Chronic Disease of Turkish Political Parties

   A lot of academicians, politicians, writers and ordinary citizens think that the process of making a new constitutiton for Turkey has ended up with failure. Even though there are still some people who are optimistic for this situation. I can’t foresee whether this process will end up successfully or not, but it is not  very surprising that Turkish political parties can’t come to terms for Turkey’s this essential problem. It is very obvious that for solving Turkey’s chronic problems in a cooperative way, parties are generally unsuccesfull.

    The five effective party which has an important impact on Turkey’s political system have some common wrong policies. Basically, parties in a democratic country should serve for an essential purpose; ‘’they should represent the different  groups in a country and meet these groups’ logical demands, should devolope the solidarity between these groups and should find a middle ground for disputes between these groups.’’Unfortunately as the other states in the World , Turkey’s political parties generally can’t achieve this aim. Maybe my expectations about political parties in Turkey are very idealistic but I believe that at least they can make an effort to make real these targets.

     If Turkish parties have the principles and policies to make real these targets, they can contribute to development of democracy, equality and solidarity in Turkey. Also by doing this, they can build a common foreign policy attitude, so they can have more strong voice in the international system. Also by reaching common grounds for disputes among them, they can transfer their energy, time and money to economic and technical devolopments . Actually, the worst part is that the polarization and high tension between political parties reflect the party bases and this problem can lead to even a civil war. What I intend to say is that the high tensions, unsolvable problems and polarization among Turkish political parties is really harmful for Turkey’s profits and future.

      Unfortunately, the dose of tension among Turkish political parties is almost constantly very high. Turkish Parties generally  make propagandas to the detriment of other parties(especially  against ruling party). They generally try to show other parties as big threats for Turkey’s profits. Even they often declare other parties or politicians as traitors. I determine some reasons for Turkish parties’ these devastating attitudes:

      Firstly; sometimes some parties put their parties’ profits in front of Turkey’s profits. Actually, parties should be seen as means to serve for our country. However,parties can be seen as  the main purpose by some party members. Sometimes parties take decisions which are suitable for their party’s profit but not for Turkey’s. They generally do this for not to capitulate from their principles and policies(even though this decision damage the Turkey’s goodness).

      Also, I think that there are some taboos of Turkish political parties. Breaking down their prejudices is very difficult for them.They are generally eager to make politics over their diversities. They don’t want to see their common sides. Basically,they do this to stay alive. Because,If they leave their lines, their party ıdentifications can decline. I mean,every party starts its political life with an ideology and if it move away from its ideology and party ID, it can lose its party base and a party which don’t have a strong party base can’t survive. Even though they don’t want to lose their party bases, for some parties the size of their party base can not be enough for being the party in power .For today’s Turkey median voter theorem is valid.The reason why AKP still is  the party in power can be explained by this theorem besides some other explanations.

    I can mention about some other reasons why the Turkish parties don’t implement constructive policies. I think Turkey’s political culture which comes from old times is also effective for this situation. Lastly,I believe that politicians and party bases don’t try to do self criticism for their parties.The culture of construcrive criticism among parties and within parties is really weak in Turkey. At this point,I believe that parties should encourage their members, party bases and opposition groups to criticise constructivelly.

      If parties want to develop our country in every area, they should firstly learn how to reach political consensus.They should try to increase collaboration among them.If they don’t, we will have to wait for a long time to have a new civil constitution, to reach an end for resolution process and for other democratization processes…

                                                                                                                                  Zehra Nur Düz

                                                                                                                                 

       

Comment on The Film Of Al-Midan/The Square/Meydan

    The film of Al Midan is a good work in terms of explaining the pre revolution term and revolution process.However on  explaining  the after revolution term, it is really not objective.

     If we consider the protests ,which took place different region’s of Egypt in 2011,aiming primarily ousting Mübarek,we can see that a lot of different groups which are Egyptians were all together.Salafi,secular,islamist,Christian and all other groups came together to provide a better future for their children. Until Mübarek was overthrowned, different groups generally achieved to find a middle ground by ignoring their differences.Thanks to all differnet groups’ sacrifices and blood they reached their prior aim, resigning of Hosni Mubarak.

      After resigning of Mubarak, most of protesters leaved from square. However, leaving Mubarak’s was only a deceptive iniciative of regime. Military government took power and they continued govern country with same constitution, same policies and same attitudes against public.Some conscious protesters understood that leaving square after resigning Mubarak was a strategical fault.They should have not leaved the square until they provide fundamental changes in constitution,institutions and mentality of management group.They understood that actually with leaving of Mubarak nothing was changed. Before army seized power, public respected to army. Even some groups thought that they achieved revolution’s aim thanks to army.Because during revolution army did not took side beside regime.

     However after took power army lost its repetition.Same violence,human rights abuse etc.,like regime’s ,was performing by military regime. A group of protesters started to inform public about this thread. They said that military regime is not different from Mubarak’s regime, they are using violence againts protesters, corruption is common among military leaders, they don’t care about Egyptian’s happiness etc.Protests against military regime has started.Along this process, hostility against Muslim Brotherhood has increased among some groups.The reasons of these anti-Muslim Brotherhood groups for being against İhvan were that they thought that Muslim Brotherhood betrayed to revolution because they cooperated with military regime.They embraced the revolution and ignored other protesters after regime was overthrowned.They used revolution as an tool for seizing power.

     I think the punch line was this separation among revolutionaries.Egyptians took the road by ignoring their all differences and achieved their goals by solidarity among themselves.The only thing that brought them these achievements was unity,togetherness of them.However after Mubarak’s leaving this solidarity gave place to separations, grudge and hate.Being an islamist party of Muslim Brotherhood was thought as an thread to Egypt.By focusing on these kind of fake threads, likeMuslim Brotherhood will bring to country sharia, Egyptians forgot the main thread and ignored their real,common thread.The real thread for all Egyptians was actually illegitimate military regime which took power without elections.

    I believe that Muslim Brotherhood opposition  was used both by military regime and external Powers for strenghtening the military’s role in Egypt’s politics. Stiring up trouble to revolution’s unity was only way to stop the awakening. Maybe it can be thougt as conspiracy theory, but this is impossible to think that external powers did not an actor in this critical term of Egypt.

    I think it is impossible to put protests for turning over Muslim Brotherhood in the same equation with protest which are against Mubarak’s regime and military regime.For this situation we are talking about a legitimate government came with public’s vote.There were some protesters who think Muslim Brotherhood government as more dangerous than Mubarak’s regime.The men with whom they counteract arm in arm against Mubarek’s regime was be seen as primary enemies  for this time.

    After the coup d’etat which overthrown the Ihvan, this time Muslim Brotherhoods take their place in Tahrir square and the same army which opened fire on anti-İhvan protesters, opened fire on Muslim Brotherhoods supporters.

     In sum ,Egypt was in a vicious circle.They came to same point, the same point with before January 25 Revolution.The results were thousands of deaths, casualties and wounded people.The worst part of this vicious circle was  that rising again the seperations among people.Moreover, this time these seperations were so deep.Even both sides, supporters of Ihvan and anti-İhvan, can be seen as responsible for their killings.

    By the way we should never ignore the wrong approaches of politicians which polarize the society.If Ihvan follow a more cooperative policy toward opposition groups and vice versa, the situation may be more recoverable.