Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Sunday’s Zaman
June 7 2009

Parallel universes and elites

I am sometimes unable to prevent myself from thinking that this
beautiful country and its sovereign political cultures (yes, cultures)
are like a science fiction movie: There are parallel universes in it
which never cross one another but exist simultaneously. Each one of
these parallel universes has its own values, perceptions and `others.’
Each of them is secretly or openly at war with another — or at least
fearing, humiliating, extraditing or ignoring the `other.’ There are a
few humanists who are able to travel between these universes, but they
are not sincerely welcomed.
In the parallel universes of the republicans, the democrats, the
Islamists, the Kurds and the Turkish nationalists, the borders are
almost very clear; they don’t like each other, they don’t try to
understand each other and they are hostile to one another.

An interesting, but not surprising, survey done by Professor
Füsün Ã`stel and Associate Professor Birol Caymaz
strengthen these pessimistic views of mine. The survey, supported by
the Open Society Foundation, underlines that the `elites’ of this
country have their own universe, which is not very open at all toward
`others’ — namely, minorities, Kurds and conservatives.

The `Elites and Social Distance’ survey was completed by conducting
in-depth interviews with members of the upper middle class who have
graduated from Turkey’s `prestigious’ schools, such as Galatasaray
High School, St. Joseph’s, Ankara College and the like. All the
interviewees have good professional positions and perceive themselves
as devoted to republican secular values. For me, this is exactly the
point at which the tragedy begins; on the one hand, these prestigious
schools claim that they are teaching `Western’ values and established
for the `modernization’ of the country, but at the end are under heavy
influence of Turkey’s nationalistic education system. The sovereign
culture of these schools (and I mean sovereign) teaches the students
that just being a student there is extremely important; although
acting according to `universal’ values, the survey openly shows that
even graduates of the country’s French-built schools are
unable to absorb Voltaire’s idea `I do not agree with what you say
but I will defend to the death your right to say it’ into their
subconscious.

The survey points out that it is a matter of prestige for elites to
have friends from among members of Turkey’s non-Muslim
minorities. Most of them are very proud of having them as classmates
and as `best friends,’ but their sympathies end there. Most of them
say they did not talk to `their best friends’ about groups’ rights nor
about the state’s unfair acts toward them. According to the survey,
most of the interviewees suggested that `minorities can have their own
school, but these schools should be run by Turks’ or `maybe in the
past they were subject to discrimination, but they aren’t paying any
taxes now.’ Some of the elites were also very critical and unable to
understand the slogan `We are all Armenians, we are all Hrant’ which
began to be used after the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant
Dink.

When it comes to the subject of the ruling Justice and Development
Party (AK Party), the elites’ attitudes are again not
surprising. According to them, the closure of the AK Party is
acceptable. The survey points out that the elites think the AK Party
and its supporters are making the elites a `minority’ and threatening
their position; in short, they are not willingly to share their
`privileges’ with any newcomers. Well, since the basic idea of the
elites is this, they have a tendency to think that Ergenekon is a sort
of settling of accounts between the new AK Party elites and the former
republican elites.

When it comes to Kurds, the position of the elites is also not
hopeful. Most of them think the Democratic Society Party (DTP) should
be closed down. They say the Kurds are lazy and are not subject to
discrimination because they can be seen on Ä°stanbul’s upscale
BaÄ?dat Avenue. Some of the elites think that if there is a
Kurdish problem in Turkey, it is simply because of `foreign powers.’

In any case, thinking that people who hold diplomas from this
country’s prestigious schools can be diplomats between Turkey’s
parallel universes is wrong because at the end of the day they are
concurrently the products and producers of these parallel universes.