When you tear your straitjacket...

I'm Sunni, Turkish. Even though I am a little dark, I am a white Turk. I worked in the Turkish Armed Forces, I am educated, I am middle class, I have been integrated into the system. Actually, I should be in a good mood, right? But it doesn't work when you leave "ideas free" and "minds free". Let's get to the point: 

People are born with such identities. They have no choice. I didn't choose my identities either. However, I have never denied them, I have always carried them with honor and dignity, but I have never brought my advantageous identities to the forefront to the point of covering my personality. I think the fact that I have seen different countries and societies and lived there with them has also played a part in this. People are people everywhere. 

Of course I wondered about my identities. I know the history of Turks well. I also researched and read about Imam Azam Abu Hanifa. When I realized that he was one of the schools of Fiqh and that the subject was related to law, I became even more interested. I have studied it in detail. I am assertive; I can argue with any "Sunni" who says "I am me". 

Yesterday Kılıçdaroğlu released a very nice video. He also talked about his Alevi identity. I think he was forced to mention it a little bit. This is a bad feeling. He is obviously uncomfortable with being seen as "the other". 

I won't analyze the content too much, but he gave his message with a great emotional transition. With his stance, he encouraged people who had to hide or conceal their identities due to neighborhood pressure. 

Yes, as Kılıçdaroğlu emphasized, the main thing is morality, being honest and virtuous. Playing politics based on identities is separatism, discrimination and violation of rights. With his messages for the Kurds and Alevis, Kılıçdaroğlu sent a clear message to those who were "excluded from the system" that there will be no separation in his administration. They were almost like manifestos, philosophical, reconciliatory and inclusive. I congratulate them. 

When it comes to practice, these messages also mean "protect your rights". Because they also pay taxes, they also send their children to military service. They fulfill their duties written in the constitution just like the rest of us, but when it comes to exercising the "right to govern", an invisible hand pushes them out, telling them to wait outside the door. The principle of equal citizenship in the Constitution is tacitly violated. 

In the meantime, let us emphasize that, historically, constitutions are a social contract and a transfer of will between citizens and the state, and that they are accepted as the "supreme norm" that determines the limits of the executive power in order to protect the rights of the weaker citizen from usurpation by the stronger state. 

Our Kurdish and Alevi citizens should not get angry or upset, we "secularists" have now become one of the "other children". We can hardly approach the state gate. So the others are not alone. The "identity merchants" who always complained that the secular Republic oppressed and marginalized them, are now being tyrannical with the opportunities granted to them by the same Republic. And they see this as a rematch. It is a tragedy of internal inconsistency. If I were like them, I would be extremely disturbed intellectually. 

Especially in the last 20 years, this distinction has become noticeably widespread. The issue of interviews is also related to this. As a matter of fact, when it caused social outrage, the CB said that if you elect me, we will abolish the interviews. 

The subject is long, elaborate, open to abuse and disturbing. Kılıçdaroğlu almost scratched a wound. Since the 1980 coup d'état, he said he would not wear the straitjacket labeled "Turkish, Sunni Islam" that the official discourse has been trying to put on society. Kılıçdaroğlu continues to surprise the "establishment". He gives hints of the second century paradigm to the "social engineers" who feed on the coup constitution: We are a united mass without privilege or class...