Politics is essentially a claim. However, at the point we have reached today, this claim has been replaced by an uncontrolled ambition to “be in power” and the evacuation of the soul. In ancient Egypt, Ma'at, the goddess of order and justice, symbolized the balance of the universe. The Pharaohs“ greatest duty was to ”keep Ma'at alive", that is, not to deviate from the truth.
Today, the scales of politics are weighed not by the light feather of Ma'at, but by the weight of tender files and funded names.
Politics used to be a “school”. We had “older brothers” who came from the labor force, who had swallowed the dust of the party. Even though we were rivals, the values we defended were common. Our aim was to do better by staying true to the party's founding philosophy and its unwritten code of ethics. Today, we are faced with a class of “upstarts” who have never entered the doors of the party, whose names no one has ever heard of, but who are polished with municipal means.
Max Weber divides those who practice politics as a profession into two: “Those who live for politics” and “Those who live from politics.” Our veteran brothers lived for politics; today's bidding councillors and mayors who have not “walked through the door” are obviously there to live from politics.
On the one hand, the portrait of the “accountable, shameless, non-stealing” honest politician that Mr. Kemal brought to the party; on the other, the new generation of figures funded by certain centers. By reducing politics to the “modesty of the kitchen”, Mr. Kemal was actually saying to the public: “My heart is as light as a feather on Ma'at's scales, because I am above suspicion.” This stance, which put transparency and the right to serve at the center, was the party's unshakable moral compass.
Today, however, the hunger for success has reached such a level that we are faced with a pragmatism that even Machiavelli would turn over in his grave. Manipulating the electorate, breaking the “unofficial rules” of the party for the sake of power is not success, it is a *”Pyrrhic Victory ”*. You win the war, but you are left with nothing of the values you fought for.
Think of that moment when the heart was weighed in the Egyptian book of the dead: If the heart was heavy with deceit, it could not find eternal peace. Today, the heart of politics is heavy with the unconscious advocacy of a mass of people who haven't even read “Cin Ali” and lack depth, and the appetite of tenderers. This is exactly what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil”: The normalization of incompetence and corruption under the guise of “success”.
As a result, any structure in which loyalty replaces merit and finance replaces ideas prepares its own end. As Ibn Khaldun warned, when the basic spirit (asabiyyah) that binds a group together is lost, even if the seats are filled, the hearts become empty.
Politics transforms society not through funded names, but through the sweat of the laborer's brow and the justice of Ma'at. Otherwise, every municipality and every seat won will be nothing more than a mausoleum where the founding spirit of the party is buried.