On the Way to the World Turkic Congress

We have an endless disease, we almost enjoy labelling people who say "I am a nationalist" as racist-fascist. I thought more than once while writing this article, but I couldn't not write it. Arguing over concepts has cost this country a lot. And it continues to do so.

Nationalism is an understanding with a 200-year history. Very soon, the World Turkish Congress will be held in the heart of Europe. Here, we will talk and exchange information with my brothers and sisters about Turkish culture and tradition, which are deeply rooted. We will seek and find ways how to carry our people from opposite poles to the next centuries under the roof and ideal of Turkishness.

Nowadays, especially in our country, some groups who define themselves as left-wing in our country are continuously processing the thesis that a leftist person cannot be a nationalist (nationalist), and accuse people with nationalist leftist thought of being opportunist (opportunist, utilitarian) and even racist and fascist. What is interesting is that these groups can be Armenian by accepting the so-called Armenian genocide, Kurdish by contributing to the establishment of an independent Kurdish state within the framework of the BOP, an imperialist project, and even Circassian by following the PKK. But they cannot only be Turkists. It is forbidden for them to be Turkists, and it is forbidden for us too! Isn't it interesting?

Speaking of being a nationalist, the question that comes to my mind is: "What is a nation?" When I opened Wikipedia, the following definition was given: "A nation or nation is a community of people who live mostly on the same territory and who share a unity of language, history, ideals, feelings, traditions and customs. This definition of community, called nation or nation, emerged during the collapse of feudalism and the formation of the capitalist order."

Yes, although we generally agree with this definition, unlike this definition, the Turkish nation has demonstrated with its blood that its existence is eternal by fighting against the world's largest imperialist and capitalist countries in the national liberation war. In the same way, other oppressed third world nations have been able to continue to exist by waging war against the representative countries of the imperialist, capitalist order. In other words, these new nations emerged not from within the capitalist order, but from the war against the capitalist order.

There is the view that the age of Turks before the Huns was the age of race. The Huns established a confederation for the first time, albeit a weak one, and as Mao-Tun said "everyone with a bow and arrow became a Hun", they gave a super-identity, a concept, for the first time to the Altai race, which had racially similar characteristics, spoke similar languages, dressed similarly and adopted a steppe-nomadic-pastoralist lifestyle due to geographical necessity. The age of tribes is the age of Huns. In the Gokturk (in fact, the name of that state is only "Turk" in the inscriptions, we call it Gokturk to avoid confusion) era, the Gokturks transformed the members of the Altai race, each of whom had evolved into a tribe in their own way thanks to the Huns, into a "nation" thanks to the religion of Gök God (Hikmet Tanyu's determinations that monotheistic religions facilitate unification are important) and the steppe tradition, and gave their own name, "Turk", to everyone they could include in their circle. The same logic is seen in the Genghis Mongols, Seljuks and Ottomans.

The Altaians who remained outside the Gokturk circle evolved into other tribes and formed today's Mongols, Tungus, Koreans, near-Ural tribes, etc. With the collapse of the Gokturk era, the monotheistic religion also collapsed, and a religion called Shamanism emerged, a religion of the "conquest period", which was formed when the god of the monotheistic religion, Sky God, turned into a "deus otiosus" and local totems gained importance. Turks, who had become a nation, evolved backwards and were divided into tribes such as Oghuzs, Uighurs, etc. The Oghuz, who played a role as an "active tribe" in the Ottoman Empire, re-nationalised and took the name "Turk", which was our supra-identity in the national age, as the official name again." (M. Bahadırhan Dinçaslan)

Well, you may naturally ask why this country is called Turkey and why this nation is called Turkish? One of the most important reasons for this is that the Turkish tribe, which played a leading and effective role in the formation of the Turkish nation, holds the numerical majority in terms of population. One of the other most important reasons is that the Turkish tribe has left its mark on Asia Minor, that is, Anatolia, with its tradition of establishing a state in this geography, with its culture and deep-rooted history. Let no one be offended, but this is the historical reality.

Let's go back to the title of our article without diverting our topic too much. Does nationalist thought preclude being a leftist? When we look at history, we see that "Nationalist Left" and "Nationalist Socialism" ideas existed especially in the Third World countries. For example, Ziynetullah Nushirevan (Zenun), one of the Tatar Turks, in his article titled "Can a Nationalist Man be a Socialist?" in Idrak Newspaper in 1919, states the following:

"In short, just as socialism is not hostile to populist and moderate nationalism, which strives to march towards the people, to defend and protect the language, wisdom, freedom, conscience and interests of the people, populist nationalism should not be hostile to socialism, which is an economic and humanitarian profession. Therefore, we can say without fear: 'A nationalist man can very well be a socialist. He can even be an internationalist socialist." Indeed, both nationality and class are important historical realities. Neither nation nor class are artificial and invented concepts. We, the National Leftists, are aware of this fact. Another person who is aware of this reality has addressed us a hundred years ago. That person is Mollanur Vahidov, a National Socialist from Bashkortostan Turks, who made a great contribution to the development of the ideas of Sultangaliyev, one of the four most important figures in the Russian Bolshevik Revolution. And he noted the following words in history: "Nationalities and national interests are not fictitious, on the contrary, they are realities that socialists must take into account. If we do not take these realities seriously, the Russian revolution will end in fiasco."

Indeed, as Vahidov said, did not the Russian Bolshevik Revolution end in a fiasco? Another important figure on this subject is Turar Rıskulov. Turar Rıskulov, a member of the Central Committee of the Turkestan Communist Party (TKP) and one of the pioneers of National Socialism, said at the 3rd Congress of the TKP "Correctly understood nationalism does not contradict the customs and traditions developed by the people for centuries. On the contrary, it makes the revolutionary struggle much stronger among the peoples of the East. What we want to do here must first and foremost be based on this nationalism. Otherwise, we cannot achieve success."

So what is a properly understood nationalism and how should it be? First of all, it should be secular, not ummahist. It should be a social (social), cultural (language-culture-history), progressive, revolutionary and populist nationalism, not a racist one.

Atatürk explains this correctly understood idea of nationalism as follows: "Our nationalism is a nationalism oriented towards the advancement and development of humanity as an essential element within civilised humanity and towards making the whole world live happily and prosperously." "They call us nationalists. But we are such nationalists that we respect and honour all nations that cooperate with us. We recognise the requirements of all nationalities. Our nationalism is probably not a haughty nationalism."

Leftist Nationalism or Nationalist Leftism actually dates back to the early 1900s in our country. Attila İlhan, who is known for his Galiyevist-Kemalist writings, is also an important poet about this: "The first leftists in Turkey were Turkists, the first Turkists were leftists." Yusuf Akçura, one of the first Turkists, was also a leftist. And he made all his analyses with the dialectical analysis method.

When we come to the 1960s, we find the discourse of "Socialist Nationalism" again. Assist.Assoc.Prof. Dr. Gökhan Atılgan's "Socialist Nationalism Discourse (Turkey, 1961-1968): Foundations, Differences", he wrote the following on this subject: "The discourse of socialist nationalism emerged as a result of the attempts to articulate nationalism and socialism by the three main currents of the socialist movement, which made one of the biggest debuts in its history after 27 May 1960. The Direction Movement, the National Democratic Revolution Movement (MDD) and the Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP) attempted to establish a completely different nationalist discourse against all nationalist discourses of the period. They argued that the "real" nationalism was socialist nationalism and the real nationalists were socialists.

Doğan Avcıoğlu, the editor-in-chief of the magazine Yön, wrote that a true Turkish nationalist was someone who "rebelled against Turkey's backward, dependent situation and showed the insight and courage to take the path of socialism, which was the only solution". Mihri Belli, the leader of the MDD movement, argued that "socialists are the most consistent nationalists". The TİP, through a brochure it prepared to introduce itself, addressed the public as "TİP... is a real nationalist party". Hugo Chavez, former Venezuelan president and leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, who passed away in 2013, gave the answer that was like a slap in the face of those who tried to portray leftism and socialism as hostility to the homeland, nation and flag: "Those who do not love their homeland and flag cannot be called leftists!"

Are the examples I have given too Turkish or too Third Worldist? Then let's take a look towards Europe, towards France. The name we come across is the French socialist politician Jean Jaures (1859-1914). Let's see what he told us: "The independence of nations finds its greatest security in the International. On the other hand, the International finds its strongest and noblest support in independent nations. One almost wants to say: A little patriotism leads us away from the International, a lot of patriotism brings us closer to it. In this respect there is no contradiction in socialist and internationalist workers joining the organisations of national defence. Although the working people are sometimes alienated from the Republic because of the unruly behaviour of the bourgeoisie, they rise up in anger when they see that the Republic is really threatened, and they tremble with joy when they see that a new Republic is being established in Europe. For them the homeland is like the Republic. Socialists do not turn away from the concept of the homeland in protest against the bourgeois and capitalist conception of the homeland; on the contrary, they embrace it with all their might when the independence of the nation is threatened!"

In the final analysis and in this context, we see that being a nationalist is not an obstacle to being a leftist; on the contrary, it is not possible to be a real leftist without being a real nationalist who understands nationalism correctly. Happy anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist nationalist leftists or leftist nationalists.