Can there be community without a constitution? Whether oral or written, every community has a constitution that is prepared with the consensus of all factions. How can a community that has made history, changed the trajectory of history, and built great civilizations be unable to develop its own constitution?
This is a perfect depiction of Turkey. A country that is unable to write its own constitution.
It is a tragicomic country that has adopted a foreign constitution, a foreign history, a foreign culture and identity that was imposed on it; a country that denies its own identity! A living corpse with no land, no direction, no soul or horizon! A no-country that lacks an identity, roots, a soul, to the extent that it is dragged into any direction the wind blows!
I would like to share with you a section from my article published in this week’s Gerçek Hayat magazine, to serve as an introduction to the philosophy of law and constitution-related articles.
Turkey is a country sans a history and misfortunate country!
It has no horizon and is a hopeless case!
The children of a country that made history-changing breakthroughs have been dragged by rough winds for the last two centuries, but they aren’t even aware of what hit them!
The only community in the world that does not know what hit it, that has no idea how it was dragged to the verge of annihilation, and was made to admire its executor is this one!
This community was brought into line with three prolonged methods; it was not invaded from abroad, it was invaded mentally, from within.
The first was achieved through various constitutions.
The second was achieved through media.
The third through military coups.
Constitutions were enforced in this country with the objective to ensure the legal legitimization of coups. The people and their will were attacked with a coup for the sake of saving the regime!
Turkey’s constitutions are pro-coup. Putschists draw their power from the constitution. Thus, when putschist generals made speeches, they have always been able to say that they used the authority afforded to them by the constitution to conduct that very coup in order to protect the regime from danger. What does this mean?
It is taking the people for fools.
Military coups have been applauded and legitimized by the media. Hence, media has played its role as the sultan’s household troops!
The constitution is a communal agreement, and this community failed to develop one. Constitutions that were drawn up based on laws imported from France, from Switzerland, from fascist Italy and from Germany were imposed on this community.
They still want to prevent this community from developing a constitution! This is also one of the reasons underlying the centuries-old problems for which you have been at each other’s throats, which have become gangrenous, as well as the internal and external sieges!
There is no linear connection in Turkey between the constitution and Islam. On the contrary, there is an inverse relationship or a lack of relationship.
For example, even using the terms “constitution” and “Islam” in the same sentence is sufficient to make anxious some neanderthal-like, pitiful people who have become foreigners to every aspect of this country!
Are these people aware that they have once more postponed the main problem in Turkey, what Turkey could do with Islam, why we brush off and undermine Islam, why we are fighting to distance it from the state and the people’s life, and what postponing this problem will cost this country?
Yet, if we are not going to discuss it now – at a time when a new constitution is being developed – the problem regarding the lack of a relationship between the constitution and Islam, between Turkey and Islam, and why the relationship was severed, when will we do it?
Severing the constitution from Islam was partially successful, but efforts to disassociate the community with Islam backfired.
This community did not forget it’s Muslim values, and when it realized Islam was being detached from all areas of life in this country at a speed impossible to be achieved by the colonialist West, it put an end to this. But the significance and efficacy of this intervention is questionable.
However, what is certain is that this community was taken over from within and efforts were made to detach it from Islam by way of constitutions: The headscarf ban was the most terrible, despicable, primitive example of this. A country could not have tortured its own children any more!
This is impossible to understand or accept. A community makes its own constitution in accordance with its individual beliefs, its understanding of the world and life, meaning maps and practices. Anything else is oppressive and would prevent the country from developing.
Turkey first removed Islam and Islamic claims from its constitution; now they are trying to turn this community into an unidentifiable, strange caricature of the West by making it give up Islamic claims.
This cannot go on like this! This community must draw up its own constitution based on its own values, spiritual roots, and priorities. It must not make any concessions in this regard. This is a critical matter concerning Turkey’s independence, its fight for independence and the future. If this community loses Islam, its existence will be endangered. Islam is this community’s soul: It is its history, legacy, depth, past and future.
