Taksim’s Nihilism and Absence of Politics

If we are seriously to talk about the last two weeks, there is nothing but a huge political inaptitude in front of us.

After the protests at Taksim calm down, it will be evident that the emerging picture has nothing original to offer in terms of politics. No matter for whom this calm would be in favor of, one will recognize the following: analyses made with lacking perspective through the Gezi Park medium; exaggerated semiology assessments; those who surprisingly rediscover, through teenagers, the humor which has never been pushed aside in our world; technological analyses made by those who mistake a simple programming code with a trigonometry formula; those who compliment the Y-Generation, yet do not even speak properly with their fellow friends outside their neighborhoods in their own country; those who try in a rush to turn the crises of being infamous into a legitimacy issue via the government; and the liberals who do not represent anybody and everybody, who have overcome the issue of the truth, and who try to convince us to the meaninglessness of the elected government…

Those who were whistling around during the attempt of tutelage backed by the Judiciary-Police not so long ago but last year suddenly remember the correspondence state nowadays; those who ask us to understand the only action as an economy politics which is ever seen on earth and in which the capitalists of the 1 percent of the population openly provide support to the speaking anti-capitalists out of the 99 percent of the population; those who try to convince us how violent the police is in our country where tens of thousands died in the last 30 years, hundreds of thousands were aggrieved, tortured during the coup periods, and where innocent aggrieved of the coup periods who are still in prison for no reason; tremendous efforts of the media inside and outside the country to impose the nouveau-rich excitement of the elite Kemalism who took the street for the first time; those who want us to take the authoritarianism seriously as the most fascists articles of the coup Constitution, which is the main source of our problems, still remain untouched; and those who want to eliminate Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan through character assassination and who forget his de facto polities even though he has taken the biggest risk , in spite of all kinds of threats, to settle the Kurdish question, which has cost over a thousand lives last year only …

It is possible to stretch this list a few more pages. However, if we are seriously to talk about the last two weeks, there is nothing in front of us but a huge political inaptitude, a big part of which I have listed above. It is both impossible and meaningless to talk about the attitude of the government at the Gezi Park next to all these discrepancies and non-political diggings. We wish, however, experts or sensitive individuals to have sound discussions over the city and the environment although this is not in our area of interest. An attempt to launch a development plan, after long years, on perhaps the ugliest square in terms of city planning in a country with quite ugly cities could have deserved such a discussion. But this is not the issue of course…

All right; is it possible then to discuss the real issue? At the point we have reached, there is hardly any sign that a space has been left for an intellectual debate. What kind of conclusions can be drawn from all these?

1. Erdoğan believes he is following a consistent and tangible policy. On the other hand, he sees that he can listen to the voice of the streets, but it is politically incorrect and impossible to see them as his addressee. Similarly, the Prime Minister knows that he should not take maximalist and inconsistent demands into consideration even at the cost of the elected opposition. In fact, Erdoğan can easily consider the streets as his interlocutor in a way to almost completely make the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) politically insignificant. He is also aware of the fact that this short-term tactical upper-hand could dynamite the long-term legitimate politics.

2. The governing Justice and

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