To Deserve and Become a Citizen-2

Dear friends, if I were asked to describe today's modern state structure in one word, I would say "institutionalization". The principle of "rule of law", which I frequently emphasize here, is the embodiment of this institutionalization. The realization of the rule of law is the most effective obstacle to state power harming individual rights and freedoms. It reflects an approach that has historically emerged after the stages of property state, police state and treasury theory. With the transition from these stages to the rule of law, arbitrariness was eliminated and all aspects of state organization began to be defined in the context of law. The effect of this development on citizens is a high level of predictability in their relations with the state. In other words, the individual has rights and freedoms vis-à-vis the state arising solely from being a citizen.

There is a very important detail in the relationship between the state and the citizen. Both parties should be aware of the rule of law as well as rights and freedoms. This awareness imposes responsibility on both the state and the citizen to ensure that the limits are not exceeded. Although there are sanctions for both, it is always more difficult to keep the state within these limits. There is usually no spontaneous will in state mechanisms to transgress these limits. The initiative to do so usually comes from governments. This is why the separation of powers is an indispensable element of democracy to ensure an effective checks and balances mechanism. But this alone may not be enough. For this reason, in democratic countries, freedom of opinion and the right to demonstrate and protest are guaranteed by law. In other words, citizens have the right to warn governments. Although the exercise of this right can be individual, it is generally more effective if it is carried out by organized structures. This is because the power and capacity of organized civil society to influence public opinion is always greater than that of the individual.

For an organized civil society structure, there must first be an awareness of individual rights and freedoms in society. This consciousness is not something that can be created today and tomorrow, but rather over a long period of time, depending on the development of the capacity for social struggle. In addition, the degree of organizational capacity of society can also be seen as one of the important indicators of an organized civil society. Of course, the degree of their acceptance within the state system is of ultimate importance. If governments adopt a negative political stance towards organized civil society, it is doomed to disappear and lose its resistance to change in the long run. These three elements support and sustain each other. Or they hinder each other and the entropy (death) process of the system accelerates. At the intersection of these elements is the concept of citizenship.

What kind of citizenship?

In fact, it would not be wrong to say that the answer to this question has changed over time. Citizenship is a title that has transformed from a passive status to an active actor in the context of relations with the state. With the change in the source of sovereignty, the new source of the people within the state is citizenship. Therefore, the possession of sovereignty, one of the essential elements of the state, has historically changed the position of the citizen vis-à-vis the state. The state and its governing apparatus, government systems, have also had to keep pace with this change.  Today, the concept of "active citizenship" has become one of the key concepts of social development, progress and democracy. 

Active citizenship requires defending one's opinions on various issues within an organized structure, including through action. Healthy public policy processes are only healthy when organized civil society can influence the process. A government that sets a public policy and creates victims despite divergent public opinion is likely to create a privileged population in return for those victims. This assumption is based on the mathematics of public policy. A healthy process is one in which the views of different segments of society are reflected. A healthy process is one that seeks and finds the common good and the common good. The way to do this is to do it together, not in spite of. A citizen who thinks that democracy is only about voting and can only express his/her opinion when a ballot box is placed in front of him/her has buried all his/her rights and freedoms in that ballot box in the long period between elections. 

The greatest threat to active citizenship is ideologies that criminalize citizens' organized struggle for rights. These ideologies consist of views that create division and hostility in society. This political attitude, defined as "authoritarian personality" in Ahmet Taner Kışlalı's book Political Science, tends to marginalize and antagonize all views other than its own. Once the other side is formed, it is time to get pleasure by punishing them at every opportunity. They are so far removed from humanity that they rejoice at all the bad things that can happen to people who do not think and believe like them. Ideology/belief has blinded the logic, conscience and mind of these people. They see the law as consisting only of decisions made according to their own ideas. 

The concepts of crime and criminal are intertwined. They think that everyone they believe to be guilty should be punished and that the law is a tool for this. They can easily ignore the good of society for simple interests. They are unaware of the concept of social interest. While they react harshly to anyone who violates their turn somewhere, they do not fail to respect governments that waste the taxes they pay through inefficient policies, reduce the food on their tables, and deny their children the right to study and find a job. Even if they think and believe as they do, they will not stand by anyone who is wronged, because they believe that it is the wronged person's problem. They have no problem if not only other living beings but even other human beings lose their lives for their own peace of mind. Of course, although being an active citizen brings about social improvement, it is not enough to solve all the problems listed here. The government may be imposing an ideology on a mass. Acceptance of this is a moral problem in itself. 

What does it take to be a good citizen?

The concepts of good and evil are as old as human history. These two concepts, for which it is very difficult to make a definition independent of social value judgments, may vary according to society, time and conditions. However, since our topic is "good citizenship", we need to take a journey from the individual to the social. I believe that the most important characteristic that distinguishes human beings from other living beings is that they have a philosophy. Philosophy, in my opinion, is a multiplier of every thought, belief and knowledge. If there is no philosophy, the multiplier is zero. If you have religious faith but no philosophy, your faith is zero. If you have an ideology but no philosophy, your ideology is zero. In fact, this approach explains very clearly those who can kill for the sake of belief and ideology. 

Hasan Âli Yücel, who became Minister of National Education in December 1938 after Atatürk's death and remained in this position until August 1946, packed many revolutionary practices into this seven-year period. The establishment of Istanbul Technical University, Ankara University Faculty of Science and Faculty of Medicine, Village Institutes and the State Conservatory are just a few of them. But what I want to talk about here is this enlightened man's book "Good Citizen, Good Human". The book begins with a moral teaching. Buddha, Confucius and Socrates are mentioned in this section. In the second chapter, the three great religions and three prophets are described with their philosophies. The third chapter deals with social institutions such as family, school and profession. The last section deals with the concepts of nation, state, humanity and one world. Even the index of the book is enough to emphasize the philosophical maturity required to be a good citizen. Yücel's book, which was written during the most critical years of the Republic, shows how strong the foundations of Turkish enlightenment, which faced great attacks in the following years, were. 

Humanity has paid a heavy price for the damage inflicted on societies by shallow thinking that tries to fit morality into religious belief. I believe that religious belief corrupts the understanding of morality if it remains independent of philosophy. For this reason, the first value that the education system should give to our children is the inclusion of moral philosophy, which has been filtered through the entire accumulation of human history, in the curriculum from primary school onwards. Unfortunately, the reactionary mentality attacking the Turkish enlightenment has been trying for many years to force such an important lesson into a non-philosophical understanding of religion and to sell it to our children as a pill. It is possible to explain this situation with the concepts of ideology or hegemony, but this explanation does not seem likely to produce solutions to social problems in a short time. However, in order to be a good citizen, it is essential to teach society an understanding of morality based on philosophical foundations. Of course, one should be aware that these efforts can only save 20 years from now, not tomorrow. Without this understanding, the social perspective required for active citizenship will not be easily possible.  

Conclusion 

To be a good citizen is first of all to be a good human being. If we are asking the question "where is this society going?" in every event in society today, we need to recognize that these are not yesterday's problems, but that they have deep roots. In other words, we need to show courage for the right diagnosis and the right treatment. It is not enough to show this courage, it must be known that defending rights can only be possible with the awareness that it is a part of society. Seeing even those who defend the most basic rights from a perspective outside the law will lead to an erosion of our own rights over time. Unfortunately, most people do not realize this until they lose their rights and have to fight for them again. 

To give a close example, the "Omnibus Law" published in the Official Gazette stipulates that members of public sector unions can receive a "bribe" called "Collective Bargaining Bonus" only if they pass the 2% organizational threshold. This is clearly a violation of the Constitutional right to organize. Now I would like to draw attention to the unions that are crying out here. I hope you (the unions that will be caught in the threshold) understand where you are being taken when you depart from the legal perspective on many issues and support virtual distinctions. In other words, the violation of rights that knocks on your door today is the price of an injustice that you did not/ could not speak out against yesterday because of your beliefs and ideologies. Ideological or faith-based unionism is a unionism that has been emasculated, whatever the ideology and whatever the faith. I hope you will not ask me who emasculated it. 

Yunus Emre's quote actually summarizes what we have written so far; "Sentences are true if you are right, truth cannot be found if you are crooked". We are leaving behind a year full of problems. We have hope to believe that everything will be beautiful in the new year. May love be in your hearts. I wish everyone, our country and the world a peaceful and happy year.