Starting a New Year

As each year ends, we hope that the pain we experience will end in the new year. We dream of the beauties we will experience in the new year, rather than the end that the year that has passed from our lives brings us a little closer. However, there is not always peace after difficult days. Still, we enter each year with celebrations, hoping for good things to happen. Besides, we forget that life also has mathematics. We want to forget the pain and trauma we experience. However, the mathematics of life reminds us at every opportunity that we need to do something about it. At this stage, some people surrender to the unbearable lightness of fatalism, while others feel the need to take action in order not to be dragged away by the wave of anxiety that covers them. I would like to repeat here the title of a book I read years ago; “Hope Cannot Be a Method”. Could hope be a method?

In order to find an answer to this question, we first need to get to the source of the problems we experience. Undoubtedly, the most painful and devastating event of 2023 was the February 6 earthquakes. Turkey once again had to face the devastating impact of a truly massive natural disaster. But unfortunately, he could not face it. The government, which saw the effects of the earthquake on itself before the election, tried to give the impression that such an event had never happened, except for the places where the earthquake occurred, by using the media day. The government, which avoided the slightest self-criticism during the earthquake, almost convinced the society by "beating" that all the mistakes made were a great success (!). The voices of scientists and universities could not be heard. Turkey entered the election atmosphere, deprived of the lessons it needed to learn until the next disaster.

As a society, we soon forgot the pain of our citizens who suffered from this disaster. By bringing these pains to the center of political discussions, we chose to deepen the divisions that we needed to end. Of course, these were not fate, but our common choice. We thought it would be easier this way and that it would be more peaceful to live by ignoring the problems, so we took off our humanity and hung it up like a jacket on a hanger. However, the influence of public opinion, which is the main determinant of public policy, was ignored and public opinion could not be created. Of course, we should not forget the fact that the dominance of this state of indifference in society is the success of the government (!).

In an environment where the effects of the February 6 earthquakes were swept under the carpet, an election was held that was extremely important for the future of the country. The government very successfully exploited this situation of the Turkish people, who could not get rid of their inferiority complex. He even managed to pass off the state's projects that started many years ago as his own success. He was not satisfied with this, he made up his own reality and put the people in a virtual reality environment in which they lived. Despite many economic and social problems and a huge natural disaster that aggravated them, it was a real success for the government to be able to do this.

More important than the success of the government in the elections was the failure of the opposition. The opposition, which never had a chance of losing with an error-free and effective communication strategy, could not go beyond the limits set by the government, instead of creating its own strategy in a communication field dominated by the political power. Perhaps the biggest factor in this was the government's very successful exploitation of the fragmented structure of the opposition. While the opposition parties should have adopted a clear discourse such as "returning to the parliamentary system", which was perhaps only very understandable, they fell into the trap of the government and tried to act as if they were a single party. Although a very valuable common policy text was put forward, they ignored the fact that its implementation possibilities were pregnant with major problems in terms of different ideologies.

As if the strangeness of only government officials speaking instead of those who should have spoken after the earthquake was not enough, after the election, the opposition tried to make success stories out of the heavy defeat. In this process, scientific evaluations were again shelved and no self-criticism could be made. The burden that became heavier after the election was clearly brought to the public. While heavy taxes were put into practice, public servants were given progressive raises and retirees were disabled. The Minister of the Government cited pensions as the main reason for the economic crisis, but no one said anything. What actually happened was that the state personnel system slowly turned into rubble. But neither the employees nor the retirees who had honey stolen from their mouths could react adequately. Lack of organization and the illegal suppression of organizations were also factors in this.

In my opinion, the most important event of 2023 was that the Supreme Court did not recognize the decision of the Constitutional Court and filed a criminal complaint against the members of the Constitutional Court after the Constitutional Court ruled that Can Atalay, who was elected as a member of parliament from Hatay, was kept in prison as a "violation of rights". However, the ease of accepting everything that happens as one's fate and the discouragement lead to this extraordinarily big event. It was enough to destroy Emin. Actually, there was a debate, but this debate was not about law. What was discussed was the state and the regime. Those who did not know accepted the incident as ordinary, those who knew chose treason and remained silent. Because the incident clearly put an end to the legal existence of the Republic of Turkey. In this situation, where institutions that have sworn allegiance to the Constitution must protect the Constitution, perhaps without any orders, everyone preferred to watch what was happening as if they were watching a theatre.

The whole society should have stood up on this issue. How would this happen? Non-governmental organizations (associations, unions, professional organizations), universities and Constitutional institutions should have reacted loudly. It didn't happen, the whole society fell into even deeper silence. However, even the security of life and property, which was the primary duty of the state, was no longer guaranteed. Because there was no limit to what a constitutionally unrestricted power could do. If there was no Constitution, there were no borders. The situation clearly meant this, but everyone preferred to play the three monkeys.

The football match that Turkey's two clubs, which are older than the Republic, will play in Saudi Arabia in the last days of the year, has made a finale to the 2023 agenda with the discussions before and after. Saudi officials objected to the two teams warming up with Ataturk t-shirts before the match, which led to discussion as to why TFF decided to play this match in Saudi Arabia. As a result, our two distinguished clubs did not step back, did not play the match and returned home. Two things happened here that the government did not expect. I think the government could not predict this reaction of the two clubs. The second biggest problem for the government was the possibility that the segregation policy followed before the election had been disrupted through Atatürk. There are still three months until the election. Will a rabbit come out of the hat and how many rabbits will come out? We need time to see the answers to these questions.

The fact that I have not been able to bring up many chronic problems here is not because these problems are unimportant, but because of the limits of my writing. I do not think that the explosion of violence in every segment of society and the fact that it is directed at valuable employees who provide public services is independent of what I have mentioned above. Likewise, it would be an extremely imaginative approach to think that violence against living beings is caused only by the evil of people. In fact, you are in this situation because everyone is talking about all the problems you can think of, except for those who need to talk. This is what happens when politics speaks where law should speak.

The main responsible for all social problems are the governments that are authorized to use state power to solve these problems. However, governments derive their legitimacy from the people. It is the people who keep those governments in power. An organized people is an effective force that always reminds governments that they must be at the service of the people. It must be admitted that the level of organization of civil society in Turkey is very low. Organizational problems are also very high among those who are organized. In such a situation, there is no choice but to ask Santa Claus for democracy as we enter the new year. However, people do not wish, they do. I hope it will be like this in the new year. I end my article with a beautiful poem by Nazım Hikmet. I hope that the new year will bring wisdom, morality, conscience, love and commitment to Turkey above all else...

THE WEIRDEST CREATURE IN THE WORLD

You are like a scorpion, brother.

You are in a cowardly darkness, like a scorpion.

You are like a sparrow, brother.

You are in the excitement of a sparrow.

You're like a mussel, brother.

Closed like a mussel, comfortable.

And you're awful like the mouth of an extinct volcano, bro.

Not one,

            not five,

                       Unfortunately, you are in hundreds of millions.

You are like a sheep, brother.

When the gokuklu celep raised his stick

You can join the herd immediately

And as if you were proud, you run to the slaughterhouse.

So you are the strangest creature in the world,

Where is this sea inside?

                             He who does not know the sea is stranger than a fish.

And in this world, this cruelty

                                     Thanks to you.

And if we're hungry, if we're tired, if we're covered in alcohol

And if we're still being crushed like grapes to give our wine

                       It's your fault,

                                      - I don't have the words to say it, but -

                       Most of the fault is yours, my dear brother!

Nazım Hikmet RAN