C.H.P. CLINGS TO ITS FAIRY TALE
By SemÝh ÝdÝz
Turkish Press
Oct 17 2005
Inal Batu is one of the leading figures of the Republican People’s
Party (CHP) and he was shut out by the party administration. Speaking
to Haber Turk on Friday, Batu said that he was afraid of nobody and
that he would continue to speak his mind. Former Ambassador Batu said
that the decision to start Turkey’s European Union talks taken at
Luxembourg on Oct. 3 wasn’t ideal. However, he also said that Turkey
had moved to a higher class. In short, he is one of the people in the
CHP pleased with the outcome. However, he doesn’t care for the CHP’s
stance. He complains that although it has many international ties,
the CHP doesn’t use these ties on Turkey’s behalf on the EU issue.
Indeed, it’s difficult to say that the CHP lobbied hard for Turkey by
using its contacts at the Socialist International meeting before the
Luxembourg summit. Meanwhile, CHP leader Deniz Baykal met neither
with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, nor with any other social
democrat leader. The CHP staff was distant from social democratic
members of the European Parliament and national parliaments.
Actually, this is understandable because can you imagine CHP deputy
leader Onur Oymen or CHP Deputy Sukru Elekdag discussing the Kurdish,
Cyprus or Armenian issue with social democrats at the EU? When they
open their mouths, one could see that they’re not on the ‘social
democrat wing’ of the political spectrum because the political view
they claim to own is humanist, socialist and internationalist.
However, they’re proud of being nationalists and partisans for state
control.
In sum, the fact that the common view of social democracy clashes
with the remarks made by these people prevents them from taking their
place among their ‘comrades’ on the international level. They can’t
even exhibit solidarity with their brothers in the Turkish Republic
of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). They are afraid of giving an appointment
to discuss the Kurdish issue to the intellectuals who were received
by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and who call themselves social
democrats or socialists.
One can find information on definable characteristics of socialism in
the Declaration of Principles accepted by the Socialist International
in 1989 at socialistinternational.com. When the content of this
document is compared with the CHP’s remarks and stance, we see that
this party insists on keeping a lie alive. Actually, if the CHP says
that it’s not social democratic at all, there would be no problem.
However, it can’t say that and it’s falling apart in this dilemma.
–Boundary_(ID_Q5X3wHZfIipWX+SNfjJ1QA)–