The martyrdom of Kubilay in Menemen is often referred to in Turkish political history as “an unfortunate event of the early Republic”. However, this approach is both incomplete and misleading. Menemen is not an isolated act of insanity; it is one of the symbolic thresholds of the reactionary struggle against the Republic in Turkey. This threshold extends not only to 1930, but also to the years of the War of Independence and today.
Reactionism is not a reaction produced by the Republic. It is the historical force against the Republic.
A Parenthesis to Reaction: The Invisible Front of the War of Independence
In the political history of Turkey, reaction is often described as a post-Republican “reaction”. However, one of the biggest obstacles Mustafa Kemal Atatürk faced in waging the War of Independence was the reactionary uprisings organized from within, before the invading armies and perhaps more destructive than them.
This point should be emphasized:
The National Struggle in Anatolia was not only a war against imperialist occupation. It was also a civil war against the reactionary foci of caliphate, sultanate and politics in the name of religion.
Duzce, Bolu, Hendek uprisings...
The Delibash rebellion in Konya
The uprising of the Çapanoğulları in Yozgat...
Anzavur rebellions
The common denominator of these uprisings is clear: All of them established ideological or de facto ties with the palace in Istanbul and the occupation forces; all of them incited the people of Anatolia against Ankara with the rhetoric of “religion is getting out of hand”. Fatwas were issued, the Kuvayı Milliye soldiers were declared “rebels”, Mustafa Kemal and his friends were labeled as “those who rebelled against the caliph”.
Here the historical character of reaction is revealed in all its nakedness:
The reaction does not defend resistance against occupation; it defends the continuation of the order, that is, the continuation of its own privileges. That is why it does not clash with imperialism; it compromises with it. Because the real enemy of reaction is not the occupier outside, but the transformative mind inside.
Atatürk's greatest historical achievement was not only the expulsion of the Greek army from Anatolia, but also the suppression of these reactionary revolts and the transfer of political sovereignty from the sacred authority to the nation. The opening of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, the abolition of the sultanate and finally the proclamation of the Republic were made possible by the breaking of this internal resistance.
Therefore, the Republic is not a “natural evolution” but a regime established in spite of reaction.
Menemen: The Unbroken Link in the Historical Chain
It is not possible to understand Kubilay without this historical background. The beheading of Kubilay in Menemen was not an individual atrocity; it was a symbolic execution directed against the mind of the Republic. The slogan “We want Sharia” is not a demand for faith; it is a clear rejection of the regime.
The reaction has shown the same reflex here too:
The sacred against the profane,
obedience to the law,
He defended the subjects against the Republic.
In the first period of the Republic, this threat was clearly identified and suppressed. Because the political mind of that day knew this:
You cannot compromise with reaction.
Today: Silent Retreat, Institutional Erosion
Today the problem is more complex. Reaction has changed form but has not retreated. It is no longer advancing through armed uprisings, but by eroding institutions from within, religiousizing education, sanctifying the law, and presenting secularism as a “disturbing” and “redundant” principle.
In this process, secularism was removed from being a topic of struggle and reduced to a symbolic reminder.
The position of the Republican People's Party at this point is not a simple strategic error; it is an ideological retreat. The more the CHP sees defending secularism as a “social risk”, the more it opens space for reaction to establish hegemony. This attitude, which fails to make a clear distinction between freedom of belief and political religion, instead of protecting secularism, pushes it into a position of constant apologizing.
What is happening here is not a “counter-revolution” in the classical sense; it is a hegemonic dissolution. The reaction is advancing not by force but by producing consent; it is reducing secularism from a legal principle to a cultural preference. This means the dissolution of the founding paradigm of the Republic. In Gramsci's words, the old order is dying and the new one cannot be born; in this interval, reaction seems “natural” and “reasonable”).
Silence at this point is not neutrality. The duty of the intellectuals of the Republic is not to adapt to the language of the government, but to question the areas sanctified by the government.
The CHP's task is to defend secularism as a regime issue, not as a topic of communication. An opposition that refrains from defending secularism is positioned not against reaction, but in its sphere of expansion. This is a historical loss of mission).
But history is very clear:
When secularism is not defended, society does not relax; reaction advances.
When the state withdraws, there is no vacuum; dogma fills it.
Historical Lesson Unchanged
Kubilay's martyrdom is a link in the same historical chain as the reactionary uprisings in the War of Independence. This chain has not been broken. It has only changed its method.
A significant part of the problems we face today are not because this lesson is not known, but because it is known but not practiced for the sake of political comfort.
A republic is not only won; it is preserved.
Secularism is not only proclaimed; it is defended.
When reaction is ignored, it is not weakened; it is legitimized.
The line stretching from Kubilay to the War of Independence and from there to today tells us only one thing:
The future of Turkey still depends on the outcome of the political and intellectual struggle against reaction.
This is not a matter of nostalgia; it is a matter of the future.