Ahmet Özcan
First Publication: haber10.com – 2010
In the 1960s, former President Celal Bayar, a doyen of right-wing politics at the time, said in a statement, ‘This winter, Communism will come to power.’ In those years when left-wing movements were on the rise, it’s possible that Bayar wanted to intimidate some circles, and to ‘intimidate’ some others with this intimidation effort.
Fear… is the most convenient instrument of Turkish politics. Especially those in power have often adopted frightening one another, their rivals, most of the time the public, and sometimes if they can manage it, the foreign powers they consider allies, as an easy method to achieve what they want. Because frightening works very well.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the most widespread fear was ‘reactionism (irtica).’ Since there was no real effort to revive the Ottoman Empire, reactionism (irtica) that representing regression, was left to caricature-like Ticani-type religious orders. And of course, ah, the Menemen Incident. The reactionaries (mürteciler)… Beheaded a ‘progressive and enlightened officer’! Fortunately, the One-Party fascism, thanks to the partisans it strengthened and enriched through the chains of domination and prosperity it established in the unrivalled struggles, did not give way to this ‘reactionary (irticacı)’ force (!)
The 1950s were the years in which the alliance with Anglo-Saxon power (the USA–UK) in the new world order was taken to an advanced level. Türkiye would join NATO. But a reason was needed. Perhaps the first scheme of the Cold War’s negotiated arrangement is played out: In exchange for controlled growth against Germany and Japan, Stalin, who withdrew Socialism from its claim to world revolution that is, from the struggle against capitalism, whispers to the British that USSR has demands regarding Kars, Ardahan, and the Straits. The then-foreign minister readily embraced this rumor, and an intensive propaganda campaign was launched against the alleged Russian threat. Fortunately, the system’s National Chief, İsmet İnönü, and the general staff under his control were more than ready for this. A kind of consensus was reached: yes, Russia had set its sights on Türkiye, was demanding territory, and was trying to gain a say over the Straits. It was even making plans to occupy Türkiye. And the Soviet threat became the pretext for Türkiye’s heroic plunge into the Korean War. Then, thanks to this heroism, Türkiye ‘qualified’ to be a member NATO!
Toward the end of the 1950s, fears surrounding Menderes circulated. Claims spread that the Democrat Party administration fed youths to dogs, carried out unimaginable tortures, would restore the ‘Caliphate,’ and so on. Thanks to adoption of these fears, the May 27 coup of 1960 was carried out.
The 1960s and 1970s were precisely the years of the most terrifying and imminent danger, as Celal Bayar so succinctly expressed it; ‘This winter, communism will come to power.’ Youths were armed. They were pitted against one another. Thousands of people were slaughtered. Türkiye was brought ‘to the edge of the abyss’! Fortunately, on September 12, 1980, the Turkish Armed Forces, relying on the Internal Service Law, pulled the country back from the brink. They seized control. And after the 1980s, a short period without fear was experienced.
But unfortunately, this did not last long. Crisis management, when there was no crisis, began to show signs of exhaustion, and hiding the two-hundred-year-long devout submission to the Anglo-Saxon world became difficult. The Iranian Revolution had occurred, and an important ally of the Anglo-Saxon front in the Middle East had switched sides. Then, to reinforce submission, fear had to be reactivated. Finally, reactionism (irtica) began to rise again. Iran would export the revolution. At the same time, PKK attacks began. Parallel to Özal’s moves to open the economy to the outside in line with this game, the period of keeping internal peace under control ended with Özal’s death in the 1990s. And two major revived sources of fear, reactionism (irtica) and separatism (bölücülük), reached their peak. Some even exaggerated things further, spreading claims that Islamists and separatists (PKK) were secretly allied, that most leading Islamists were Kurdish, and that the country was slipping away. And as always, fear worked once again. The fight against terror was expanded. Then it was reactionism’s (irtica) turn, and that too was dealt with through February 28. Fears, once again, had done their job. Türkiye was now ready for the new projects of the camp to which it had surrendered.
At the beginning of the 2000s, an economic crisis that was clearly entirely the result of external manipulation was experienced. This was followed by the farcical incompetence of a three-party coalition government. Everything was now ready for a new ‘savior.’ Elections are held, and perhaps a party that the most necessary and essential product of political history, comes to power. The post–September 11 world was being reshaped. Or rather, everyone had memorized this cliché. The new fears are ‘a bigger economic crisis’ and ‘being divided like Iraq’. ‘To be subjected to a devastating Istanbul earthquake ‘attack’ with state-of-the-art earthquake generators.’ ‘As the new world order takes shape, Türkiye is in danger of being left out and transformed into one of the third-world countries.’
The varieties of fear are now more numerous and more complex. The most important difference from the previous ones is that these new forms of fear are directed less at the public and more at rulers and intellectuals. Indeed, these people were already more than ready to be afraid and surrender.
The mind of the state elite has not been able to overcome the trauma of the Ottoman collapse. It has memorized Lausanne not as a breathing space but as a final line of retreat. For this reason, it is extremely sensitive to falling behind these borders and behind the content of this agreement that is, to illusory division (bölücülük) and reactionism (irtica). The tendency to view what remained in hand as the final limit is the root cause of all other politics. This perspective has produced a mode of thinking that is extremely reflexive and dynamic in defense, but myopic and cowardly when it comes to thinking beyond that. Unfortunately, our elite has been conditioned to think of itself not as the authority entrusted by the nation, but as a custodian for those who rented them the key. They interpret every important development by trying to read the gestures of the powers they see as the owners of that key. The technique of perceiving and solving problems has been the same since Abdulhamid II; ‘setting a thief to catch a thief,’ both outside and inside; if Germany is rising, lean on it against England; if Russia is approaching, turn to England and build defenses against Russia. If the left is rising, polish the right; if Islamism is rising, polish secularism. Fear has caused the political elite to be ‘masterful at short passes in a confined space,’ but ineffective in the big game on the full field.
The deep ties with the Anglo-Saxon front, lasting for over two hundred years—even since the time of Suleiman the Magnificent—have transformed over time into dependence, gradually into submission, and now into an almost faith-level, passionate identification. Issues have come to be handled not through the rational measurements of the political level, but through fine realpolitik calculations fed by deep fears. The desire for growth is restrained by economic inadequacy, and apart from snatching methods, no fundamental steps can be taken for economic advancement. The agenda of becoming a nationhood causes anxiety, but in the face of the reality that becoming a nationhood cannot be fully realized without growth, a retreat is made. Yet growth is an economic phenomenon. This tautology causes the political elite to be suffocated within current developments and to become thoroughly sterile. And it has never been seen that obsolete characters can remain elites. Türkiye’s political elites, together with their fears, have put the country into a process with an uncertain end. And they have no plans for the future. If the approach that can be summarized as ‘let’s not draw too much attention until the new world order settles in a way that harms us the least’ is not a plan, then this is the case. This means that we are now living inside others’ plans. Perhaps for some time now, all our mental effort has been spent trying to decipher what those other plans are, analyzing them, and separating conspiracy from reality. Planning, even dreaming, has disappeared from our lexicon.
Now, for the sake of convenience, let us list those others’ most famous “fear-inducing” plans that are voiced here and there:
- Türkiye will inevitably be divided,
- The Kurds will definitively separate their fate from that of Turks and Arabs,
- A Greater Israel will be established; the west of Türkiye will be allocated to the EU, its east to Greater Israel,
- Iran and the Shiite world will come to terms with the West and Israel and take on a neo-Safavid mission,
- Türkiye will be deceived with new Ottoman and “moderate Islam” projects, first inflated like a balloon and then fragmented,
- Istanbul, before and after a possible earthquake, will be completely handed over to global capital,
- Former non-Muslim neighborhoods will be revived and turned into ostensibly autonomous regions for trade, tourism, and culture,
- In Anatolia, regions with significant mineral and water resources will change hands through parceling at the level of ownership under pretexts such as agriculture, ancient civilizations, tourism, privatization, and so on,
- The so-called Islamist politicians who are kept in the spotlight during this period will later be removed from power, and the key will be handed back to their former owners, the crypto-converted ‘modernist Kemalists’ (that is, Western-oriented fascists),
- In 2010 or 2020, we will be living in a geography made up of canton-like micro-states such as Luxembourg, Monaco, Malta, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, each ruled by elites tied to different powers, apparently wealthy, but rotten underneath and filled with misery.
These frightening conspiracy theories or predictions can be multiplied.
Here are the new fear theories being developed for the next 10 years.
This is where a nation that did not fear even when the Ottoman Empire was invaded from all sides, fighting on seven fronts, when the state, in the hands of young cadres, even abandoned its capital and retreated into the interior of Anatolia to prepare for fight the enemy, when there was no money, no factories, no bread, no medicine left, has been brought. Like Pavlov’s experimental dog, frightened of something every decade and made to accept certain things, traded this way and that by the state it trusted, never lacking a pack of infidels humiliating it at the top who divide all the social surplus value among themselves, constantly on edge, unsure of its future, conditioned to survive on a pittance, forced to turn into a herd, Oh! great nation… Now they are frightening you again. They frighten you with franmentation of the homeland, with the return of reactionism (irtica), with an economic crisis. Some of those who spread fear appear anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, anti-American, yet in all their past there is a trace of Gladio. Those who speak of national unity divide the people through secularism, Atatürkism, and nationalism, effectively implementing Sèvres, and then turn to you and, pointing elsewhere, say, ‘Watch out, Sèvres is coming.’ Another group of fear-mongers frightens you by saying, ‘Don’t make a move, or an economic crisis will come,’ exploiting all spiritual values and sharing out the spoils of the winds on which they ride. Some so-called neo-left liberal intellectuals, whose intelligence levels are fixated on settling accounts with the imaginary state they’ve monstrously constructed in their minds, are also pumping out intellectual fears befitting their intelligence; they’re saying, ‘Look, the EU won’t accept us, don’t you dare object.’
The tax officer is trying to scare people by saying, I’ll issue more fines, I’ve written down this much tax for you, pay it without objection., traffic police say, you’ll get more fine, the mafia intimidates, retired soldiers intimidate, the despicable torture inflicted on Iraqi prisoners intimidates, the interruption of the EU process intimidates, fictional, unreal, imaginary powers invented as the secret state or deep state intimidate, metal storms, Illuminati, privatizations, missionary activity, the PKK, Barzani, Alevism, sectarian cadre-building, ethnicism, Kurdish nationalism, Turkish nationalism, the stock market falling, the dollar rising… heavy snowfall… everyone, and every level of intelligence, gets a few fears assigned to them. From the sum of all this, only one thing emerges: Do not go beyond the small lives and ways of thinking imposed on you. Do not strive for more, and do not entertain dangerous ambitions such as expanding, reuniting with the neighboring brotherly peoples of the past, or attempting to act on your own. Be afraid. Be more afraid. Be afraid of one another. Be afraid of the young. Be afraid of women with headscarves. Be afraid of Kurds; be afraid of becoming Turkified. Be afraid of minorities, be afraid of Armenians, of Syriacs. Be afraid of Barzani. Be afraid of the money in your pocket; be afraid of not earning; be afraid of not being able to buy better clothes, of not gaining access to more prestigious places, of not becoming famous, of not increasing your status, of not being promoted; be afraid of your neighbor, your sibling, your child. Be afraid of your own shadow. Fear shrinks you further. It turns you into insects. It turns you into a herd. It accustoms you to taking orders, to bowing, to internalizing and even defending slavery. Get used to living with your fears, they say. Whatever crosses our minds, we will blow it into your ears as a secret plan, a deep scenario, and we will find more things to frighten you with, they say. Just don’t trust one another; let everyone see someone else as a threat and act accordingly; never abandon your fear-based reflexes. Spring into action immediately with a news about bomb, an assassination, a newspaper headline, a TV program. Swear, attack, take a stand, insult. Keep speaking and living without thinking about the consequences, they say. When you see a word, a symbol, a phrase, a behavior that you have crossed out as an enemy, go after it immediately. They’re saying, without thinking, questioning, understanding, or listening, just hate and lynch.
They want to turn a nation that was not afraid when its population was 13 millions into a crippled mass, lacking self-confidence, hating itself and one another, afraid of its own shadow. This is the real conspiracy; this is the true scheme. This is the most dangerous trap set for these lands.
Yes, there are many dangers, critical thresholds, uncertainties, and conspiracy plans. The issue is what kind of social mindset we confront all this with and in what state of mind we perceive them. If we approach them with the reflexes of a fearful state of mind, the most unlikely thing will come true. One becomes, over time, part of even the most absurd plan. The issue is freeing ourselves from fears, learning not to be afraid, freeing ourselves from those who frighten. The point is to be able to look at the world, life, and death from above; to have faith only in God; to know only that the hereafter is eternal; and not to forget that only those who have faith will prevail. The point is to understand that all those who govern the country—with whiskey glasses, conversations about tender committees, secret, dark, covert, and clandestine relationships, and with money and power—are part of these evil plans, and that their alienation from their organic ties with the nation makes the country vulnerable to all kinds of foreign schemes. It is the matter of understanding that the state can be a state only if it is governed by organic cadres, and that the state must be rescued from the hands of all elites who have stepped outside their nation, their history, and human values. The issue is, truly, the empowerment of the nation.
All the other frightening plans and developments are mere nonsenses. No conspiracy, scenario, or game of history can harm a state and nation that is not afraid.
Mehmet Akif did not call out in vain at the opening of the National Anthem, …Fear not!
If we must fear something at all, let us fear those who try to frighten us.
Let us not forget that it is they who will inflict the real and lasting damage on this country and this nation.
Those who said, ‘This winter, communism will come to power,’ dragged us into civil wars in which thousands of our people were slaughtered and left us condemned, for fifty years, to a parade of incompetent opportunists. Instead of considering how we can unite with Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Romania, Pakistan, the Turkic Republics, and North Africa, and on what foundations we can build alliances, instead of discussing how we can speak with China, Russia, India, the American people, European societies, Latin America, and Japan on the basis of this unity and spread our values, instead of our parties, unions, and NGOs becoming divided and competing with each other on the basis of these goals, instead of our businessmen, youth, women, Islamists, leftists, nationalists, liberals, secularists, Alevis, Armenians, and Greeks emerging as various branches of this great march, we are constantly on alert, multiplying our fears by saying; Kurds, PKK, reactionism, secularism, republic, sect, identity, crisis, division. As fear increases, we shrink; as we shrink, we enlarge our fears. We speak every issue in the language of fear. We can understand one another only through this language. Let us now put an end to this.
If we are to fight, let us fight for our hopes, our dreams, our ideals. Let us struggle for more positive reasons. Let us not turn one another’s mistakes into pretexts for annihilation; let us see them as opportunities to develop methods of correction.
Let us not fear! Let us continue to trust this nation; let us believe in the blessing of the blood of the martyrs. This country, this nation, will not be divided; these lands will never become a haven of reactionism (irtica); the Muslim of this country is more modern than the most modernist, rest assured. The overwhelming majority of our Kurds are enemies of separatism; our Turks never harbor hostility toward Kurds; our Alevis and Sunnis, despite all manipulations, are brothers in religion and homeland. Our secular citizens, in the final analysis, are not against religion but against the exploitation of religion. Our problems are many, yes but our solutions are many as well. As long as we do not fall for jackals who feed on problems, thrive on conflicts, and howl in foggy weather. Turk, Kurd, Alevi, Sunni, headscarved, uncovered, Atatürkist, this or that… all are naturally our different colors, ‘our’ ways of thinking and living. Only when the suffix ‘-ist’ appears—Turkist, Kurdist, Alevist, religionist, Atatürkist—does the law of fear come into play. Let us beware of these -ists. They appear righteous, but by deriving legitimacy from grievances or certain justified claims, they mark paths of alienation from the nation by one means or another. All of them, in one way or another, are connected to the occupiers and serve the foreigner. In any case, despite so many provocations and incidents, this nation has not fallen for any of these -isms; it still preserves its unity and composure with its common identity and natural colors. Let us leave to themselves those who chase empty goals driven by temporary enthusiasms. Sooner or later, they will learn to understand the seemingly silent common sense of the nation’s true majority.
Let us not forget; the face of history has now turned toward these lands. We stand on the threshold of a great march, a rebirth, an entirely new awakening. Let us not look at current developments and assume the future will be the same. What we are experiencing are merely the pains of a great rising. Those who look with this vision will win, while those who fear and instill fear will be forgotten in the dustbin of history. Let no one doubt this.
Let us fear neither this winter nor the winters to come. If it snows, let us enjoy it. Let us be a remedy for those who are cold, stranded on the road, or unable to find warmth; that is enough.
Source: Davası Olmayan Adam Değildir– Ahmet Özcan, Yarın Yayıncılık, 2014.
