Turkish election 07/06/2015

[butchersapron]

Here's an interesting piece from before the election that touches on how changes in the class structure/capital relations in turkey over the last few decades have impacted on the political arena, stuff on the conservative kurdish component of HDP and the class basis of AKP support:

Kurds, Labor, and the Left in Turkey: an Interview with Erdem Yörük

It was in the aftermath of the shift in economic planning that happened around 1980, that the whole face of the working class in Turkey changed. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the developmentalist economy featuring tariff protections, state-owned enterprises and an emphasis on agricultural self-sufficiency gave way to an export-economy fueled by low-wage labor by a new class: the informal proletariat. The plans for this shift were laid early in 1980 and solidified under the military regime and in its immediate aftermath. These reforms weakened the position of small farmers in the overall economy, necessitating internal immigration to the cities in search of wage-labor—and other forces augmented this trend.

As far as the labor movement is concerned, of course the general suppression of the Left during the 1980 coup played a role here, but a still more significant factor in the decline of organized labor and the rise of the informal proletariat was the war between the state and the PKK. Internally displaced Kurds who left villages that had been destroyed by the army or an economy generally ruined by war were desperate, and willing to do even the worst jobs, without social security or job security, often on a temporary basis, in what came to be known as the informal sector. These people swelled into the big cities, which were on every level—in terms of housing, infrastructure, health—barely able to accommodate them, and everything in their daily lives became a matter of makeshift solutions and negotiation. Without these wage-laborers at the bottom of the economic pyramid, the industries that have grown in Turkey over the last few decades would not have gotten off the ground; the country’s economic growth that has gotten such press internationally is due to their labor.

The huge changes to the class landscape brought about by neoliberalism were bound to have political consequences as well. The 1980’s were a time of political tranquility in Turkey, but in the 1990’s ideological competition in Turkish politics really intensified, with political Islam on the ascendant. Because political Islam was able to organize social aid on a local and communitarian basis, it filled the vacuum left by a retreating Left that had not adjusted to the new realities of the informal economy, and managed to address the destitute workers of the cities and earn their loyalty. The Kurdish national movement did similar things. Meanwhile the labor unions, which were unable to absorb the huge influx of internal immigrants and in any case restricted in various ways by anti-union legislation, went into decline.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

Here's an interesting piece from before the election that touches on how changes in the class structure/capital relations in turkey over the last few decades have impacted on the political arena, stuff on the conservative kurdish component of HDP and the class basis of AKP support:

Kurds, Labor, and the Left in Turkey: an Interview with Erdem Yörük

Yup excellent piece, would recommend that people read.

Although being ideologically close to leftcom thought myself I'm nowhere near as optimistic/sanguine re: the HDP's parliamentary success.

 

[butchersapron]

Interesting piece in the Jacobin too, esp on how Kobani impacted within turkey on those who took part in Gezi who then examined to the wider rojava experiment and those outside of that who actually came to see kurds as defending turkeys borders whilst the AKP failed to do so and how that again played out politically, esp in terms of legitimacy. Also mentions the kurdish conservative section of the HDP. Note so sure of the title though:

Turkey’s Rejuvenated Left

At this point, it is important to say that the democratic revolution in Rojava at first didn’t have any effects on Turkish politics at all. It was the struggle for Kobanê that had a huge impact within Turkish society, and this has to do with the fact that the struggle for Kobanê took place after the Gezi insurgency, while the Rojava revolution started long before Kobanê became a topic in the media.

The fact that ISIS holds territory right next to the Turkish border sensitized especially women and ethnic/religious minorities like the Alevis or the Armenians. The Kurdish movement simultaneously worked very effectively organizing and popularizing the struggle in Kobane. Through the association of these dynamics of Kobanê and Gezi, the Kurdish liberation movement gained a lot of support — beyond its usual basis — and forced almost all political forces of society, and especially of the socialist left, to reorganize their relationship to the Kurdish question.

Large parts of the Turkish socialist left that had shown some distance towards the Kurdish liberation movement before, now showed more solidarity to the Kurdish struggle and had, at any rate, to develop a crystal clear stance towards the Kurdish liberation movement, either affirmative or negative. Others that were already close to the Kurdish movement are now fighting together with the People’s Defense Units (YPG) in Rojava.

...

Both groups feel alienated by the open support of Erdoğan for the jihadist groups ISIS and Nusra in Syria. In these groups of voters the Kurdish militias were recognized to be the only force truly fighting the Islamists and therefore actually defending Turkish borders.

The result was a big loss in legitimacy for the AKP regime within their traditional voting bloc. Both the Gezi insurgency and the struggle in Kobanê became an experience of rejuvenation and revitalization for the socialist left in Turkey and brought them closer to broad parts of the population. We can already feel the change in atmosphere — today it is again popular to be a socialist and a revolutionary in Turkey, like it was before the coup d’etat and the military junta in the 1980s.

 

[butchersapron]

What's going on here?

 

[Geri]

3 HDP members killed in Diyarbakir shoot out

 

[phildwyer]

You can't apply the European left-right paradigm to Turkey.

Precisely. This is the fundamental mistake made by Western commentators.

The "parallels" are the real winners here, i.e. Gulen. They seem to have penetrated the police and judiciary to a previously unsuspected extent.

 

[phildwyer]

Whichever government coalition Turkey ends up with there will presumably be changes in Turkey's foreign policy, especially in Syria, since no other party shares the AKP's stance.

No there will not be any such changes.

 

[sihhi]

@J Ed the changes will be forced from facts on the ground, if hopefully YPG will capture Tel Abaid cutting the easy route for supplies to ISIS

The resilience of the nurcus is overstated, Bank Asya their only financial arm was taken over by people close to Tayyip Erdogan.

Slowly the economy is stagnating not enough to effect a major shift in votes - recently rural w/class side of the extended family were silent AKP voters other graduate m/class side of the extended family CHP.

What's developing is tensions in the two main parties

AKP between (moderate) Gul and Erdogan (one man presidentialist) loyalists it splashed out in the open when Melih Gokcek and Bulent Arinc started insulting each other in public.

CHP between the old SHP , moderate old CHP/DSP and hard Kemalist wing.

The overall dynamics haven't changed at all. right and left still holds solid
right=41+16+2 AKP MHP Saadet BBP versus left=25+13 CHP and HDP still, just less than a 2:1 ratio as it has been roughly since 1980.

HDP, although it is also a hefty coalition of all sorts, is solid in its stance of waiting and seeing either supporting a CHP-MHP coalition from the outside or trying to capitalise on the momentum in fresh elections.

It is not being pulled apart in different directions (notwithstanding nutcase soft Islamist Altan Tan attacking the leader of the CHP for not saying that his kible was kaba).

What's apparent is that the economic growth has weakened in the south east meaning there is clear blue water between HDP in front and AKP a distant second and that AKP's turnout in sunni turkish areas was also down compared to last time.