Politics without being dissident
Political area of Turkey has been suffering and has persecuted by the lack of dissident voice, or let’s say a reliable dissident voice, however, nobody is demanding it.
A glimpse through the Turkish political landscape
Turkey has been governing under the lead of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) for 20 years. And during their tenure, the biggest opposition party has always been CHP (Republican People’s Party). The heritage of CHP notoriously bears dictatorship and for those of whom stand against the CHP because it evokes them that one-party ruling era. While the major adherents of the CHP consist of who define themselves as Kemalists; they regard CHP as the most prominent party that should take its responsibility and bring back first years -depicted as glorious days- of the Republic of Turkey. It reveals they are eminently alike each other.
Recently some of the founders of AKP presented themselves as dissident and had left from the body of the AKP (referring establishment of DEVA and Gelecek Partisi).
Moreover, in the last five years, many right-wing parties such as the IYI Party had divided and launched a volatile coalition against the AKP governance by asserting the deterioration in every area of public/politic life. They have postulated they will not be able to change the fate of Turkey unless a coalition set regardless of general ideologies. By doing so, they decided to launch a common agenda that is distinct from the party agenda.
But precisely none of these parties or coalitions is adequate, in the eyes of the youth.
Representative democracy inherently seems in doubt since the absence of understanding younger generations. Also, entering politics is not as easy as it used to be. The stance of Turkish opposition parties against the embraced “remaining status quo policy” should be utterly changed; there is a widely held belief as they are not going too far from remaining status quo.
What recent resistance has shown me!
It is for sure opposition parties have duties for both the governing process and the public so to examine whether governing channels work appropriately and ensure general will effectively. If none of these functions has been executed, we could not say there are dissident voices, nor a representative system but a bunch of politician elite in the assembly.
With the spread of the Internet, area of politics had unprecedentedly begun to vanish its solemnity. It became an entertainment entity, maybe the most popular one. In the pursuit of personal rights, I realized if it has not newsworthy than neither source of power nor dissidents will not stand on your side. It is a race, a grimy one, where they can earn credibility and consolidate their grassroots. That is all.
In the first days of police brutality and uneven arrests, none of the elected mayors (mayor of Istanbul and Ankara municipalities) had raised their voices against these unbearable attitudes of the present government. And that showed me the absence of an appropriate, righteous dissident voice that resembles us, the youth. Despite the prevalent idea in politics, I hope the number of young representatives will get increased in every area of politic life.
We need to understand that democracy cannot gauge by the greatest buildings but by the representation of the public there in closed doors.
