“I do not want to listen to songs any more, I want to sing.” These lines belong to Nazim Hikmat, a leading poet of our tumultuous but fascinating world where reality invariably transcends fiction. He is renowned as a ‘romantic revolutionary’ who always expressed himself defiantly and dauntlessly, keeping no premium on his life. Dissent is not popular even among those who are its ardent advocates. This is the strange irony that those who lead the movement of freedom become its atrocious violators once they secure it. Subjugation in Nazim’s case was no option. The ruling classes could not stifle his voice but repeated persecutions by the state left him with no alternative but to seek exile in the Soviet Union. The very state he fought the war of liberation for made no pretence of its abhorrence to his ideology and wasted no time in revoking his Turkish nationality. What the state could not extinguish was the flame of liberation that he had set ablaze. It galvanised the people to seek social justice, a dignified life free from toil, emulating what Herbert Marcuse described as a society where human existence could not be objecti?ed, hence was no longer forced to exhaust itself in alien and alienable things.
The realization of Nazim’s dream seems to be coming of age, albeit long after his demise. Today, Turkey wants to sing the swan song of the ruling class that despite being elected is comparable to the coercive and brutal regimes of many Middle Eastern states where even an electoral farce is still a mirage. From the callous and atrociously unrelenting behaviour of the state towards peaceful protestors, it can be concluded that the ruling Islamist elite lacks vision, besides suffering from the hegemonic crisis over a dominant majority, not to mention the existence of a yawning chasm in its own rank and file. Hence, it has resorted to coercion, the system of non-culture that according to Nietzsche, “speaks of stylised barbarity”.
Since its inception and struggle against the army-oriented hierarchal structure of Turkey inspired by Mustafa Kemal, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) under the auspices of Tayyip Erdogan has come a long way. The party has already won three terms and has been in power for over a decade. During the ever mounting crisis in the ruling class wherein the secular army was forced to shed its Bonapartist character, Erdogan, a populist leader, played his cards meticulously and quite successfully. He managed to pit the two rival forces, the westernised-secularist dominant force against the conservative Islamist wing in such a way that his success was materialised in the shape of repeated electoral victories. Partially buoyed by his victory and partially due to the scare of a military coup, he used the favourable objective conditions to his own advantage by reining in the army, the flag bearer of Kemalist bourgeois ideology. He apparently succeeded in undermining its stranglehold by impeaching the top military brass for alleged coup plots. Before the deluge, the uneasy calm was hidden under the veneer of ‘growth’-based religious piety. His authority appeared absolute. However, when the moment of truth struck, it was challenged not by a force from within the ruling class, but from outside, i.e. by the popular masses led by the middle class, a part of which incidentally happened to be his integral constituency, which is now determined to sweep the vault of power crowning Erdogan’s head.
According to the IMF, Turkey is one of the fastest growing economies of the world, which is expected to grow at a rate of about 6.7 percent in the period 2011-17. But seething unemployment of 9.2 percent is also marching hand in hand. Approximately 16 percent of the population is living below the poverty line while the billionaires amassing wealth are ever-increasing in number. Turkey has 28 billionaires, which makes it the fourth largest country in the world having this species thriving courtesy neo-liberal economic policies. A vivid example of unequal distribution of wealth in a society! Market economy possesses a magic wand. It converts everything it touches into a commodity and a source of exploitation, drudgery and oppression. Rampant institutionalised corruption becomes the hallmark of such a society. Dissent is quelled, press freedom squelched! A covert Cesar uncloaks himself since such a disguise becomes unnecessary. As Theodore Adorno states, “Every detail is so firmly stamped with sameness that nothing can appear which is not marked at birth, or does not meet with approval at first sight.” Politics of dominance becomes absolute. Hegemony culminates in the acme of power.
In the post-Soviet era, globalisation has integrated the world economy to the extent of becoming completely interdependent. Even hostile states cannot afford to give a lethal economic blow to their archrivals without endangering their own growth. In different states, despite an uneven growth of capitalism, the process of expropriation and (primitive) accumulation cannot be forestalled. The challenge posed by capital cannot be expressed in better terms than the one narrated by its apostle George Bush, in so many words, to be with it or against it. The cliché of the war on terror on the pretext of exporting democracy is the continuum of its agenda, a tool to realise itself. Turkey, with its Islamic credentials, its eyes gazing at the nostalgic past where once the Ottoman Empire stood with all its might and grandeur, could not resist the temptation of imposing its hegemony on the aaMiddle East. Both these factors contributed to Erdogan becoming a conduit for the ragtag jihadi outfits formed under the auspices of the US and its cohorts such as Jabahat-al-Nusra and various other organisations that are playing havoc with Syria. This strategy has its dangerously negative aspect too. It can push Turkey perilously close to the imperialists’ war and in the process put her security in jeopardy, especially when one of its own provinces, Hatay, has the same ethno-religious composition as that of Syria. The unresolved explosion of Reyhanli, one of its towns, was the single deadliest attack of a terrorist nature that took a heavy human toll; it is a case in point!
As far as the economic aspect is concerned, the AKP has developed an infrastructure quite congenial for a neo-liberal economy to thrive. The motorways, shopping malls, luxury apartments and other paraphernalia to satisfy the wants of the emerging upper and middle classes are blooming. The mode of production is essentially capitalistic but any alteration in relations is coercively denied. The conservative patriarchal relations are being encouraged by the state. The religious card worked to the AKP’s advantage. It came handy in curtailing human rights and pulverising the labour unions. But religion never advances a solution to the economic question and those who seek one therein sooner or later themselves become part of the problem. Moreover, economic jargon like GDP and growth rate do not reflect the level of development, especially the wealth and wellbeing of a common citizen. When it comes to national happiness, they lose all meaning.
The recent movement against the ruling hierarchy has all the characteristics of a cross-class phenomenon but its posture is anti-fascist. Certainly it is not a revolution but no one can deny that it is indeed a rebellion that if and when it finds the support of the working class has the potential to translate itself into a real revolution. But so far it has failed to attract meaningful support though the unrest in the working class across major cities such as Antalya, Ankara and Istanbul cannot remain unnoticed. “All liberation depends on the consciousness of servitude” (Herbert Marcuse). The proletariat is not oblivious of this reality. The highly bureaucratised unions led by the right-wing opportunists and years of pulverisation are the real fetters. History bears witness that the working class has always proved its conscientiousness far superior than all other classes combined. No one knows better than them that “living is no laughing matter” (Hikmat). The masses (workers) are their own leaders; once they notice their chains, “they are capable of dialectically creating their own developmental process…They are the decisive element, the rock on which the final victory of the revolution will be built” (Rosa Luxemburg).
The writer is based in Australia and has authored books on socialism and history. He can be reached at [email protected]