East-West or religious-secular living spaces and values had always been placed within the indicators in the center of the Turkish community and politics. Despite all of the transformation stories experienced by the country, today the same matter and same conflict axis is again on the “table”. Arguments, polarizations are continuing around a similar axis.
Every matter is politicized within this frame.
Including Özgecan’s savage murder and the violence against women…
Polarizations around this type of essential contradictions are a “conflict”, a “state of conflict”, in a sociological sense.
The devastation of the polarization starts right at this point. When conflict forms the main axis of politics, power-centered analyses, attitudes and expectations come to the forefront.
“Power” surpasses the idea, and internal problems, internal dynamics become of secondary importance within the polarization cries.
A “power”-indexed political perception starts to become natural. Opinions in the community start to become polarized and the poles become homogenous.
This display is darker for us. Because Turkey is a country, where the community, politics and liberties field is still limited, where the patriarchal mentality still runs loose. Besides, Turkey is a country that rests over the “shattered fault line of Western-Eastern identities”.
As the display becomes darker, the internal issues will be forgotten. A power game, where everyone will be figurants, will be created. Even hot communal issues, and issues like liberty, democracy, laicism, citizenship and poverty will be locked onto this power pursuit; these issues will be handled “all over again” and attempts to identify them will be made.
Yet, “benefit cards” will be reshuffled. The positions taken by individuals and establishments, ranging from political parties to newspapers, writers to public authorities, based on their benefits, the power analyses they’ve conducted and their democracy cries will be melded. Other than some exceptions, the sides, despite all their differences, will render the “power”-indexed “identity” benefit as the common language. For a country, which catches the heavy depression it experienced in the sense of politics and the mentality from the “strength microbe”, the polarization conditions we are facing are doing their duty.
A reactionary politics perception is emerging.
In the internal politics, the conflicts related with the legitimacy of the rulership are pointing at a purification that will be condemned to a monotonous attitude, which will be shaped based on the reaction-centered benefit….
When two types of reactions, two types of pragmatism and two types of conflict axes are overlapped, it wouldn’t be so hard to guess the general picture that will be revealed…
Our opinion is that this situation will have an effect on government-politics and government-community relations. Likewise, it’s all the same for the feeding of the “patriarchal” mentality by the same scenery. Because, whether it’s nationalist culture or statist culture; a structure, which cannot produce itself by transforming itself from within, will recreate itself by ripping itself with outer outputs and comparting itself. Thus, under those conditions, the “shifting of the liberty platform” in both political and communal fields will become inevitable.
Communities that possess a democratic reflex will minimize this type of damage with their politics, intellectuals and establishments.
As for Turkey; it is completely staying away from the tools and mechanisms of this protection.
