As the AKP’s sandcastles crumble
The hegemony built by conservatism, right-wing politics, and political Islamism propped up by military boots and Western allies, is now coming to an end. The ruling power’s sandcastles have been rendered powerless in the face of the memory of social struggle.
Just like individuals, societies too have a memory. Sometimes a photograph, a scent, or a sound can suddenly bring to the surface everything that had been pushed far back.
In Turkey, the 12 September 1980 coup created a significant rupture in the collective memory. It caused such immense pain that it was as if nothing had happened in the country before that date. Cities, institutions, universities, and laws were accepted as if they had always been that way. The fact that they were shaped under the support and protection of Western hegemonic powers was kept hidden. The constitution, laws, political party regulations, even the zoning plans of cities were all designed to manufacture a desired society and country.
At first, cities were presented as strongholds of the right and conservatism. Rize, Konya, Urfa, and many others were added to this list. In these cities, filled with Qur’an courses and imam-hatip schools, village schools were shut down. While teachers were dismissed, space was created for imams. The progressive, revolutionary memory of society was systematically erased.
But that’s as far as it went. An image, a call, an action spread like a contagious outbreak across the country. Real people, with their flesh and blood, re-entered politics by reclaiming their own problems just like they had 45 years ago.
Just like when 4,000 tea producers rose up in Pazar, a town of 15,000 in Rize, in 1979… Or like the tobacco farmers in Uşak, the forest villagers in Artvin… What was awakened in the memory of the farmer from Yozgat who jumped on his tractor and took to the road was precisely this past.
RETURN OF THE STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE COUNCIL (ÖTK), A COINCIDENCE?
University students came to the forefront of the national agenda after 19 March. A thoroughly deserved spotlight… Just like the producer protests, here too society’s memory was refreshed. The organisational model most strongly advocated and repeatedly demanded by the students in every action, the Student Representative Council (ÖTK) is no coincidence. This model, born from the long struggle of students at Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) in 1976, is now, 50 years later, back on the lips of students.
Isn’t the most widely embraced banner of the 19 March protests “Dev-Genz” also the product of a similar memory? What could better illustrate that a revolutionary organisation with roots going back nearly 60 years could not be erased from the collective consciousness?
DON’T UNDERESTIMATE ANATOLIA
The 40-day period the country has recently experienced has the potential to shift the political landscape in many ways. But above all, it will be remembered for revealing the diverse ways in which people engage with politics.
If a 15-year-old secondary school student and an 80-year-old retiree are voicing the same protest regardless of city, gender, or profession then we are looking at a different reality.
Anatolian towns are not, and never have been, the fortresses of the right, nationalism, or political Islamism, as some claim. When Ahmet Arif cried out, “Mother Havva is just a child, do you know who I am? I am Anatolia,” he was saying exactly that.
With military boots, laws, religious orders, sects, and insatiable capitalists, a vast memory was targeted for erasure. And for a while, they thought they had succeeded. But then, suddenly, a photograph captured in Beyazıt brought back everything they had tried to erase. Not just for the youth, but for many segments of society it reminded them who they are and helped them rediscover their strength.
The university students at Beyazıt didn’t just break through a police barricade. They shattered the sandcastles built to subdue this people with oppression and force for the past 45 years. He remembered it by its smell in Konya, its colour in Yozgat, its voice in METU, its silhouette in Van.
You may have a palace, a throne, a judiciary, a police force, powerful allies, and wealth. These may even bring you to power. But if you lack powerful ideas, devoted people who believe in them, and experiences etched into the memory of society, your rule is doomed to be shorter than a human life.
Today, the news pouring in from all corners of the country confirms this and it is anything but surprising.
Note: This text has been translated from the original Turkish version titled AKP’nin kumdan kaleleri düşerken, published in BirGün newspaper on May 6, 2025.
