As with many things, in politics too, events proceeding in their natural course is a sign of health. The short-, medium-, and long-term consequences of anomalies that disrupt this natural flow tire, damage, and rot the body. All the more so if the interventions said to be for treating the anomalies that arise are shaped on the basis of political gains; it should not be hard to foresee that the situation will get much worse. Since in our country explaining without making it concrete is not easy, let me make it easier. As measures such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy were being taken to cleanse FETÖ, which enveloped the body like a long-running and mostly “hidden” cancer, the necessity arose to carry out an urgent surgical intervention against a sudden attack by the cancer. The primary tumor and a significant part of the regions to which it had spread were removed from the body through the surgery performed. Despite roughly ten years having passed, the operations that continue from time to time show that this cancer has still not been completely expelled from our body.
In the process where almost everything was placed within a national-security parenthesis for the sake of expelling it, while the cancer could not be fully eradicated, other interventions also occurred that we would have little difficulty calling arbitrary. Although it was a period when it should have been seeing more of what was going on, Turkey was told, “Don’t look around too much; the dark will suit you better,” and its eyes were constrained. “There’s too much noise; plug your ears—better yet, let us plug them for you,” it was told, and its ears were constrained. “Don’t get too hung up on what’s happening; we’ve got it,” it was told, and an attempt was made to constrain its mind. Those who had different proposals to overcome these constraints were either “hosted” in a district of ours said to be cold, or were sought to be silenced with the prospect of being hosted. “Don’t get out of bed; we’re solving the problems,” it was told, and its movement was restricted. There were times when it couldn’t help but get out of bed and try to say, “What is going on?” When it got up, it did not take long to be turned back to bed. At times, it was even returned to bed by those who came to its side, persuaded by them.
Prolonged “unhealthy nutrition,” moreover under the heavy recommendations of the officials responsible for that nutrition (with the active steering of those who have governed the country since 1983); a genetic predisposition (the historical practice of deceiving by using religion for special purposes); and, in treatment/post-treatment phases, relying on “amulet-makers” and “blowers” outside medical means (the attempt to fill the large voids born of FETÖ’s purge with people attached to other spiritual centers outside the state hierarchy) can be taken as a brief summary of the “illness” process Turkey has experienced. Let’s close the concrete-example parenthesis and move on to the matter of nationalization.
After 2013–2016, the government came into possession of a very effective magic wand. The wand’s magic was a charm we have known since ancient times: the survival of the state. Our millennia-old platonic love as Turks. The state for whose smile we bore through mountains, at whose glance we routed armies. Since its existence was said to be in danger, you could easily make Turks accept placing the entire universe within a national-security parenthesis. And so it was.
The country’s longtime nationalist party, which had long been waiting to see the magic wand, was reborn with a single touch at the very moment when the party’s internal dissidents had won the chairmanship. The reborn one and the old one had the same name. Their leaders were the same, too. A third similarity was hard to find. This was the first major political nationalization. The old names of the old nationalist party founded a new party. In the first election, they managed to win as many votes as their old party.
This also somewhat recalls the cat–liver joke. The anecdote where Nasreddin Hodja buys two okkas of liver and takes it home, and when his wife, having burned the liver after forgetting it on the stove, tells him “The cat ate the liver.” The Hodja lifts the cat and says, “This cat itself is two okkas. If this is the cat, where is the liver? If this is the liver, where is the cat?” But of course that’s not how things stand. Most of the old nationalist party’s 2016 votes passed to the new nationalist party; and it was voters from the government camp—loyal to the “Reis” but angry at his party—who prevented the old nationalist party from dropping to 2–3 points. That situation still largely persists.
In the turbulent period from 2016 to 2024, after the old nationalist party was nationalized, a number of small Kurdish, Islamist, conservative, and leftist parties also joined this nationalization frenzy to the government’s benefit. Concluding—rightly—that it still did not possess the support needed to remain in power, the government-state outdid itself and nationalized the major Kurdish party. In essence, given the current voter composition, it was difficult to nationalize it. They overcame this difficulty through the “founding leader’s” grace—at least for now.
The political, economic, and social blood loss was so great that even this surprise nationalization was not enough. Perhaps it might have sufficed again, but Turks had begun to lift their heads and look around. Of what they saw, one or two things caught their eye. However, the government-state, which had placed the entire universe within a national-security parenthesis and held a Potter-like wand in its hand, could not show indulgence toward such lapses. Had it done so, it could not have remained in power as the state. Nor did it. They sent one of the people’s favorites to our cold district. And once he went, the other began behaving as if he, too, had been sent to our cold district. This discourse, which can be formulated as, “You will love me the most. You will choose me the most,” is Turkey’s new reality.
This new reality must not have sufficed to make its architects feel secure, for the greatest political nationalization in our history is now being attempted. It is the country’s oldest party—and the winner of the most recent elections—that they are striving to nationalize. Out of the “courtesy” of the nationalizers, so that party members won’t feel out of place, they seem poised to deem the party’s previous chair suitable to head it. And since he has long served the “state,” he presumably hasn’t found the offer odd.
If this greatest nationalization comes to pass, all the main “political” actors on the national stage—from the very top to the very bottom—will have become spiritual heroes endowed with supernatural powers. A “world leader,” the “mind of the state,” the “founding leader,” and—after the last possible nationalization—the fourth of the quartet, a political saint stripped of all worldly desires: “Piro.” As can be seen, in the new reality there seems to be little room left for Homo sapiens. In that case, we will all see together whether the Homo sapiens will herd this camel or leave this land.
