Turkey:

Corruption scandal exposes weakness of system

by Phil Mitchinson

Turkey has discovered a new national hero. Not the footballers of Fenerbahce, but the "Truck Monster." On the 4th of November a lorry crashed into a car on a Turkish highway, an unfortunately common occurrence, and not usually the cause of much celebration.

On this occasion however, the wreckage of the Mercedes involved contained a political revelation. Driving the car was a police official, his passengers were an MP from the True Path party, a mafia boss, his girlfriend, and a pile of guns and explosives. As a plot for a film this story would be unbelievable. The reality however, has exposed a web of intrigue and corruption, described, even by the usually slavish Turkish media, as the "mafiosoisation of the state."

Protests

The day after the news broke, student protests erupted throughout the country, only to be brutally crushed by the police. Ironically, the same day a group of students were on trial for breaking the "Demonstrations Law" by unfurling a banner in Parliament, proclaiming that no­one should be allowed to interfere with their right to an education. They were sentenced to fifteen months in prison for this heinous act! The police, the courts and parliament, three vital sections of this "Mafioso state, " united in defence of corrupt officials, and united in prosecuting students for peaceful protests over attacks on their education, and the involvement of that same state machinery in drug trafficking and gun­running.

As with many other recent scandals, this wasn't just one rogue politician, or one "bad apple" in the police force. Those involved include the very tops of society. Interior Minister Agar was forced to resign after a report implicating him and other leading politicians in this crime ring was published. This entanglement of the state and organised crime, the growth of the black economy, corruption scandals, and so on, have now become an international phenomenon, and are a symptom of the sickness of the entire system. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark", Shakespeare once wrote. Today we could add Italy, the US, Belgium... The list is endless. The whole system is rotten, and its nauseating stench is engulfing the whole planet. Any talk to the effect that the world is not rotten ripe for socialist change is either ignorance or deception. For a time Turkeys capitalists, just like their counterparts in the more advanced capitalist countries, believed that they had solved all their problems. Their illusions soon crumbled to dust.

During the 1980s Turkey too enjoyed a prolonged boom, workers still meagre living standards actually began to rise, and the myth was created that Turkey had become a "modern western style democracy". The end­of­decade coups of the 50s, 60s and 70s, seemed to have ended with the passing of 1990. However, in 1994 the Turkish miracle collapsed in a deep slump and hyperinflation.

Military

To date the military remain in the wings. As they desperately scramble to be allowed into the EU, the Turkish ruling class are trying to avoid a military solution to their problems. However, in the absence of a decisive lead from the workers organisations, the "fundamentalist" Refah party have partially filled the vacuum, particularly amongst the millions of peasants who have flocked into the cities in recent years in search of work. The Refah led coalition have steered clear of implementing any fundamentalist change though, again for fear of exclusion from the EU. In any event, they are well aware that any attempt to go down this path, further alienating the West, would not be permitted by the military. The fragile nature of Turkeys so­called democracy has been exposed for all to see.

The illusion that Turkey was catching up with the west is rapidly disappearing. Instead it seems we are rapidly catching up with Turkey.

For now, Turkish capitalism is being kept in Europe's waiting room. The customs agreement they have signed is costing them f 2­3 billion a year in lost import taxes, and in return they get nothing. The lifebelt of the EU is in fact a lead weight which threatens to drag the whole economy down into even deeper crisis. This is just a foretaste of what would happen if Turkey were ever allowed to join the EU.

Meanwhile of course, the capitalists are not prepared to bear this cost themselves, but attempt to place the burden on the backs of the working class. In addition, the cost of the war against the Kurds in the East is running at around £7 billion a year. This cost too must be borne by those same workers, and such a situation cannot continue indefinitely without provoking a response. Indeed there have already been major strikes involving textile and transport workers over the last year. As in the case of the student protests, these disputes have involved bitter battles with the police. Turkeys state forces are constantly being strengthened, but this is a sign of the weakness, not the strength of capitalism. The power of the state has not always existed in society, but grew out of the division of society into irreconcilably opposed classes. From its inception it has served to protect the rule of the minority over the majority in society. The facade it developed of acting as a kind of impartial referee in society, keeping "law and order," is being eaten away by each new corruption scandal. The strengthening of the police, the army, the infamous network of informers, illustrates the growing fear of the capitalist class for the future of their system.

Today Turkey acts as a bridge for the drugs and arms trade between east and west. The forces of the capitalist state won't put a stop to this trade, they are inseparably tied up with it themselves. This question, as much as the land question, the question of Cyprus, and the Kurds, can only begin to be solved by a socialist transformation, not only in Turkey but also in Greece, Iran, Iraq. The working class is now the decisive majority of Turkish society, and the task of solving these problems falls to them. In a socialist society Turkey, not allowed into today's capitalist club of European powers, could become a bridge instead between socialist federations in the Middle East and Europe.

From Socialist Appeal 47, Dec 1996