“Kandils are the times for equality, unity and solidarity – Anti-capitalist Muslims,” this banner reads.
Kandil refers to the celebration of one of the five Islamic holy nights. While Erdoğan was accusing the protestors to be drinking beer and having some kind of a youth festival, anti-capitalist Muslims who were against the Taksim project from the very early on, wanted to give their support to the protestors. It was an interesting thing to witness. Socialists and communists were creating space for the members of the Anti-capitalist Muslims to perform a public prayer in the square. Clearly,the Taksim protests were not about secular vs. religious.
Kafila, June 24, 2013.
This guest post by TAMER SÖYLER is the second of a three-part series on Istanbul’s Taksim Square protests for Kafila.
The first part of this commentary argued that as a part of his political strategy early Erdoğan had embraced a kaleidoscopic approach in governance by including various perspectives coming from citizens situated in different milieus. Erdoğan had given the impression to the citizens that his government was willing to hear the views of the citizens situated in all kinds of milieus. A simple strategy of inclusion proved to be extremely efficient for Erdoğan. Citizens who were not ideologically close to Erdoğan were quick to feel flattered by the symbolic gesture and did not hesitate to support Erdoğan.
Late Erdoğan, on the other hand, has become increasingly authoritarian. Many were surprised and disappointed by Erdoğan’s seemingly sharp turn. Erdoğan supporters justified the Prime Minister’s transformation as a manifestation of his willingness “to do great things in a short period of time.” And if he wanted to “get things done” he could have not spent half of his time smoothing ruffled feathers and trying to convince those who argue against his great projects. Erdoğan’s willingness to embrace authoritarianism in case of need have brought to the minds of the citizens serious questions about Erdoğan’s “sincerity”. While early Erdoğan was committed to the idea of participatory democracy late Erdoğan is perceived to regard polyphonic democracy an exercise in futility.
According to the Prime Minister, there are mainly two groups in Turkey that would dare to criticize his projects: The narcissistic liberal milieus whose pride needed to be flattered every now and then and the traditional oppositional milieus that comprise a colorful coalition of people who were ideologically against him. For the last decade Erdoğan has been quite successful at embedding the liberal milieus in a larger amalgam of conservative milieus. As it will be argued in the following sections, Erdoğan dealt with the oppositional milieus by stigmatizing them in the popular consciousness. Simply put, the former was a group of westernized cosmopolitan urban bourgeoisie and the people have been tired of laying it on thickly to please the privileged. And as far as the latter is concerned, suffice it to say that Erdoğan as a young student engaged in politics by joining “anti-communist action” groups.
Erdoğan’s logic is simple. He had enough of playing the card of inclusive politics. What is the use of, he thinks, wasting time with dialectical politics, kaleidoscopic and polyphonic approaches if these approaches satisfy no one but the “narcissists” (liberals), “communists” (a broad spectrum of leftist groups), “fascists” (secularists) and “separatists” (Kurdish dissidents). In the light of these facts that would be extremely naïve to regard Erdoğan’s turn to politics of piety as a random phenomenon. Erdoğan is trying to strengthen his hand on the eve of election season. He knows that without the support of at least one of the oppositional groups (for long this has been the liberals) he cannot lead the country into a presidential system and become the first charismatic president of the country. As it was argued in the first part of this commentary falling back upon politics of piety shows how desperate Erdoğan is. By alienating the liberals he killed the goose that lays him the golden eggs.
Against this background, the second part of the commentary will argue that Erdoğan is trying to exploit the social-structural tension between the central and peripheral milieus in order to polarize the society. Through this dispersion, not only he wants to justify his authoritarian practices and compensate for the loss of political support but also he aims to push forward his neoliberal Islamization and growth strategy. This is why Erdoğan will continue to drive a wedge between his supporters and opponents. His end game is to reconfigure the constellation so that he could make use of the ancient trick of “you are either with us or against us!” fallacy.
Polarizing society is a dangerous game to play. Erdoğan may successfully set the ground for a US type presidential system by forcing bystanders to align with one side or the other. There is a huge risk, however, even for a bold politician like Erdoğan. As is the case in India and many countries in the global South, the people of Turkey predominantly continue to live in family settings. In a fairly large household, there are individuals who might have sympathy for different strands of political thought. These individuals might not always have the chance to express themselves as they like. The lack of democracy in the family setting, however, does not change the fact that differences of opinion do exist within one family. Erdoğan’s polarization strategy can already be observed to be creating tension at this primary level. Family members might not always have the liberty to discuss political issues with their elders, but as soon as they are out on the streets they encounter their neighbors and other parties. Tension immediately turns into a confrontation.
Turkey has a vivid memory of the military coups which succeeded similar unrests on the streets. Erdoğan is giving the impression that he is trying to take advantage of this undemocratic past. The social scientific surveys that he reads everyday must clearly state that in today’s Turkey virtually no one expects a military intervention. On the contrary, the protestors were frustrated when they have seen gendarmerie units on the streets ready to assist the police. The point is more about the scale of the unrest. If the unrest happened three decades ago, military intervention would have been inevitable. All of these points aim to highlight the fact that unless the underpinning issues are understood and addressed analytically, it is difficult to make sense of the unrest in Turkey.
Structural center-periphery tension
For the last decade Erdoğan has developed a habit of referring to the milieus supporting the main opposition party (Republican People’s Party: CHP) as “the white Turks”. For the sake of clarity, according to Erdoğan’s classification, CHP constitutes the “fascist” segment of the oppositional milieus. As in Turkey different groups like to call each other “fascist” every now and then, the word hardly means anything. According to Erdoğan’s conception, “white Turks” are urban westernized secular elites “who look down on their own people.” Among the oppositional milieus secularists are the most populous; and liberal milieus do not really have the habit of protesting against anything; therefore Erdoğan tends to interpret any large demonstration of dissent as a direct result of “CHP mentality”. The CHP clique, the Prime Minister thinks, has always been a threat to the law and order in Turkey.
“Everything is free in the park,” the poster reads. The occupation of the park at the beginning was purely political. There were serious environmentalist concerns. This was a politically informed core group which led the movement. When thousands of people joined them the atmosphere turned a bit apolitical. This is at least how it was perceived by the core group. They wanted to react to this development. “Everything is free in the park” refers to food stalls. They wanted to underline that this is a political zone, not a music festival.
“White Turks vs. The People” is Erdoğan’s favorite categorization and is quickly adopted by most of the Western media as a self-evident categorization. This is partly because, from the perspective of Western countries that have large numbers of migrants from Turkey (e.g. Germany), the situation of peripheral milieus in Turkey can be likened to that of the migrants. If the central milieus in general and white Turks in particular are bothered with the march of the peripheral milieus, the governments of these countries can justify their policies towards the Turkish migrants. The image of Erdoğan who rejects integrating to the core, symbolically exploited to be representing the statuses of the Turkish migrants in these countries. From different perspectives, it appears that both need to be controlled. These are of course bold claims to make this commentary do no more than block in the outlines. There would be many things to add. From the present point of view, the commentary serves the purpose of highlighting issues that are ignored by the mainstream media. Couple of other motifs needs developing now.
Depending on one’s liking there could be several other ways to conceptualize the everlasting societal tension in Turkey. The first two classifications that spring to mind are “Seculars vs. The Pious” and “Westernized vs. Traditionalists”. Such categorizations can be constructed by realigning milieus on the meta-level to inform partisan political convictions. From this point of view, concepts are hardly value-free and they aim not more than a superficial political window dressing. Substantive social-structural matters cannot be addressed this way. At the same time, it must be borne in mind that no error could persist unless it contained a grain of truth. While the reality is much more complex there is some truth to each of these categorizations: There has always been a fundamental tension between at least two large groups of milieus in the field of politics in Turkey. When one puts the idiosyncrasies aside, the societal tension can be best understood analytically in terms of center-periphery relations.
The doyen of sociology practice in Turkey, Şerif Mardin, has applied the theory of center-periphery to the Turkish case. Simply put, the theory suggests that every society is supposed to have a core surrounded by a larger periphery. One’s status in a society can be best defined according to one’s belonging to the core. Against this background, it could be argued that Erdoğan regards CHP as a political party which represents the milieus that have been historically occupying the core. The Prime Minister may or may not be right about the “whiteness” of CHP. In any case, there is a small group of urban elites in Turkey that have been firmly located in the core and successfully maintained their societal positions throughout the history of the modern Republic. Governments have changed but the elites have successfully kept their advantageous positions. Although they were a minority, they were unconditionally supported by the secular Turkish military. It is possible to argue that without the military support, aforementioned elites could have not controlled the political field.
“We don’t owe anyone, the state or the men, any children – Socialist Feminist Collective”This refers to the Prime Minister’s persistent interventions on gender issues. Abortion was a key issue in Turkish politics today, and Erdoğan has been promoting the idea that every Turkish woman should have three kids.
May all of this be true, Erdoğan’s narration has come to an inevitable end. In the present configuration, the military is no more a stakeholder in the regime. With the support from the liberal milieus, and through a set of quite controversial prosecution processes, Erdoğan was able to push the military out of the equation. The two forces against “the people” Erdoğan thinks (the politicized military and the CHP clique) are now pacified. Erdoğan can no more convince anyone with his white Turk scenario. If it is about whiteness, having one of the greatest personal fortunes among the world leaders, Erdoğan should appear to common people as snow white. Erdoğan persists to go on with this narration to be able to continue his big march into the heart of the core. This could be best understood with a set of examples from everyday life.
As the peripheral milieus have moved from rural areas to the cities, they have started to claim the space. Although it is easy to exaggerate the importance of this shift, it could be argued to some extent that until the new configuration is settled there will continue to be a tension among the different milieus in cosmopolitan cities such as İstanbul. Since Erdoğan’s “White Turks vs. The People” dichotomy ceased to be convincing even for his own supporters, he is now trying to magnify potentially contentious everyday matters he personally cherry-picks: It is sometimes two young women wearing headscarves in an upper-class neighborhood who are harassed by the residents for their piety, and sometimes one of Erdoğan’s distant relatives (identity unrevealed) is attacked by a mob of secularists. It is an interesting coincidence that in these stories the protagonists are always women with headscarves. It is, for example, never a man with a clerical outfit wandering around in an upper-class neighborhood and harassed by secular people. As Erdoğan benefits from the mystery around these self-narrated stories, the public never gets to know about the identities of the protagonists (together with other details). Therefore, none of the cases the Prime Minister refers to can be verified as events. Erdoğan pretends to be affronted by telling these stories so that he can inwardly be pleased of pursuing his agenda of polarization. After all he is now sailing under false colors and this is the only way to reach the final destination.
Clashes of taste
Make no mistake about it. There is no doubt a certain sense of nostalgia takes hold of the minds of the Istanbulites. After all differentiation from the newcomers (or even from the suburbanites) has always been an important part of the urban identity. Nevertheless, there is no reason to be emotional about this structural shift. Struggle for distinction is not exclusively a Turkish phenomenon. Readers can think of examples of their own. The author made similar observations in other cosmopolitan cities of the world that he had the chance to visit. New Yorkers, for example, immediately realize from one’s accent, one’s outfit and one’s way of being that one is not from New York (but from another state in the US). Similarly, senior residents of Mumbai who lived in a very different Mumbai some years ago might like to compare their own Mumbai with the present altered Mumbai. In São Paulo even as a tourist one quickly registers the difference between Paulistanos (São Paulo residents) and Paulistas (commuters from suburbs and surrounding regions). Therefore, it is important to understand that unlike Erdoğan suggests, there is no singularity in the Turkish case of clash between central and peripheral milieus. The fact that discrimination exists in other parts of the world does not make it better. But it does underline the necessity of translating emotional truth into an analytical one.
“Humor is the laughter of resistance”Some protestors were quite upset with the violence from some of the protestors and also the police. They thought a non-violent protest could be done best with humor. There were amazing examples of satire in this period. Erdogan is known to be intolerant to caricature.
Erdoğan’s dichotomies are carefully structured in relation to surface-level phenomena and they target at misleading the public opinion. To put it even more bluntly, even if every single person in Turkey was as “black”, as traditionalist and as pious as Erdoğan claims to be, there would still be a clash of cultures between different milieus. Erdoğan claims to know sociology but he does not seem to be aware of basic sociological concepts. Erdoğan’s anger and frustration could be best understood in relation to his reluctance to acknowledge basic tenets of sociology. Peripheral milieus may accumulate financial or political capital within one generation. Erdoğan is a great example and a role model for those who aim high in a capitalist order. But it will surely take couple generations to build social capital.
In plain words, political or financial power cannot buy culture. This could only mean one thing: Erdoğan will have to continue to grin and bear those whom he categorizes as “monşerler” (French: mon cher). This is not an easy task but this is really how it is done even in countries where a revolution transformed the configuration drastically. The Prime Minister is not known for his diplomatic skills. He can continue to mock those with social capital and caricaturize them with his vivid imagination to be smoking cigars and drinking whisky everyday but he has to work with them. No matter how hard the nouveau riche tries, they need generations to build the necessarily social capital. These are hard facts to digest for a stubborn and proud personality like Erdoğan.
Against this background, it will be obvious to the reader that the Prime Minister is ploughing the sand by trying to redeem the rogue elites who refuse to see formerly peripheral masses as their equals. He should not really bother. This is self-evident for everyone. But the Prime Minister persists to draw on a set of rhetorical devices to reinvent self-evident facts for utilizing them for his demagogy. Erdoğan is an experienced and perhaps the most successful politician Turkey has ever seen. It is up to him to decide whether or not he wants to turn into a demagogue who preys upon people’s fears and prejudices. His opponents have already given up all their hopes that they can get their messages to Erdoğan. But his supporters do expect from Erdoğan to uplift the country to a full-fledged democracy. The Prime Minister seems to prefer these days to go around in circles.
Erdoğan’s adaptation of recreational demagogic activities is indeed an important topic to tackle. However, a more important question to ask is whether or not and to what extent Erdoğan is willing to lead the peripheral culture to embrace the highbrow culture. The question may be regarded as a rhetorical one at least for two reasons. First, the clash between the peripheral and central cultures allows Erdoğan to exploit the rhetoric that the secular elites of the core continue to look down on him and “his” people. There are, therefore, no practical benefits for Erdoğan to promote the integration of the two. Second, people move to cosmopolitan cities not only to “make money” but also for “making it socially”. They move for seeking a better life. And culture constitutes an important part of good life. Therefore, highbrow culture of the core may gradually be altered but it is definitely there to stay. It is beyond Erdoğan’s power to decide how formerly peripheral milieus adapt themselves to the lifestyles of the core.
This does not mean that the highbrow culture of the urban core is waiting with arms wide open for the peripheral lowbrow culture to claim the space. Therefore, from the perspective of the everyday life of urban social milieus, the struggle will continue. A good number of the secular educated urban social milieus continue to feel that they are not only imprisoned in their neighborhoods but also besieged. It is true that there is a certain sense of elitism at play here. But one should not miss the nuance and try to see the bigger picture. As opposed to what Erdoğan keeps on claiming, urban milieus are not bothered by the presence of peripheral newcomers. After all in their large families everybody in the core has relatives in the periphery. There is distinction but not necessarily class disgust. They are bothered primarily by the government’s neoliberal hand altering their city. In Part III with substantial examples this point will be developed. For now suffice it to say that more and more people in Turkey speculate that a slightest sign of dissent sends the Prime Minister on a rampage simply because he is keeping his cards close to his vest. They think it is entirely possible that a neo-liberal hokey-pokey is what Erdoğan is all about.
(Tamer Söyler is a PhD candidate and a guest lecturer at the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Humboldt University in Berlin. He was born in Turkey and lived most of his life in Istanbul. He studied at the Jawaharlal Nehru University for a semester and has often visited India.)
This graffiti in Turkish reads, “Kandils are the times for equality, unity and solidarity. – Anti-capitalist Muslims.” Kandil refers to the celebration of one of the five Islamic holy nights. While Erdoğan was accusing the protestors to be drinking beer and having some kind of a youth festival, anti-capitalist Muslims who were against the Taksim project from the very early on, wanted to give their support to the protestors. It was an interesting thing to witness. Socialists and communists were creating space for the members of the Anticapitalist Muslims to perform a public prayer in the square. This is evidence enough that the protests are not about the secular vs. the religious.
Related posts:
- Can late Erdoğan learn from early Erdoğan?: Tamer Söyler
- A Turkish Spring? Over 1,000 Injured as Anti-Government Protests Spread Outside of Istanbul
- The Jamhuriyat Road to Taksim Square: Shilpi Suneja
- More than Meets the Eye. Emerging Dynamics in the Turkish-PKK Peace Process
- War and Peace in Turkey: From the attack on Syria’s border to the PKK’s retreat
