TKP's mayoral candidate for Güngören, İstanbul: "I am a worker, communist, and TKP member"

SoL news interviewed TKP Güngören mayoral candidate Fatma Akın
Friday, 01 March 2019 14:41

Interview series of soL news with district and province candidates of TKP from all around the country continue with the interview made by Fatma Akın, the mayoral candidate of Güngören, a district of İstanbul. 

You are TKP's mayoral candidate for İstanbul's Güngören district. Why did you become a candidate?

As a textile worker, I am a part of the class struggle between labor and capital on the side of labor, I am a worker on the side of labor. Therefore, I am seeking to change the current social order. Being the mayor of a small district would not change the entire social order but it would change a lot of things. We can aim to claim power without being in favor of the market or seeking rentier mechanisms. I believe that working classes could rule a borough and a country by working together with the masses. Today we, working classes will rule a district, tomorrow we’ll rule the whole country. It is not impossible that working classes will claim ruling power.

Why TKP?

TKP is the only platform that any worker could fight against exploitation and the current social order. As a worker, it was the only place that I could go to because there is no other place to seek class struggle. I am, therefore, fighting within the party of working classes and the party among the working classes. The mayoral candidacy is actually about this class struggle. During the election, we are not only seeking votes, but we are also seeking support for our struggle.

What kind of reactions are you receiving during the election campaign?

Some say I should just let it go, some congratulate and support me. Some say I should be ashamed of being a communist because I am wearing a headscarf, some say I should stop wearing my headscarf. Sometimes elder women ask me what flyers I am handing out. I am replying that they are TKP’s election flyers. They get confused and they ask me if I am communist. I confirm them with pride. Some appreciate it, some say negative things about my headscarf. I say that my priority is a social order where no human exploits others. I am fully supporting my political party’s views regarding the headscarf; however, I do not think my headscarf prevents my class struggle in favor of labor. I actually believe I can wear my headscarf and I can seek what my labor deserves in return. 

I can proudly announce to my family and friend circles, where some already vote the bourgeois political parties, that I am a communist and a mayoral candidate of my political party. It is because I believe in a full-hearted struggle. They ask me which political party it is and people who know me would say that it is the political party of the workers. Then I would proudly add that it is the Communist Party of Turkey. Sometimes some would say if communists are still around. I reply that communists have always been and will always be around, and will struggle to seek to claim the ruling power of workers.

I am determined because I believe in my party. I am not that important as a single person. There is no "me"; it is "we" and we are the party. We have principles, we have a programme, we do not act like other bourgeois political parties but act what our collective mind tells us. We are in this struggle together and we shall win together.