We are living in a time when we have moved beyond the threshold of debating the reasons, the mechanics, or the endless list of \u201cwhat-ifs\u201d behind the annulment of a university diploma earned more than thirty years ago by the very institution that once held a contrary opinion. I hold that it is more pertinent to concentrate on the potential consequences of the diploma\u2019s annulment and on how T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s position in a world order that has begun to crack is mirrored in the balance of power between government and opposition.<\/p>\n
Since 2019, my firm prediction has been that Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu will remain a long-lived and influential actor in Turkish politics. Neither the annulment itself nor the ensuing administrative judicial process\u2014nor any further sanctions that might follow\u2014will alter this conviction. Such artificial interventions can wield only a limited influence, capable of shifting not what is destined to happen but merely its timing. In the medium and long term, the adverse impact on the party that intervenes will outweigh the short-term harm inflicted on the party that is intervened against.<\/p>\n
The university\u2019s \u201csheepish\u201d annulment notice is of little importance<\/strong>. <\/strong>What matters is the stance the two key figures would take after the decision.<\/em> The first of those figures, \u0130mamo\u011flu<\/strong>,<\/strong> gave the reaction everyone expected. Speaking at an iftar table in Kastamonu, he declared, \u201cI entrust myself to the nation. If I used to work a thousand times before, now I will work a million.\u201d<\/em> It was a prompt and well-judged political challenge. Contrary to many expectations, the second figure, Mansur Yava\u015f<\/strong>,<\/strong> also moved quickly and decisively, dispersing the cloud of \u201coppositional doubt\u201d that had long been cultivated around him. Stating that he would stand beside Mr Ekrem every minute of the legal and political process, Yava\u015f said, \u201cUntil this unlawfulness is lifted, I am suspending my decision to consider a presidential candidacy.\u201d<\/em> Mr Mansur\u2019s decision to stand with Mr Ekrem is crucial for winning broad public support during the administrative-court phase. But there is more\u2014indeed, to use a popular Turkish saying, \u201cthe biggest radishes are in the opposition\u2019s bag this time\u201d.<\/strong> If, after the diploma verdict, Mr Mansur takes his move of \u201csuspending the candidacy assessment\u201d a step further and boycotts an election under these conditions, the legitimacy of any general election that Yava\u015f refuses to contest would become openly debatable. Because the government would then face a crisis of social legitimacy, it might retreat from its decision to block \u0130mamo\u011flu. Another game-changing move would be Mr Ekrem raising Yava\u015f\u2019s hand and publicly releasing a scheduled roadmap for a transition to a planned parliamentary system. In that scenario, Mr Ekrem would assume the leadership of the CHP and, after a possible change of administration, conduct the transition from an influential post within the state\u2019s executive machinery as the head of the new ruling party.<\/p>\n For T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s opposition, it is vital that the \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2013Yava\u015f line remain unbroken; for the government, it is vital that this unity be shattered.<\/strong> As the process moves forward, I will keep returning to this point. Yet the main focus of this section is different. I shall concentrate not on what has happened, but on what has not<\/em> happened.<\/p>\n Public-opinion surveys show that the great majority of society disapproves of any attempt to \u201ctouch\u201d \u0130mamo\u011flu through the courts.<\/strong> Expanding the range of pretexts the government cites does not alter this verdict. Those pretexts keep multiplying\u2014creatively\u2014from the \u201cfool\u201d case to terrorism, from corruption to the diploma, and thence to the CHP congress. \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2019s performance under intense stress is being tested. One cannot say his personal political performance is poor, yet it is clear that his choice of step-by-step timing has widened the government\u2019s room for manoeuvre\u2014such as spreading a single-candidate primary over time when fresh blows were imminent. In truth, a single-candidate primary that Mr Mansur did not enter would have differed little from the party group\u2019s simply naming a candidate. Moreover, because the formal \u201ccandidacy shield\u201d would have been raised much earlier, the government would have had far less time to concentrate its moves during the primary period. We can say that \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2014whose nature and style favour what is practical and swift\u2014has been driven to these and similar ill-judged choices by a concern, contrary to common belief, to accommodate intra-party balances he does not fully command. All such costly delays, alien to his character, reflect another important deficiency\u2014one of the rare political qualities Erdo\u011fan possesses but \u0130mamo\u011flu does not. It is not exactly a skill; rather, it is a buttress, an early-acquired resilience: ideology.<\/strong> I note this, of course, independent of any subjective judgment about its magnitude. I frame the concept chiefly through a more functional pragmatism\u2014as a fortified redoubt against assault, or as an inner energy that lifts one back to one\u2019s feet after a fall.<\/p>\n It may be asked: did \u00d6zal and Demirel possess such a foundation? \u00d6zal\u2019s cotton-wrapped rise to power in 1983 was an exceptionally fortunate moment for him, one that required no underpinning; everyone also knows how hard he later worked to keep political bans in place in order to preserve that \u201cfortune.\u201d Yet in some of his later clashes\u2014especially with the military\u2014he clearly adopted a retaliatory ideological posture against certain core qualities of the Republic, even if that stance did not match his lifestyle. Demirel, for his part, though often accused by opponents of lacking ideology, was in fact a development-focused but intellectually solid republican and Kemalist; his awareness of what Atat\u00fcrk tried to do and why was quite pronounced. In truth, the late Demirel\u2019s ideological ground\u2014namely the Republic and Atat\u00fcrk\u2014could also serve as a fertile support for \u0130mamo\u011flu, and I think he is indeed attached to these concepts. Yet in my view he lacks the minimum depth needed for that attachment to become a true anchor or bulwark. Consider the trench metaphor: either you position yourself behind a buildup\u2014a wall, a mound, an object\u2014that shields you from attack, or you dig down and protect yourself below the surface. One might say again: \u0130mamo\u011flu constantly references the Republic and Atat\u00fcrk, and that is true; I am not suggesting any problem with his attachment, but pointing to a shortfall in his comprehension and sound knowledge of them. The adjective-and-adverb inflation in his unscripted speeches shows this plainly\u2014his lavish use of qualifiers such as \u201cvaluable,\u201d \u201cvery beautiful,\u201d \u201cwonderful.\u201d In my view, spending a few months reading, listening, and thinking about the Republic and Atat\u00fcrk would strengthen and toughen him far more than merely obtaining the title of presidential candidate. To be clearer: \u0130mamo\u011flu knows the Republic is something great and vital, but he lacks the body of knowledge he needs about what it actually is; he respects and admires Atat\u00fcrk and knows he achieved great deeds, but he lacks the body of knowledge he needs about what Atat\u00fcrk did, why, and how. This leaves him\u2014despite being highly determined, hardworking, and popular\u2014bereft of self-defence in moments when circumstances weaken his position. He has professionals, institutions, even a party that rivals can easily target, but he does not yet sufficiently possess the unassailable support\u2014the inner intellectual motivation that provides energy in hard times without external help\u2014that no rival can touch. Can he gain it from now on? Perhaps, partially, through the consistent use of the right methods.<\/p>\n We are also confronted with the collapse of the old world\u2014its creaking now heard ever more clearly from all of Europe, the northern steppes, and of course the Middle East\u2014and with signs that a new world may be in the making. If Trump completes a second term and can pass the presidency to his vice-president or someone similar, we may well face a global landscape carved up by agreement along a United States\u2013Russia\u2013China axis. Europe, which placed its entire post-Second-World-War security architecture under America\u2019s roof, is gripped by anxiety; it has new needs and must find new suppliers to meet them. The effects on T\u00fcrkiye are already becoming visible: the Erdo\u011fan praise decorated with the same lavish compliments Trump once showered on Jordan\u2019s king, the warm invitations coming from the European Union after a long silence, and so on. Worried about Russian expansionism and now the additional prospect of Trumpian expansionism, Europeans are assigning the Turks a role they have known since ancient times in their new defence architecture: soldiering. It is the same security capability with which we block not the entry of illegal migrants into the country but their exit toward Europe, the same military skill we once exported in medieval Mesopotamia and Byzantium. This time, high-rating TV series and \u201cnews\u201d channels have laid the groundwork for propaganda that says: \u201cwe are vast, beyond measure; if Europe must rely on T\u00fcrkiye to protect its women and children, then \u2026,\u201d a line that works on broad audiences. Not that it cares about pro-government backing, but the liberal left, which gazes lovingly at Europe, will start cheering in the hope that \u201cperhaps this will yield a breathing space.\u201d<\/p>\n Formun \u00dcst\u00fc<\/p>\n The world\u2019s political and military conjuncture has been more favorable to the President than at any time since 2002. This means we may be at the outset of yet another period crowded with fresh disappointments for those who, at every authoritarian step that has narrowed the sphere of freedom over the past decade, have turned their faces toward the West in desperation. Yet, truth be told, I have never seen these additional disappointments\u2014or their age-old habit of casting \u201cthe West\u201d as a bogeyman\u2014bring any benefit to T\u00fcrkiye.<\/p>\n What the Turkish opposition needs\u2014indeed most urgently needs\u2014is to internalize the stark reality, stated in the Amasya Circular, that \u201cthe resolve and decision of the nation itself will save the nation,\u201d and to acknowledge no other route or source of power. I do not wish the example of Amasya 1919 to be taken as an implicit call to demonize the government, for in my view the determination and decision of the nation that brought Erdo\u011fan to power in 2002 and kept him there again in 2023 is the very same determination and decision that were required in 1919. Put differently, the task is to become the person to whom the nation will devote its resolve and decision\u2014without expecting any favor or support from West or East, relying only on one\u2019s own people. The international respect that follows from this method has been demonstrated many times.<\/p>\n In short, T\u00fcrkiye must raise democracy\u2014and therefore freedom\u2014to the highest standards not for foreign investors, EU norms, or easier credit, but because Turks themselves deserve democracy and freedom. Countries and alliances that assign T\u00fcrkiye the role of migrant gatekeeper or of \u201chired\u201d soldier do not carry the slightest concern for Turkish lives or their quality of life; one should not take seriously even those who take such thinking seriously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We are living in a time when we have moved beyond the threshold of debating the reasons, the mechanics, or the endless list of \u201cwhat-ifs\u201d behind the annulment of a university diploma earned more than thirty years ago by the very institution that once held a contrary opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[175,198,46,199,168,184,200,201],"ppma_author":[19],"class_list":["post-1481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-chp","tag-diploma","tag-ekrem-imamoglu","tag-erdogan","tag-middle-east","tag-trump","tag-turkish-opposition","tag-turkish-politics"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authors":[{"term_id":19,"user_id":3,"is_guest":0,"slug":"huseyinrasityilmaz","display_name":"H\u00fcseyin Ra\u015fit Y\u0131lmaz","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Huseyin-Rasit-Yilmaz.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Huseyin-Rasit-Yilmaz.jpg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1481"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}