are formed. 

If a party is leftist, the income level of the people is the main goal of economic policy. In this model, the wishes of the owners of capital can still be taken into account, but the whole economy is not shaped accordingly. In other words, if the standard of living of the people is not going to rise, the capital boss can be told "goodbye".

As you can see, this is what right and left mean in the world in the shortest and most succinct terms. Before we get to the dire situation in Turkey, let's take a look at the extremes and moderates of right and left. 

Let us remember that when we say left, the concept of increasing the freedoms of the people should first come to mind. By the way, wanting to make the freedoms of the people unlimited is expressed by the concept of anarchy. In essence, anarchists do not accept the existence of any rules. For them, roughly speaking, the freedom of someone to kill you can also be considered freedom. In this sense, this understanding is also called far left. Communism seems to be good in the sense that it is based on the abolition of the distinction between rich and poor among the people, but if you have noticed, it is an extreme idea. There has not yet been a society or state in the world that has achieved communism in the real sense, that is governed by communism, that has been able to eliminate the distinction between rich and poor. The reason is that communism advocates the abolition of homelands and borders as well as social classes. In other words, communism has an approach that is at odds with the concept of country, and this approach has triggered major problems in the world and laid the foundation for communism's own demise. Social democracy proposes the idea of an egalitarian society that eliminates the inequality between rich and poor, where there are no social classes. In this system, it is essential that workers are fully compensated for their labor. It opposes the phenomenon of working hard and earning little money as in capitalism. However, it has not been implemented today. 

Center right and center left concepts 

The right or left is called the center for the following reason: It indicates which side of each will take a closer stance in the next phase. Parties in the center tend to use the terms left and right in a way that suits them. We can explain the center-left view as a political view that aims to raise the economic income level of the people by supporting the economic power of the capitalist class. Likewise, the center-right should be understood as fulfilling the rights and demands of the owners of capital while at the same time looking after the economic interests of the people. In fact, we can say that there is as much difference between the center-right and the center-left as a thread of cotton wool. They both do more or less the same job. 

The system we call liberalism defends the economic freedom to own property. It defends all freedoms. In practice, the defense of the freedom to own property also leads to the birth of super-rich classes. This is the point that cannot be reconciled with socialism. There is no legal obstacle for the poor to somehow become rich, but there is almost no way or possibility for them to become rich. Meanwhile, the owners of capital can realize their freedom of property ownership by doing a lot of work for a little money, and there is no obstacle to this. Everything in liberalism is based on economic freedom, even if it is extreme. 

Conservatism: this system is now an advanced stage of liberalism. The owners of capital have an important place in society and they are often the ones who run the system. This is accepted and fiercely defended. There is a commitment to these values. It is essential that the rich can become richer. It is not desirable for the poor to become poorer, but there is no mechanism to prevent this from happening. In conservative thought, whatever stereotypical values exist in society, which are lived in a philosophical dimension, are desired to be maintained without renewal. You can include religion, political structure or eating habits. The value defended is chosen especially among taboos and the mass is consolidated and gathered together through this value. There have been times when this common value or taboo phenomenon has been taken to the extreme. This is called fascism. In conservatism that has evolved into fascism, the point has now been reached to follow the value defended without questioning it. There is no obstacle left in front of fascism. Whatever the leader says, the community will follow and do it without question. From now on, any value that the leader believes in or represents in his/her person is defended unadulteratedly by the society. When a community or a nation becomes too attached to the values that it holds in high esteem, it may start to see itself as superior to others as a community or a nation. Such nations often declare their own race to be the superior race. The leader of the superior race will do anything and everything by any means to achieve his or her goals. In such societies, there is extreme devotion to religion, race, language, lifestyle and any other concept you can think of, and this devotion without any criticism makes values and believers comrades to each other for the purpose. This is called the extreme right. The most obvious example of this in history is Hitler. 

What do we understand when we talk about right and left in Turkey? Or do they mean anything? 

In the world, these concepts are understood when we talk about right and left, but when we look at what is understood in our country, it is very confusing. Because in order to understand what is what in our country, it is necessary to read world history and synthesize it with Ottoman history rather than reading political sciences.

In the eyes of our people, right-wing parties are conservative and those who are "Muslim" are right-wing. Although Islam or any other religion has no direct relation with politics, the leaders of right-wing parties like to use the discourse of "religiosity" especially to win votes. Thus, while right-wing and left-wing views are supposed to define our outlook on economic life, for some reason they also try to define our religious beliefs. They try to adopt and impose an irrational understanding that those who believe in God are rightists and those who do not are leftists. For example, saying that we will help the poor with money and goods cannot be a right-wing discourse. As I mentioned above, the right-wing parties' plan to enrich the people is not about direct aid, but about empowering the owners of capital and creating jobs. Privatization leads to economic development. And privatization when necessary has nothing to do with either rightism or leftism. The concept of privatization is nowhere to be found in the political understanding of the right and the left in the world. By the way, it is not possible to claim that there is a country that has achieved development only through privatization. 

Again, there is no need to be a rightist or a leftist to be a nationalist. The founding father of our country proved this to us in every aspect. While anyone who loves their homeland can be a nationalist, I cannot say that I can understand why this concept is mostly associated with the right in today's Turkey, and why special efforts are made for this. However, I can say that this approach, which I do not approve of, is a good example for us to see what our country has become or has been brought to. It is interesting to note that all over the world, those who support and vote for right-wing parties are those who earn a good income and are interested in trade and industry. But in our country, the people who vote for the right-wing parties are mostly the poorer and less educated part of society, the people in the broad lower stratum of society are usually the ones who support the right-wing parties. In this respect, we are probably going in the opposite direction to the world. 

When religion is seen as the monopoly of the right-wing view, the left in our country inevitably brings to mind concepts such as irreligion and hostility to religion. However, as we said at the beginning, the right and the left in politics have nothing to do with religious belief. However, the perception of the majority of our people, the perception created over time is in this direction. 

In fact, politics should be related to the economy and the money in our pockets. From this perspective, we can say that religion and religious institutions have nothing to do with politics. Secularism, like politics, is a concept outside religion. It means acting according to a set of rules in state affairs and politics that are free from the element of religion. At least it is expected to be so. However, in our country, this concept of secularism has been taken away from its original meaning and a perception has been developed as if secularism and irreligion are equivalent concepts. In order to win votes, some politicians have preferred to make special efforts to keep the public away from this concept, which they do not understand anyway, by using discourses such as "secularism is irreligion". People who are enamored with these discourses naturally forget about the money that goes into their pockets (or rather, the money that should go into their pockets), and instead believe that their religion is in danger and distance themselves from the concept of secularism, which they do not fully understand anyway, and do not want to adopt it. 

Again, throughout the world, the far left is understood as anarchy. The concept of anarchy means rule-breaking. It does not have a specific leader, because in anarchy every individual is free, self-governing. Again, when we think of the far left, we think of terrorism. There was only one period in Turkey when there were events similar to anarchism, but they were eliminated by a coup d'état. I mean before September 12. There is violence in both anarchism and terrorism and the difference is almost only in the goal. 

Terrorism is an organized movement and has a specific leadership. It does not defend freedoms and is opposed to all freedoms other than its own. The aim of terrorism is to shed blood and create fear. In other words, it has nothing to do with the concept of freedom. Terror kills both right-wing and left-wing people who oppose its cause, and sees no difference between them. Since this detail is not understood by the majority of our people, they think of completely irrelevant concepts such as irreligion and terrorism when they think of the left. 

In the world, the poor and unemployed vote for leftist parties. Because the aim of leftist parties is to raise the income level of the people. The left is on the side of labor and the laborer, which is why the working class is more inclined to vote for the left. In our country, this approach is no longer valid. Educated, business and capital owners vote for leftist parties. This situation has become more pronounced recently. In other words, we see a voting preference that is the opposite of the world. Academics, researchers, high income earners and the enlightened part of society vote for leftist parties. However, when we look at the world, we see that this segment also votes for right-wing parties. As a result, we can say that neither the right is right nor the left is left in our country. The examples are obvious. It is enough just to look at the last election.

What was Atatürk's understanding of politics? Was it right or left? 

It would not be right to call Atatürk a rightist or a leftist, or to associate him with one side or the other. When we look at Atatürk the statesman, we see that he adopted the main principle of collecting the most beautiful pollen from every flower (view) in the political spectrum and making the most beautiful honey. In other words, he was not blindly loyal to any political view. It took what was useful from each political view and did not use the rest. It has embraced most economic and political views in the world, but has strongly opposed some of them. While it supported the left up to the soft part, social democracy, it did not hesitate to oppose this view at the point where it reached communism. He supported the right up to liberalism, but did not allow it to reach the levels of conservatism and fascism. At the center of Atatürk's ideas is the benefit of the people and the development and progress of the country. In other words, Kemalism is neither rightism nor leftism. If you stray from Atatürk's path, you end up with conservatism and fascism on the right and communism and anarchism on the left. You can drag such a state wherever you want. By the way, neither those who claim to be leftists nor those who claim to be rightists can love Atatürk in the fullest sense. But they are content with making use of Atatürkism to the extent that it suits them, and defending the parts of Atatürkism that suit their views. They avoid highlighting the whole of it.

Conclusion

As a result, on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic, Turkey experienced an election race between the People's and National Alliances in May. Erdoğan won again and the people gave him the power to govern the country as president for another five years. During the election process, we all witnessed how Erdoğan was able to bind the right-wing electorate to himself and get them to support him through the rhetoric of religion and nationalism, which he wanted to monopolize. It may be inappropriate for me to say here whether I think Erdoğan's method is right or wrong. However, I would like to express that I do not find Erdoğan's understanding and political method of using these values to 'marginalize, enemyize and show the part of the society that does not support him, and that I find it dangerous for our country, and that it should be seen that it may lead to the disintegration of society. We may have won politically, but dividing and fragmenting our nation for the sake of politics will lead us nowhere. This nation can only become a developed and prosperous society if it can act in unity and solidarity, if it can strive together to reach the level of modern civilization under an inclusive leadership. In the period after the election, President Erdoğan is expected to implement a policy and strategy that unites 85 million people, and to unite a society that has been divided by the election. I think we all need this.

Stay with respect and love