There are some sentences that one constructs not out of anger but out of resentment. “El insaf” is a sentence like this. Because when you look at some of the language directed at Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu today, you can't help but say this. El insaf...
In the history of the CHP, there have been other presidents who lost elections. The party was not in power for many years. In different periods, wrong strategies were established, wrong choices were made, society was not read. But never before has a chairman been placed at the center of such intense anger, ridicule and devaluation.
Moreover, many of those who speak the harshest today were the same people who sat at the same tables yesterday. They made the same decisions together. They managed the same campaigns together. They made the same statements of hope together. During the election process, they appeared in the same photos, spoke at the same podium and defended the same strategies.
How fair is it to put the burden of the whole period on the shoulders of one person?
Of course Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu can be criticized. His mistakes are discussed, his candidacy process is debated, his political performance is questioned. These are all natural parts of democratic politics. But the picture that has emerged today is no longer just criticism. At times it has turned into a total devaluation.
It is as if years of struggle never happened. As if this party has never tried to talk to different segments of society for the first time in years. It is as if there has never been an attempt to reach out to conservative voters, to make amends, to gather different political parties around the same table.
However, these were not easy tasks in Turkish politics.
Kılıçdaroğlu has perhaps never fit the classic leader profile. This is because politics in Turkey likes louder, tougher and more defiant figures. Calmness is often mistaken for weakness. Attempts at compromise are interpreted as indecision. Perhaps this is why Kılıçdaroğlu struggled for years not only with his rivals but also with the public's perception of him as a leader.
But there is another problem today. Some forms of language, especially on social media, now exceed the limits of political criticism. A language that insinuates on people's sect, identity and belonging is becoming normalized. The fact that the sentence “He cannot win because he is Alevi” has been so easily established in this country for years is thought-provoking in itself.
It is a democratic right to criticize a person for their political performance. But it is another thing to try to devalue them on the basis of their identity.
Perhaps the most painful part is this. The whole story of a political figure who was once the hope of millions of people is now reduced to election results. But politics is not only about winning. Politics is sometimes about surviving despite oppression. Sometimes it is struggling under heavy attacks for years. Sometimes it means risking to touch social fault lines, which is never easy.
One comes back to the same point.
Al mercy...
Declaring a person you marched with yesterday as the sole author of all defeats today does not tell the truth. It tells more about the accumulated anger of an era.