The popular opposition will not be blown away

Newspapers reported that young people showed keen interest in the promotional meeting organised by Italian universities in Istanbul. It is said that the number of students leaving Turkey for Italy has doubled in the last five years, and this ratio is much higher for Germany...

The main topic of education in Turkey, however, is the child slave markets established under the name MESEM. While MESEMs are a step towards turning Turkey into a cheap labour (slave) market, students protesting against children studying there losing their lives in workplace accidents are being arrested en masse... Thousands of students are forced to abandon their education due to housing problems, while millions of young people with their diplomas worthless are being driven into a futureless life.

Pensioners will march to Tandoğan Square today (6 December). Deprived of a decent income, they will seek their rights against a government and system that views them as surplus to requirements. Public sector workers and labourers have been on the streets for weeks... At the end of December, women are preparing for a united march in Ankara.

THE POPULAR OPPOSITION WILL NOT BE BLOWN AWAY

The fact that every segment of society is fighting for its rights against inequality and injustice is a sign of how vital the struggle to get rid of this regime has become. It is also possible to say that a similar situation has continued unabated in recent years, both before and after 19 March, and in the run-up to the 23 May elections. However, the country was driven into its current disaster by referendums, elections and struggles in which the opposition's mistakes were decisive at critical junctures.

Nevertheless, it is hardly possible to say that opposition movements have yet been able to respond to society's quest to break free from this regime. One of the most important turning points in this regard is the new solution process, described by the government as ‘Turkey without terrorism’ and defined by the Kurdish movement as ‘peace’.

Undoubtedly, negotiations with the government to silence the guns and the prospect of gaining certain rights through this process have always been a subject that found support from the left and the progressive opposition. However, the process has gradually evolved beyond these boundaries. DEM leaders, along with the liberals gathered around this process, are turning towards a line of struggle (!) against the opposition, accompanied by excessive praise for the MHP and Bahçeli. While not even the slightest democratic orientation has been put forward regarding the solution to the Kurdish issue, and while not a single step has been taken beyond rhetoric in the name of Kurdish-Turkish brotherhood and alliance, the fact that the opposition has been pitted against each other on the history and solutions of the Kurdish issue is surely a great success for the government!

The most important result of this is undoubtedly the fragmentation of the broad opposition front against the regime, which encompasses many different tendencies, as its social bases are driven into opposing positions. The past periods are full of lessons about the consequences of the fragmentation of the opposition movement... If we do not want the same thing to happen again, we must be aware that what needs to be done is to stand together in the struggle to win all our rights and freedoms and in the struggle to end this regime... Despite everything we have experienced, despite the chaos created by all the American-backed political games, we must believe that the entire Turkish Kurdish, Alevi, Sunni people, the democratic and progressive accumulation within the broad base of the opposition movements, will not surrender to this regime and will not go along with the attempts to keep the regime afloat.

THE PROCESS OF ELIMINATING PROGRESSIVE ACHIEVEMENTS

The main factor to be considered in this process is Turkey's tendency to transform into a reactionary regime compatible with the new Middle East order, which is determined by the United States and Israel. The main directions of the process, which began with developments in Syria, are also in this direction.

The Islamist-fascist transformation created by the liquidation of the Republic's progressive achievements within the framework of the Greater Middle East Project is the construction of the new Middle East as a reactionary regime based on ethnicity and sectarianism. With the project brought to the agenda as a regional pro-American alliance under the name of a Kurdish-Turkish-Arab alliance, the foundations are being laid for a new concept of war (primarily directed at Iran and the region) rather than a democratic solution and peaceful transition.

This essentially means that the ethnic and sectarian-based fragmentation occurring in the Middle East, which eliminates the possibility of all societies living together in a democratic union as citizens and a nation, also encompasses Turkey. Developments currently presented as an advanced experiment based on identities (“achieving democratic socialism!”) via Rojava for the Kurdish movement cannot be considered independently of the projects put forward as this New Ottoman Nations System.

This must also be seen as a process leading to the liquidation of progressive accumulations and movements in the Middle East. The overthrow of Assad in Syria and the attempt to shape a new Syria around the jihadist HTŞ, as well as what we have experienced for decades under the AKP government in Turkey, are all indicators of this.

THERE IS NO OTHER WAY

Leaving all this aside, it is clear that launching an attack by declaring all criticism as anti-solution and anti-peace, as is being done now – even when there is no orientation towards a solution in sight – will not benefit anyone.

However, even though we have been explaining this repeatedly for a long time, perhaps for years, everyone is probably aware of what the consequences of what we have experienced and what is happening now might be... On the other hand, the opposition, which is as much a part of bourgeois politics as the ruling power, will never cease to pursue its petty interests, its own small gains and its shows... These gentlemen have little interest in calls for responsibility, in how the country's future will be plunged into darkness, or in the helplessness into which the people are being driven...

There is no point in addressing them or expecting anything from them... This is actually an expression of the alienation created by bourgeois politics, which was designed to distance the people from politics alongside the 12 September coup, based on the representation of certain groups and woven with barriers and prohibitions... If we want more, we can only achieve it ourselves, by uniting in collective struggle across all areas of life for our own rights and freedom… There is no other way…

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REMINDERS

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF THE OPPOSITION REMAINS UNITED?

For the past two weeks, there has been a low-level dispute between the CHP and the HDP over the Imralı process. The argument over whether or not to visit Imralı is important not so much in terms of the legitimacy of the parties' positions, but rather in terms of the opposition landscape that the ruling AKP-MHP coalition has been dreaming of since the beginning of the process. On the one hand, the Palace is getting closer to DEM through the process, while on the other hand, it is planning to marginalise and encircle the opposition with the coup of 19 March. The tension created today over the Kurdish issue is valuable not because it will ultimately contribute to social peace, but because it will create more room for manoeuvre for the government by widening the gap between the CHP and DEM. So why did the CHP, DEM and all the social opposition forces come together, and what were the consequences for the government?

THE 2017 REFERENDUM

In 2017, the only domestic supporter of the constitutional referendum that voted for the transition to the presidential system we live under today was the AKP-MHP alliance. The broad coalition formed in the 2010 referendum had disintegrated, the Kurdish movement and liberals had distanced themselves from the government, and the Gülenists had been purged. During this period, the No movement, led by the vibrant forces of social opposition, particularly in June, created a situation where the referendum could only pass through a legal coup, despite not having an official alliance, thanks to the joint opposition of both the CHP and the Kurdish movement. This effectively killed the presidential system as a social project from the outset.

2019 AND 2024 LOCAL ELECTIONS

Although the last two local elections are often described as the personal success of CHP mayors in metropolitan areas, they were essentially the natural result of the opposition's unity. In fact, the 2019 Istanbul election did not yield more votes for the CHP and HDP than the 2014 results. More importantly, however, it reflected the convergence of all progressive segments of Turkish society on an anti-regime platform, the solidarity forged by a shared hope for liberation, and its reflection in representative politics. Indeed, this situation intensified and renewed itself in the 2024 local elections, with the AKP slipping to second place for the first time in its history.

2023 ELECTION

Although the outcome was disappointing, the 2023 elections demonstrated the potential of a united opposition against Erdoğan in the presidential election arithmetic. Moreover, the crises created by the CHP's “right-wing allies” and the election process, which was mired in candidate debates and numerous obstacles, also turned into a referendum against Erdoğan from Edirne to Diyarbakır. Despite the internal reckonings at the six-party table and the official and unofficial disadvantages of competing against an opponent with all the resources of the state, this alliance once again demonstrated that the real majority does not accept Erdoğan and that unity is possible in a vision of Turkey without this regime.

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SIDE NOTES

NOTE-1: THE FOCUS OF THE PROCESS IS DAMASCUS, NOT DİYARBAKIR

It is reported that the main agenda of the Commission's visit to İmralı was Syria! This is nothing new, of course; in fact, it points precisely to the starting point of the process. With the fall of Assad after 11 years of US-led civil war, Syria and the region entered a new era. Israel's wave of attacks, extending from Gaza to the entire region, played a decisive role in this.

The overthrow of Assad in Syria, along with the previous waves of attacks, paved the way for the formation of a new US-Israel belt encircling Iran in the region.

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The Kurdish movement has established an autonomous power base along the Rojava line during the long civil war and is focused on protecting it. The alliance formed with the US has been one of the most important pillars of this. On the other hand, although the vacuum created by Assad's overthrow in Syria appears to have been filled by HTŞ's march on Damascus, the Kurdish movement has maintained its position as a decisive force.

The ruling front in Turkey became part of this process in order to control these events – or to be part of them. The alliance formed with jihadists during the civil war and the resulting relations within the autonomous area developed in Idlib carried Turkey into Syria's new era.

However, while a bargaining process was initiated around Syria based on the reality that it was impossible to organise Syria through HTŞ and that it was also impossible to eliminate the Rojava-centred Kurdish autonomous dynamics, the process that began with Bahçeli's handshake accompanied this.

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At this point, one of the critical steps was the transition process agreement signed between HTŞ and SGD, known as the 10 March agreement. Although its requirements have not yet been fully met, this agreement, which paved the way for military integration, continues to be controversial, with different attitudes towards the political transition process taking place within a kind of decentralisation. While this demand sometimes extends to the Druze and Alawites, everyone is aware that Syria cannot be unified around a power structure centred on HTŞ. In a sense, as Syria transforms into a political regime shaped by the fragmentation it has experienced throughout the civil war, new alliances are being forged based on the risks or opportunities this will create.

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The Kurdish-Turkish-Arab alliance can be seen as an expression of this. It is conceived as one of the circles of alliance aimed at establishing a US and Israel-centred Middle East order.

It is impossible to view the process in Turkey independently of this. Moreover, the 2013 Solution Process was shelved precisely because of the fragmentation in Syria, opening the door to new wars. The fact that a new solution process has come to the fore at the end of the Syrian civil war is also related to this. The AKP and MHP are trying to turn the process in Syria into an opportunity to maintain their own power.

Looking at what is happening from Syria's perspective, it is clear how Turkey is being dragged into a catastrophe within the quagmire of the Greater Middle East. Therefore, considering that a significant part of the Imrali talks concerns Syria and that overcoming the contradictions that may arise there will be decisive for the process, it becomes clearer that what is happening has nothing to do with the democratic solution of the Kurdish issue.

NOTE-2: THE OPPOSITION'S CHANGE(!) PROGRAMME

The CHP declared its congress last week a march towards power. The CHP Congress, which went through a difficult process with operations and trustee cases, was undoubtedly an important threshold in terms of emerging from these whirlpools.

The congress was also held as a Programme Congress. Hayri Kozanoğlu's assessment of this programme text in BirGün highlights some very important points, particularly the programme's inadequacy in the fight against reactionary forces and neoliberal capitalist exploitation policies.

This programme does not go beyond a liberal right-wing transformation limited to the restoration of the current regime through its conversion into a parliamentary system. As such, it falls short of the demands and quests for change arising from social struggles.

A similar situation can be observed in left-wing movements in different parts of the world. Restoration programmes by socialist or centre-left forces, rising around social demands and centred on a more regulated and democratic functioning of the capitalist exploitation system, have always ended in failure.

Even while in opposition, CHP is attempting to reconcile society's desire for democracy and freedom by promising international capital a kind of orderly and regulated capitalism, thereby closing the limits of its programme to radical social demands. Indeed, we must not forget the “assurances” Özel gave to NATO and the EU in recent months. Of course, aside from the impossibility of merging the expectations of capital with the demands of the working class, it is now clear that no one is seeking a regulated and institutionalised capitalism. Even the National Security Strategy published by the US in recent days talks at length about the benefits of a return to the nation-state economy! Moreover, Milei implemented the most extreme form of orthodox, rule-abiding, diligent student liberalism, presented as a guarantee to capital, in Argentina, and may be able to recover from the collapse he caused by receiving record financial aid from the US. While the death knell of liberalism and globalisation is being chanted around the world, and even Turkish capital has forgotten the worn-out refrain of the credit-fuelled 2000s, proposing this as salvation for the millions of workers crushed by wealth transfers, deep impoverishment and now the Şimşek programme may be an indirect way of saying that all hope is lost.

However, given that both the global and Turkish contexts are now at a point where post-globalisation is being discussed and a return to the past is no longer possible, and that we can only emerge from the existing crises through radical transformation, this should also be seen as an opportunity for a call to the left from our perspective.

NOTE-3: ACEMOĞLU’S CHANEL WORKING OVERALLS

Last week, Daron Acemoğlu wrote an article in the Financial Times entitled ‘Liberalism Must Win Over the Working Class’. In his article, published in Turkish in Oksijen, Acemoğlu examined Mamdani's election victory in New York and called for liberalism to once again adopt a policy that looks after the working class. The article’s characterisation of social democracy and the welfare state era as a kind of ‘history of liberalism’ surely cannot be attributed to the ignorance of a Nobel Prize-winning economist. Nor can he have forgotten that it was liberals themselves who demanded the abandonment of social welfare programmes in the West. However, what makes the article interesting is not the narrative of a “golden age of liberalism” that it attempts to create by mixing political concepts.

Acemoğlu clearly states the truth that the liberal intelligentsia in Turkey tries to hide with irrelevant statements such as “the left is over”: Liberalism is in crisis and its future does not look bright. Acemoğlu points to the role played by the rise of neo-fascist politics in this, but we can observe that in the second Trump era, not only in the US but also in the EU and the UK, there has been a significant shift away from globalisation, with the economy shifting to a new paradigm that prioritises national borders. One reason for this is that the US can no longer compete with China economically, while another is undoubtedly the discontent created by the increasingly impoverished and unemployed population in the West, where industry was dismantled during the neoliberal era. Acemoğlu, “like Mamdani”, argues that liberalism must once again implement policies targeting these segments of society.

So why did liberalism (!) lose? Acemoğlu briefly mentions the West's transition to the neoliberal paradigm in the liquidation of social democracy, without naming it, but he makes no mention of the effect in the West of the decline of the labour movement, which paralleled the defeat of real socialism. While the 1990s were celebrated as “the end of history” and “the beginning of the century of the ordinary person”, liberalism has now lost the cultural paradigm it substituted for class to the neo-fascists. In economic policy, neoliberalism, which was considered sacred scripture for 50 years, has largely failed, driving millions into misery through its triangle of privatisation, precariousness and indebtedness. What is truly surprising is that liberals are surprised by this, while we observe the excitement of “good capitalism” advocates like Acemoğlu as they discover the working class.

It is impossible to find any realistic tendency in Acemoğlu's proposals or his quest. He ignores the fact that the source of the working class's lack of options, which he presents as the rise of neo-fascism and the crisis of liberalism, is the liquidation of the welfare state, the elimination of the public sphere, and the monopolisation of economic policies by IMF experts, whether willingly or through coups, all over the world. As a solution, he offers not even a stronger welfare state or public policies, but rather more useful artificial intelligence(?) and participatory democracy. However, we cannot say how much the working class will be able to participate in politics or how much they will be able to object to an IMF programme... Unfortunately, since the financialisation of even the air we breathe is not among the identified problems, it is not even possible to talk about the most basic social democratic demands, such as a return to the public sector.

Our liberals seem unlikely to abandon the fantasy worlds they have built for themselves with concepts such as artificial intelligence, digital technologies, globalised professionals, and the middle class for a long time to come. However, the fundamental truth revealed by Acemoğlu's article is that today, the entire world is searching for the left in some form. The 19th-century level of misery that 50 years of liberalism has brought to the entire globe, coupled with the climate of massacre and war created by religious fascist regimes, is increasingly turning minds to the left. What falls to us is the socialist alternative that, 50 years ago, forced Western capitalism to provide the working class across the world, from Çorum to Minnesota, with a standard of living far greater than today's. -and which Acemoğlu fails to mention even once in his article- that would enable the rise of the left.

Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Halk muhalefeti savrulmayacak, published in BirGün newspaper on December 7, 2025.