Re: [A-List] FW: PARLIAMENT SECURES VOTE OF CONFIDENCE FROM THE PEOPLE OF TURKEY

["Tariq Mahmood" <zaogir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Sabri!

 

I felt you were talking about Pakistan, my country. Its not people versus the military in Turkey alone. The same goes else where as well. In fact its the people versus the elite and powerful.

 

The military is consuming bulk of national resources, especially in under developed countries. The people find themselves unable to resist the governments. Gone are the days when an individual and soldiers of the king were equipped with weapons of equal lethality. Today common man does not have the bolt-action firearms while Bushes have MOABS and what not. 

 

However, the people still have the power of numbers and its them who cast vote, make the mills run and pay taxes. The newfound realisation of their strength during the war against war, thanks to the over bearing arrogance of Bush, should be pressed on. The people should resist being tools for making the mills ofoperation run. Instead they should demand more social welfare, leaving less and less for making of war machines and palacial messes for the generals.

 

However, for that we need leadership of quality and that cannot be had without a moral fabric.

 

Staso,

Tariq  

----  -----

 "Sabri Oncu" <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

 This is a response I wrote to a 
subscriber of the Rad-Green list who wrote to me personally. I made slight 
changes to it after I sent my response to him/her.
 
 
Best,
 
 Sabri
 ++++++++++
 
However, Erdogan has 
now assumed prime ministership.
What could this mean for the 
future?
 
 Dear ********,
 
 Let me thank you for your 
kind words first.
 
 Now, any analysis of mine will be biased by my 
limited personal knowledge (I am in the US) and by my 
politics.
 
 Keeping this in mind, let me proceed to what I 
think:
 
 Erdogan's victory was expected and it will not make a huge 
difference.
 
 From a distance what I can see, and it seems a 
sociologist friend thinks the same way, is that there are roughly three 
tendencies in the "ruling" Justice and Development Party or JDP: 
1) Progressive Islamic modernists (May their God be with them!); 
2) Reactionary Fundamentalists and 3) Normalized 
elements, representatives of a section of the capitalist class, 
whose interests are in line with those of the Military.
 
 This 
third tendency represents the so-called Anatolian Tigers, that is, the 
bourgeoisie of the smaller cities of Anatolia, as well as the so-called Green 
Capital (Islamic Capital) of the big cities such as Istanbul and Konya. Their 
interests don't align with the interests of the secular and westernized Istanbul 
bourgeoisie, which is one of the three building blocks of the war party in 
Turkey, and who have been screwing them for quite some time, but they are not 
anti-military and at this instant would not go against the wishes/orders of the 
military.
 
 Erdogan not only belongs to this third tendency but also 
he is the unchallengeable leader of it. Indeed, although he was not the Prime 
Minister, it was not just Gul, the current Prime Minister until Erdogan replaces 
him (indeed, Erdogan is in the process of building the new government, if he is 
not done yet), who tried to push the Party to voting yes for the US troops, but 
both him and Gul. Now, Erdogan is not only the party leader but also the Prime 
Minister and this may give him better ability to maneuver but I don't think this 
would make a major difference. Last time, Erdogan and Gul avoided pushing their 
party to a groups decision not because they were against the war but because 
they did not want to take the blame on themselves. It was just a strategy to 
pull the Military, whose higher ranked members tried to push the JDP to pass the 
approval of the US troops for them, to confess what they really want and, in 
that, Erdogan and Gul were succesful. When they let the members of their party 
vote independently, some members of the first and second tendencies I mentioned 
above voted against, some for truely humanitarian reasons, some for religous 
reasons and some because of their "self-interest".

 However, at 
this point, the real player is not the JDP anymore.
 Nor is it the 
opposition party CHP, some of whose members, including their leader Baykal, 
praised the intervention of the Chief of General Staff Ozkok, as timely and 
wise.
 
 At this point, there are two major players in this 
game:
 
 The Military and the "People".
 
 The military 
(that is, the naked emperor), the Turkish capitalist class (mainly the Istanbul 
bourgeoisie centered at TUSIAD or Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen 
Association) and their media are pushing the country into joining the US in its 
attack on Iraq. It is not that their interests are perfectly in line with the 
interests of the US administration but at this point teaming up with the US 
war-mongers is their second-best strategy, their first being what we have been 
experiencing for the past two decades or so around the globe, which was 
abondened after the Bush coup of 2001 in the US.
 
 The "People", 
however vague a concept this is, are the anti-war party. They are the 94% of the 
population, some of whom undoubtedly filled with strong nationalist and 
religious feelings but, whoever they are, I have never seen the peoples of 
Turkey rise up like this before. From labor and public employee unions to left 
political parties, from gays and lesbians to Islamists, from academics to 
shoe-shine boys, they are fighting.
 
 Whether Turkey will avert 
joining this insane attack on Iraq or not will depend on how well the "People" 
will play their cards, not on others including Erdogan.
 
 This 
is how I see it.
 
 Power to the People!
 
 
Sabri