While economic crises under capitalism can lead to different political outcomes when they have international dimensions, some opportunities for the working people to breathe are created over time. The increase in wages, the downward momentum in inflation, over a certain period of time, leads to an increase in purchasing power. In other words, the capitalist class tries to provide the working class with the conditions in which they can live in order to exploit them even more. It may not always succeed, in which case political crises arise. If popular discontent turns into strikes and street demonstrations, religious and ethnic differences are brought to the forefront of politics instead of the demands that the working class fights for together.
This is precisely why, during the Cold War years, the representatives of the Turkish establishment kept nationalism and Islamism on standby and nurtured them. The events of September 5-6 and the raid on the Tan printing house are the most memorable events of the Democrat Party era.
Between 1960 and 1980, the NATO-backed nationalist movement, which became more systematic, played its part. It is known that working class organization was at its peak and the number of strikes was at the highest level in history. This period, when the youth was in search of a new order, was again a crisis period for the owners of the order.
While the youth took part in the struggle of the working class, at the same time their demands for independence disturbed those in power and this disturbance was also accompanied by fear. The generation of 68, as a youth movement, represented a revolutionary generation that protected both the Republic and its flag.
For political Islamists and nationalists, the only common enemy was Communism and they were disturbed by the demands of the youth for independence and the demands of the working class for their rights. The right-wing organizations, which were turned into the apparatus of the NATO-trained order, became the representatives of a mission that attacked the strikes of the working class and massacred revolutionary youth, especially in the 1970s. Again, in May 1, 1977, which is remembered along with many other events, they opened fire on hundreds of thousands of workers, causing dozens of workers to lose their lives. Again, Maraş and Çorum massacres were carried out with news similar to September 5-6. September 12 was the beginning of a new era in which the order breathed a sigh of relief, the USA said that our boys had succeeded and Vehbi Koç wrote a letter of thanks to Evren.
Today, the youth is once again in a crisis process and once again in a search. The right-wing hostility to the Republic, which had been spreading for many years, was going to succeed with the AKP, the government of the capitalist class, and the 1923 Republic was going to be destroyed. The most important reason why the economic crisis we are experiencing today has turned into an ideological crisis is that a new one has not been established in place of the destroyed Republic.
In 2018, although many people, including Erdoğan, have different assessments of the economic crisis in Turkey, capitalism cannot survive without producing crises. Although political powers have a share in this, they only pave the way for what will happen. As in the 2001 crisis. This crisis continues to deepen as the value of the currency against the dollar and the euro, the rise in interest rates have led to the monopolization of capital and the rise in inflation. While a large section of the population is working with wages that cannot even meet their basic needs, students are living in a period when they have to work to study. At the same time, their anxiety about their future is increasing.
AKP and Erdoğan cannot manage the crisis, they are managing it. The inclusion of the MHP, a state party, in the People's Alliance formed with the presidential system makes their work easier, while the Kurdish movement, which was demonized until the elections, is now on the friendly side of the alliance. While the AKP is reminding its base of patience with Surah Nas, the MHP is reminding them that the internal front must be strong for the integrity of the homeland.
The working people are facing absolute poverty. While they are unable to meet their basic needs, they still cannot create an alternative that a way out can be through a change of order. The crisis continues to deepen and persist.
For a long time, the People's Alliance's defense strategy against the attacks of the main opposition on its own turf has not generated any energy in the public. While it is unclear where the anger accumulated in the people will be unleashed, it should not be considered a coincidence that nationalist movements are again emerging.
As you know, NATO countries will meet in Ankara this year. NATO was founded after the second world war against security threats. The threat was the working class organizing in capitalist countries and demanding power and of course the Soviet Union. Turkey took its place in this safe harbor since the establishment of the organization. Even though the working class was not sufficiently organized and strong, the threat of communism was keeping a minority of people awake, as in every country. The US had assumed the patronage of imperialism and the sides were becoming clearer during the Cold War.
NATO-backed coups and civil wars are very common. From the breakup of Yugoslavia to the invasion of Iraq, they took part in many places. This organization has blood on its hands. The organizations they supported in our country caused many massacres and unsolved murders. The flag provocation that took place in METU today, structures such as the Victory Party and the Women of Independence Movement want to repeat what they did in the past by using the flag.
Against the deceivers of these structures, whose traditions are to attack the youth's demands for independence, to be strike breakers in workers' strikes and to prostrate themselves to the bosses and US military fleets, the change of order must be the main and only real discussion agenda of today.