The most recent foreign-policy moves of the power holders who are increasingly floundering in pursuit of their expansionist ambitions serve the purpose far more of unjamming domestic politics.
Yusuf Karadaş
As much as President Tayyip Erdoğan may speak of “flying”, the masses of working people are being crushed thanks to the economic crisis that is taking on a fresh dimension as the pandemic unfolds. The Turkish Statistical Institute, which releases unemployment and inflation data after manipulating the figures to suit the power holders, has been incapable of concealing the 2.585 million drop in employment over the past year (between April 2019 and April 2020). With the extent of unemployment concealed through the short working payments that are renewed each month and unpaid furloughs, workers, conversely, are condemned to starvation having become effectively unemployed.
With foreign trade making up more than half national product (GNP) – GNP is around 750 billion dollars and foreign trade 390 – and the country having foreign debt of 168 billion dollars in need of servicing within one year, Minister of Treasury and Finance, son-in-law Albayrak, appears on a programme and manages to reply as if teasing us to a question about the rising dollar exchange rate, “Do you get paid in dollars?” driving home the fact that those paid in dollars are going to be the last to be troubled by the rising dollar exchange rate and, at the same time, the minister’s “sharp wit”!
With the pandemic still posing a fatal risk to millions of people, the “controlled herd immunity” policy followed since 1 June has spun out of control. Looking at the news emanating from the provinces the Ministry of Health releases each day, the epidemic is defying control even by the seemingly much flawed data. With hospitals full and patients being sent home in many provinces, the Ministry of Health is taking absolutely no precaution apart from “warning” citizens with statements about “cleanliness, mask, distance.” Even if the Ministry of National Education says, contrary to earlier announcements, face-to-face education will commence on 21 September and in diluted form, such pronouncements instil trust in nobody. Hence, millions of working families are plagued by serious education-related concerns.
Violence against women continues to grow in tandem with discussion about exiting the Istanbul Convention. A new step is being taken to attach the judiciary to the single man in the form of the multiple bar association arrangement. Prohibitions and censorship are being harshened under the social media/internet law. With absolutely no pandemic-related precautions being taken, activities and events are being banned in many provinces due to the epidemic.
With this the state of play in the country, what discussions are the power holders and their media promoting?
Well, that the Kemal Reis frigate scraped against the Greek frigate Limnos intent on blocking the Oruç Reis survey ship and we gave the Greeks a huge lesson!
Then there is US Democratic Party Presidential Candidate Joe Biden. With comments Biden made seven months ago brought up as if new, we learnt once more that our power holders were the guardians of our “national values” and “independence” having once again stood up to the imperialists in defiance of supporters of coup-mongers and “terrorists”!
It does not stop here. We then showed once more that we were the patron of the Palestinian cause and the Islamic world by coming out strongly against the agreement our enemy in Libya, the UAE (United Arab Emirates), had made with Israel!
It was already a known that, informed by expansionist ambitions, the power holders in Turkey were seeking to intervene in every issue in the region (Middle East) and grab a piece of the action by exploiting the contradictions between imperialists. However, the Erdoğan regime has for some time become immobilized in places where it has sought to intervene.
The taking of Sirte and Jufra in Libya was said to be a matter of time. But, with the intervention of opposing forces seriously stymying the initiatives here, silence has taken the place of the air of “victory”. The Idlib impasse continues in Syria as does the chaotic state in the areas captured together with jihadist bands. Relations maintained with Russia serve purely to postpone the crisis for the time being. Cross-border operations in Iraq have caused a heightening of tension with Iraq following the recent killing of two Iraqi commanders. The policy of whipping up war and tension in the Eastern Mediterranean and gaining rights/shares in energy resources and transit routes here is gradually isolating/imposing isolation on Turkey.
The most recent foreign-policy moves of the power holders who, as the above depiction makes clear, are increasingly floundering in pursuit of their expansionist ambitions serve the purpose far more of unjamming domestic politics and bringing back on board through nationalism the masses of working people who are in the course of drifting away from the power holders.
The language the power holders and their media are employing in the most recent crisis with Greece unfolding in the Aegean is redolent of the “Imia/Kardak crisis” that took place in the days of Tansu Çiller (1996). In that period, too, an atmosphere of war was created over the Imia/Kardak rocks and nationalism steeped in Grecophobia was whipped up. Indeed, President Erdoğan and the power holders’ spokespersons are portraying the scraping together of the two countries’ frigates as a veritable “victory” in continuation of the recent “dog fight” between Turkish and Greek warplanes over the Aegean. There is talk of giving the Greeks a “lesson” and “telling them where to get off.” However, all who follow developments closely know it is the domestic political exigencies of both countries’ administrations that have been instrumental in events reaching this stage. Just as the power holders in Turkey speak of delivering a lesson, Greece gives a similar message by holding a joint exercise with France.
The first thing that can be said about the highlighted comments by Trump’s major rival in the elections slated for this year in the US, the Democratic Party’s Biden, is that these pronouncements were aimed at courting American public opinion. This is because Biden’s comments concerning the Erdoğan regime in Turkey and the Kurds were made at a time when there was talk in American public opinion of Trump having left the Kurds in Syria high and dry and, as I have said, were based on rhetoric aimed at winning American public opinion over to his policies. Just as the power holders in Turkey brought up these comments seven months later as their domestic political needs dictated.
Of course, should Biden win the US elections, future changes in certain policies are to be expected. However, just as nobody expects Biden to cut off relations with NATO-member Turkey, it does not appear possible in view of the prevailing relations of dependence for the power holders in Turkey to turn their anti-Biden discourse into a political stance.
Taking further stock of the reactions of the power holders in Turkey following the agreement with Israel of the UAE, one of their most important rivals in the region, the aim of such reactions can be said to be influencing domestic public opinion and Muslim peoples through the Palestinian cause. Otherwise, one of the countries with which Turkey’s economic relations have increased steadily during the time in power of Erdoğan, who today criticizes the UAE and engages in harsh anti-Israeli rhetoric, is Israel; in fact, according to Turkish Statistical Institute figures, trade with Israel, standing at 1.406 billion dollars in 2002, rose to 5.609 billion dollars in 2018.
It is true that the Gulf countries, headed by the UAE, have betrayed the Palestinian cause – and they have never actually defended this cause – but it is also a fact that the Erdoğan regime has taken no concrete step, either, over and above giving harsh political messages to counter the contrived defeat of the Palestinian cause in connection with the US’s regional plans and has thus not/been unable to go beyond exploiting this cause.
In conclusion, the power holders who are becoming increasing constrained domestically and have started to lose popular support are trying to bring the people back on board of their policies by increasing tension externally and whipping up nationalist and religious sentiment. However, the martial strains no longer suffice either to conceal the massive devastation the people have undergone or to deflect workers and wage earners from the struggle against this devastation!
(Translated by Tim DRAYTON)
Hediye Levent
Yücel Özdemir