Kemal Okuyan writes on crisis between Turkey and Germany

"The inconsistency of pro-establishment opposition does matter as well! For instance, they label and blame Erdoğan for being the co-chair of the project of Greater Middle East while accusing him of becoming distanced from the West"
Thursday, 27 July 2017 16:59

General Secretary of the CC of Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), soL columnist, Kemal Okuyan wrote an article on July 27 on the reflections of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan-related political crisis between Turkey and such big powers as Germany and the US. 

Can Dündar* is not the first person to ask support from the world’s leading imperialist states and governments for the struggle for freedom. Moreover, we know many people who claim to be further to the left of Can Dündar's political affiliation, who anticipate "democracy" from Germany, France; even we witnessed some "secularists" who wrote letters to the US back in the day.

That is the pro-establishment politics. If you are within the establishment, then it becomes inevitable to tend to this or that major element in that realm. Can Dündar recently talked to Junge Welt, a Left-leaning German newspaper, stating that the German government and the German civil society should lend support to the struggle for freedom in Turkey. He also warned to make sure Turkey is not "isolated" considering that could result in [President] Erdoğan gaining more independence...

However, Erdoğan cannot become independent!

Erdoğan is a politician from within the same establishment. Everyone knows how the AKP struck a bargain in the US during its foundation, and how it later banked on the support of Europe’s critical capital… When things worsened a bit, Putin appeared valuable this time.

That is how it works; those who do politics within the boundaries of capitalism take close relations and cooperation with imperialist powers for granted only for themselves. For example, those who have called an [Turkish] army that was shaped on the basis of the US’ interests a "national" army without questioning its membership to NATO only remembers imperialism when it comes to the Kurdish organizations in cooperation with the US or Germany. Let’s note that the same Kurdish organizations have led Turkey’s Left in ignoring the concept of imperialism.

Well, who should have the monopoly of establishing relations with imperialists, foreign powers? The ruling party says, "I am the state, I cooperate with anyone I wish in the interests of the state". Turkey’s governments had close relations with the US and leading NATO countries for a long time; such relations that always favoured the hegemons at the expense of both our people and other peoples. All these relations have been questioned, protested by revolutionaries for years; yet those young protesters have been attacked by the state, the government-led civil fascists, the judicial organ, and the media. In short, to the governments, including the AKP,   the patriotic forces fighting against imperialism have always been a threat.

Nevertheless, the same governments, including the AKP, have always been discomforted by the relations of their opponents with imperialist centres, turning those relations into an excuse of public lynch campaigns by means of catering to the nationalist sentiments amidst hullabaloos: “They are complaining to the foreigners about our country”, “foreign powers-led groups” and “resorting to treason” etc.

[From the point of governments], you become criminalized no matter how you approach or confront the foreign powers!

The inconsistency of pro-establishment opposition does matter as well! For instance, they label and blame Erdoğan for being the co-chair of the US imperialist-led project of Greater Middle East while accusing him of distancing Turkey from the West at the same. It is yet another oddity that some politicians who talk about imperialism compete with each other to show up within the Socialist International, one of the most influential platforms of imperialism.

All these point out to one thing:  accusations such as collaborationism coming from the pro-establishment politics are meaningless and farcical, so is "nationalism"…

This is because the establishment is the market and the hegemony of capital itself. And it corresponds to imperialism in international level; as imperialism is built upon a hierarchy, it becomes natural for political actors to ask support from powerful imperialist centres, to incline for cooperation with them, and to conduct business under their guardianship. It can not be otherwise. In this respect, capital does not know any limits.

It is not a surprise that those who ingratiate themselves to the Turkish Industry and Business Association [TÜSİAD, Turkey’s top capitalist organization] will also ingratiate themselves to Germany or the UK or the US.

On the other hand, there is yet another aspect of getting external support: alienation from the people. No matter whether one is in power or in opposition, the relation developed with imperialist countries essentially means handing the country's future over to the foreign forces. In the past, we witnessed such “Leftist” liberals who said, “I consent to the EU if it brings about democracy”. The democracy of Germany! The reconfiguration of Turkey in accordance with the interests of Volkswagen and Siemens!

Or, to give an example:  part of the US-controlled nuclear weapons deployed in Turkey during the Cold War was classified as "tactical nuclear weapons", which would have been fired if the country had been seized by hostile forces, and our people would have been the “martyrs of democracy”! Such governments that approved this situation were called "nationalistic" while those who said "No to NATO" were demonized as foreign-led groups.

And, this demagogy found supporters.

What a pity!


* Cumhuriyet newspaper's former editor-in-chief Can Dündar, who was last year sentenced to five years and 10 months in jail over a front-page story accusing the government of sending weapons to Syria. He has now fled Turkey for Germany.