Following its call "for a bright 2018," Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) boosts its campaign to get organised at numerous locations around Anatolia, "Turkey is not hopeless, people’s alternative will strengthen."
Ankara stop of the 'People’s Alternative is Strengthening' meetings, which the TKP organises in 15 places across the country, has been held in Batıkent, Yenimahalle. The event started with the Internationale march, following a moment of silence to commemorate those who lost their lives in the working class struggle.
"TO STRENGTHEN THE VOICE OF WORKERS"
TKP member Yeliz Karaca opened the meeting, stating that Mustafa Suphi and his comrades started their journey in 1921 to support the independence struggle in Anatolia, to carry the socialist alternative in the homeland, and to reunite the TKP with its country where it belongs to. After Karaca, TKP member Yeşim Göktaş took to the stage to explain what the district of Yenimahalle, where the meeting took place, means for communists.
Reminding the solidarity of the Batıkent people with the resistance of Tekel workers and their role during the June Resistance as a critical focal point in the city, Göktaş said: “In this region whose total population is predominantly made up by working class, our Yenimahalle district organisation, which accompanied the establishment of Batıkent and is one of the oldest organisations of our party, has unceasingly struggled with the Batıkent people since 1999 in Batıkent and the nearby Ostim worker basin to found a bright country and to strengthen the voice of the working class against all kinds of reaction, darkness, and exploitation."
"WE WON BEFORE, WE CAN WIN AGAIN"
"Those who push out of politics the ones that set their hopes on them, who condemn the progressives of this country to reaction with figures like Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu and Mansur Yavaş [former candidates from the parliamentary opposition CHP; well-known Islamist and fascist politicians, respectively], those who abandons the future of our children to darkness, taking pride in saying 'we founded the imam-hatip [Sunni Islamic schools] schools'; they can promise hope to neither us nor the country's future. The last CHP congress has shown that both the CHP and Kılıçdaroğlu [CHP leader] has nothing to offer to those who set their hopes on them," said Göktaş, noting that the working people are surrendered by the bourgeois politics.
Reminding the construction of a new imam hatip school in the Ergazi neighbourhood, Göktaş said: "We didn’t let them before, we mustn’t let them again. Yes, a new school for Batıkent should come out of that construction but it should be a scientific school, not a religious one. We declare today that the TKP now starts a struggle throughout Batıkent for the transformation of that construction into a scientific school, and we call on you all to give this struggle a helping hand. We won before, we can win again."
"CAPITALISTS PREFER WORKERS TO DIE"
On behalf of the TKP Labour Centre, Kaya Güvenç started his speech asking, "Isn’t it our right to live without being exploited, to long for a world without classes?" Pointing to the rise of nationalism, Güvenç stated the need to strongly oppose this ideology which covers the conflict between the capitalists and the labourers.
"These people who have nothing but their labour are being killed for the bosses striving for the maximum profit. It’s possible to prevent this but there is a cost to it. Capitalists prefer the workers to die rather than the costs to rise," said Güvenç on occupational murders.
Asking whether "the working class is ready for the struggle," Güvenç noted that in the neoliberal system in which wages dropped and unemployment deepened, workers’ share of the national income has systematically diminished. Emphasising that the power against the oppression and the reactionary ideology can only emerge through getting organised, Güvenç ended his speech: "Long live freedom, long live independent and socialist Turkey!"
"NATIONALISM SERVES CAPITALIST INTERESTS"
Following Güvenç’s speech, Devrim Koçak, member of the Central Committee of the TKP, took to the stage.
Stating that the crude oil which the Islamic State stole from Syrian was transported to Turkey with oil tankers and transferred to the Tüpraş refinery in Batman, which is owned by the Koç group, Koçak said: "What is in the profit of the capitalists is in the loss of the labourers and the country. Wars are in the favour of the capitalist class, whatever national reasons they’re made for. The winner in war is the owner of the factory that produced the weapons. Workers die and capitalists win: This is the war under imperialism."
"TURKEY IS NOT HOPELESS"
"TKP, therefore, gets organised; it tries to reach more people. It protects and avoids its political line from reactionism, nationalism, and bourgeois ideologies. TKP points to a real exit, a true emancipation, not easy and fake solutions," said Koçak, underlining that the way out for the working people in Turkey is the change of the system.
Remarking that "Communists have never concealed their political objectives since they appeared at the stage of history. We want to change this system to establish a humanly order instead," Koçak stressed that they were not the party of a handful of convinced militants but the party of the organised working class of Turkey, and called on the workers filling the assembly hall to give strength to and join the ranks of the TKP.
The meeting ended with the emphasis that Turkey is not hopeless and an invitation for an organised struggle.
