The modern political scene witnesses a parade of ideologies that claim to rally peoples around a “sacred ideal” or an “ancient belonging”. However, when the lights of this stage are dimmed a little, we are confronted with the fact that structures such as Zionism, Turanism and Ummahism are actually the weavings of the global capitalist loom in different colors. These three seemingly opposing currents are functionally symmetrical.
“GHETTO” NATIONALISM BORN OF TRAUMA: ZIONISM
Zionism sprouted in a traumatic climate of exclusion and anti-Semitism in 19th century Europe. However, this “national liberation” movement soon turned into an outpost of imperialism in the region. The real tragedy here is this: A Jewish worker exploited in a factory in Tel Aviv and a developer building luxury housing in the West Bank are lulled to sleep by the same fairy tale of the “promised land”. By suffocating class anger with the discourse of the “external enemy” and “survival”, Zionism has made the working class a soldier for the militarist ambitions of capital.
IMPERIAL MELANCHOLY AND CULTURAL REFUGE: TURANISM
Turanism, which was born as a “lifeline” during the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, is today marketed through an imaginary geography stretching from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China. Can the relationship between a Kazakh or Kyrgyz miner working for pennies in the mines of Central Asia and a conglomerate boss exploiting him under the banner of “Turan” be equalized? Turanism is a geopolitical tool that legitimizes capital's search for new markets with the packaging of “cultural unity”.
THE SEARCH FOR A POST-COLONIAL BLOC: UMMAHISM
Although Ummahism started out with the claim of being a focus of resistance against colonialism, in practice it has often turned into a borderless mechanism of religious hegemony and capital transfer. The rhetoric of “brothers in religion” is a huge veil that covers Gulf capital's search for cheap labor or the plunder of labor in poor Islamic geographies. The only thing that unites an Egyptian weaving worker and a Qatari billionaire is the ideological opium that makes the oppressed consent to exploitation.
CLASS BREAKING POINT: IDENTITY OR BREAD?
The common success of these ideologies is that they put “horizontal identities” (religion, language, race) before “vertical reality” (class, labor, exploitation). The interests of the boss and the worker, gathered under the same “ideal” or “belief”, never converge. The profit of one is the low wages of the other. The wealth of one is the death of the other underground.
CONCLUSION: THE REAL CONQUEST IS A CLASSLESS WORLD
The real liberation of the peoples lies outside these imaginary borders and identity labyrinths drawn by the rulers. While the Palestinian worker, the Central Asian miner and the Anatolian laborer are turned against each other in the name of their identities, capital continues to flow without borders. The real brotherhood lies in the internationalist consciousness of the worker in Ankara with the worker in Baku and the worker in Tel Aviv with the worker in Gaza. Unless we reject the false wars imposed by identities and establish the universal front of labor, every promise of “liberation” will be a new chain on our wrists.