What does it mean for a party like the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) to launch its election campaign and step into the start of the “Republic’s” second century with an American against its political rival, who has based all his policies and practices on being “local and national” for more than two decades, and won the elections with this?
What does it mean to open the game with American economist Jeremy Rifkin (JR) for presidential candidate CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the CHP, and members of the “6+1” opposition bloc, which will now evolve into secondary players?
Presenting to Turkish voters a foreign identity, with whom you obviously have professional relations, whose “knowledge and ideas” do not belong to you, before and above a committee of 70 people that certainly includes valuable names, is a serious campaign mistake. (This claim has nothing to do with Advisor JR’s statements/arguments. That is the dangerous part of the matter, and we will get to it eventually.)
If communication/PR/advertising/propaganda experts mentioned this proposal in their morning meeting, they would be out of the job before they know it. But there are also those who say, “they were made to mention it.” This is no “brand” marketing!
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In his speech, Rifkin based his scientific data on a global dream. He drew a template of the “future world.” He claimed that his projections are not in the long term, and implicitly warned that the requirements need to be fulfilled now.
What did the CHP elites, who listened to this “global dream” from the front row, and whom we assume is aware of today’s global reality, think?
There is no doubt that there were those among the CHP who questioned the launch with the advisor. They surely hit the CHP leader’s “whatever anyone says” will. We will see when the time comes how much the voters will hit this will as well.
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Let’s get to the “dangerous” part.
As it does not matter for an “acute mass” who governs Türkiye with whom and how, Advisor JR’s “science” is sanctified.
Someone who works in the fields JR mentioned, an ordinary faculty at an ordinary university in Türkiye has a much knowledge. Academics who focus on, gain expertise on autonomous robots, the internet of objects, cloud technologies, increased reality, artificial intelligence, chips, climate, clean energy, as well as some journalists, are well versed on the details – and even more – on these subjects. Rifkin is not saying anything new or making a discovery. He is explaining a “known”, and in fact, a popular model that is discussed worldwide and in Türkiye.
This is where the drama begins. If JR’s presentation stirred excitement and an innovation celebration among the CHP elites and that blind mass, it is because they are the ones who have no clue about the matters in question.
Worse yet, every one of these topics is heavily disputed both academically and politically.
There are grave doubts about their reality, whether the conditions for their implementation exist, and lastly, “what it will serve.” These are not matters that can simply be accepted because “Advisor JR said so,” that can be fitted to a country like Türkiye by the CHP and its partners.
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For example, the U.K. and Egypt presented a joint report at the 27th UN Climate Summit held in early November in Egypt. According to this report, poor countries need to spend $2 trillion annually in order to move away from fossil fuels, invest in renewable energy and low-carbon technologies, and deal with the effects of the climate. As much as $2 trillion per year! For at least 8-10 years. Now consider this with today’s world economic/political reality? There is no such money and nobody who will give it.
So, you are going to come to Türkiye, a country that grew even during the years of economic tribulation, and needs more energy every year, shut down Turkish scholars’ objections along the lines of, “they ruined the world as they developed, it’s not our fault, yet now they are trying to make us clean up this mess,” camouflage scientific complications with “vision,” and fool Türkiye with it?
If you put into practice the headlines in JR’s speech during the election campaign or when you come to power “without question," you will become a country that is striving to live with the comatose neo-liberalism strangeness, drowning in the money it borrowed from the West, and completely lost all the gains it made.
These “sacred headlines” will essentially become a government program as the “new world’s, the renewed super powers’ new exploitation/capitalism models,” as the destination signaled to Türkiye through the process that started with U.S. and U.K. visits.
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It is not like the CHP will listen to us. It does not even listen to its voters. I am citing the 1963 passage below in hopes that they might perhaps “listen to İsmet İnönü.”
“Everybody is talking about the same thing. ‘How will I do this?’ I will make a decision, and then pass the task on to the technicians. They will carry out detailed studies, and prepare proposals. Can they do this? They are all surrounded by foreigners called experts. They are trying to seduce. If they can’t do that, they will try to impede. If that fails as well, they will take countermeasures. I give them a task, and Washington hears about it before I receive the result. I hear the result from the envoy before I hear it from the civil servants. This is how it is. They will promise you the world in a prophetic manner. When you sign that deal, they will come the next day without wasting any time. Their personnel, equipment, and base will all arrive. Then remove them it if you can. They will not leave. We need to focus on this question before it’s too late. Otherwise, you will have no independent foreign policy or independent domestic policy to pursue. You will find yourself beating the air. But don’t think this is an easy task. Who knows what you will face when you try.”
