KEEPING UP WITH REFORMS THE ONLY SOLUTION
by Cem Ozdemir*
Today’s Zaman
March 18 2008
Turkey
After the workers’ uprising and its violent suppression by Soviet
tanks on June 17, 1953 in East Germany, the self-styled government
of the socialist workers’ and farmers’ state, officially the German
Democratic Republic (GDR), had to work hard to find an explanation
for the shocking events.
The GDR’s people — its own people — had turned away from the party
en masse. First, they wanted humane work conditions. Second — and
more than anything else — they wanted democracy and freedom.
At a historical meeting with the Academy of Arts and the cultural
association of the GDR, Kulturbund, the regime then had the creative
idea to call the working class uprising a "fascist motivated attempted
coup" for which the people would have fallen like "a stupid flock
of sheep."
"After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had thrown away the confidence of
the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?"
This poem was found later in Brecht’s literary estate and was published
for the first time in the German daily "Welt" on Dec. 9, 1959.
When I heard that Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcýnkaya filed
a motion to disband the governing Justice and Development Party
(AK Party), I was reminded of Berthold Brecht and his relation to
the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Mr. Yalcýnkaya came
to my mind as a kind of modern Walter Ulbricht, the GDR’s ruler at
those times. (Officially, he was the general secretary of the SED’s
Central Committee.) Of course, officially Mr. Yalcýnkaya is state
public prosecutor of the Turkish Republic; but in fact, he is part
of a justice system that sees itself well above the ordinary and
uneducated people — a people which, if necessary, must be educated
by a strict hand and forced for its own good.
Indeed, for the reactionary parties of the Turkish state, for those in
the justice, bureaucracy and military command, the people are nothing
more than just "a stupid flock of sheep." At that time in the GDR,
those "stupid sheep" followed the Western ideals of market economy
and democracy; today in Turkey they are voting for the Democratic
Society Party (DTP) or the AK Party. Adding together the number
of these DTP and AK Party voters, the majority of people in Turkey
seem for the deep state to be just like "a stupid flock of sheep"
that has to be educated.
Even more interesting is also how the Republican People’s Party
(CHP) behaves. Right now, the CHP could have the chance to prove
itself as a democratic alternative to the AK Party by rejecting
the ban request and pointing to elections as the proper democratic
remedy. But — negative answer! That empty gap in Turkish democracy
called social democracy is still waiting to be filled. This is for
the benefit of all secular left-liberal voters, but it is also works
for the benefit of the AK Party, which would otherwise finally get
some serious competition. Such a social-democratic party would not
attack the government because it slightly changed the Foundations
Law, it would moreover criticize it for not having encouraged this
enough. Such a party would criticize the AK Party harshly for Article
301, which still remains unchanged, and it would take a decisive
stance in protecting the writers and intellectuals of Turkey —
as is common practice among social democrats around the world.
As a friend of Turkey and as one who opposes any totalitarian
dictatorship, I also want to address the AK Party: It is interesting
that it is again we, the Liberals in the West, who come to the AK
Party’s defense and who take a position against those dark powers that
try to preserve their dominance against the majority of the people
by using the false pretense of laicism. It was us, too, who defended
Prime Minister Erdoðan and President Gul after the first elections. We
came to the AK Party’s defense and explained to the world that they
were not fundamentalists. We supported them in difficult times and
excused them, in Turkey and abroad, when facing opponents of Turkey’s
EU membership. Maybe one can even go so far as to say that Turkey’s
EU accession bid would have never come so far without the Liberals in
Turkey and us, the Liberals, Social Democrats and the Greens in Europe
Though, today is also the moment to address the AK Party with some more
critical words. We don’t want a Turkey where the murder investigation
of our friend Hrant Dink, bogged down in the state mechanism, goes
without being challenged.
We don’t want a Turkey in which the criminals responsible for the
Semdinli attack are acquitted while the thorough state prosecutor is
dismissed. Also we don’t want a Turkey where the religious convictions
of our Alevi friends are not respected in schools. And a Turkey in
which the ancient history of Hasankeyf and Allianoi will drown in
the floods of some dams established for short-term profit is not a
modern Turkey.
A Turkey that finds it totally normal that migrants in Europe can
learn the Turkish language and are able watch Turkish television
and can build their mosques and cem houses over there but that, at
the same time, doesn’t allow the same rights to its own Armenian,
Assyrian, Kurdish or Circassian citizens won’t solve its problems.
Will the AK Party make the aimed constitution change again together
with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) as it did for allowing
the headscarf at universities? Will it use the MHP again to escape
a possible party ban? Or will it show more courage and democratic
sense this time and dare use a big solution? If Turkey’s way shall
go on toward Europe, then it is time now for a new constitution,
guided by the models of European democracies.
At the beginning of the last century, when the modern Turkish Republic
emerged from the ashes of the fallen Ottoman Empire, it directed
its view westwards. Turkey took the example of its commercial laws,
its penal and civic codes from Western states — now the time has
come to develop a modern constitution of freedoms that strengthen
the individual against the state. And then, such unreasonable party
bans will finally disappear in the dustbin of history, and Turkish
democracy, the DTP, the AK Party and all other parties in Turkey will
carry out their conflicts with the sharpest sword democracy foresees
for any fight: the word!
*Foreign affairs coordinator of the Greens in the European Parliament
and a founding member of the European Council of Foreign Relations.
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