No Country for Old Men

“I was the sheriff of this county when I was twenty-five years old.
Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman; my father too.
I can’t help but wonder how they would have operated in these imes.”

Turkey is a country trying to complete its political and social normalization. Consolidation of social sects, classes, and of the state is a quite demanding and slow process in a country where it’s been strived to close all the political and social parentheses, so to speak, which have been open for over a century. Not having a Western style bourgeoisie, Turkey is a country where local and aggrieved masses who come from the periphery, have settled in the center and managed to become the pioneer of social as well as political transformation despite all difficulties. Various political trends, going through the aforementioned stress of change, swayed into positions as diverse as possible, in particular, during the last half century. A quite interesting characteristic of opposing political trends recurred at every breaking point. From Liberals to Nationalists, from Conservatives to Leftists, some elements of a large spectrum have not refused to unite around Kemalism as a common denominator – though with different arguments. Kemalism has maintained its course through a kind of political reincarnation and via different groups of elites. Today, we face a similar picture under several headings, from the Syrian revolt to the solution of the Kurdish question. They (these elites) could not help meeting the foreign policy Turkey has followed in the Syrian revolt with a panicky fear of “we are left alone in the lurch,” and the process of disarmament of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) with the fear of “what if the Kurdish question is solved?”

We have to accept the fact that the pro-Atatürk leftist-nationalists form the most common and consistent element of the Kemalist elite. On the other hand, the most anomalous, naïve and provocative element of the same elite are some liberals, leftists and conservatives who think they devoted their lives to fight Kemalism. The most distinctive characteristic of the Kemalist elite is its aging both biologically and politically. In other words, they beyond measure incorporate two basic qualities which are necessary for conforming with the status quo. In fact, both of these qualities correspond to “being mature” and “experienced” in our ages-old culture. Owing to Kemalist interference, “being mature” is replaced by “arrogance” and “being experienced” by anachronism. Since this is the case, they in no way can accept the new actors who not only have come from the periphery to the center but also win people’s support earnestly. How could they? They, themselves, were supposed to accomplish the revolution, create the change and establish the new order. The emerging new actors not only have ruined their darling theories in a flash by ugly realities, but also started to realize the things that they had a hard time to even pronounce in their dreams for years.

THE JACKSON EFFECT

During the US President Barack Obama’s victory speech right after the 2008 elections, cameras had also focused on the first African-American presidential candidate and activist Jesse Jackson. Just a few months before the elections, Jackson had accused Obama of “acting like an Anglo-American” and criticized him in different ways. Jackson was crying. It was not clear whether Jackson, who was known for dedicating his entire life to the rights of African-Americans, was crying out of joy or because of losing the grip of “the main theme” of his years of occupation; and that became a topic of discussion. Then, the upcoming months showed that the latter was the case. Jackson would be the first among those who had the most difficult time in an America where Obama was elected presiden