Could a "Postmodern Prince" come out of the Turkish Left?

Antonio Gramsci's book The Modern Prince is, according to one reading, the design of the left and socialist movement as a Prince suited to the spirit of the modern age. The Prince of Machiavelli, which inspired the design, is for Gramsci a search for a comprehensive, coherent and stable social and political order for a Europe that has fallen into complete chaos, whose direction has become uncertain, and which has been deprived of any conception of a social body. Proceeding from the finding that Europe between the two world wars was in precisely such a condition, Gramsci sets out to design a "common subject" for Europe.

The "common subject" is essentially a subject that would answer the problem of unity against Europe's social and political fragmentation. But right after this emphasis comes the point that, for a common will capable of securing this unity to form, the most important things are a leadership to lead it and the problem of how this leadership is to be built. John Sanbonmatsu, who is in search of a Postmodern Prince on behalf of the left, expresses the situation as follows: "if the socialist movement wanted to win the consent of the working class and its allies while leading them in the construction of a new democratic order, it had to accept the form of a 'modern' prince." (Bağlam Yayınları, 2007: 23)

Although Gramsci, for his own period, assigned all social change and the leadership that would secure unity to the left-socialist movement in the image of a prince, and to the proletariat as a class, history has shown through tragic examples that this proletariat was far from having the ability, the strength and the qualities to take on this role. Yet the left's desire to be the prince never ended. Although the proletariat, its only material, had displayed its incompetence and lack of merit with complete clarity, and although the left saw this and in practice gave up on it, it did not give up the desire to be the prince by assuming another body. In this way the left subsequently turned to searching for other social instruments with which to realize its princely dreams.

It was precisely the inadequacy shown by the proletariat in fulfilling this modern-prince mission that drove post-Marxist or new left currents to new searches in the name of Marxism. It was seen that the changes taking place in the world and social and political upheavals could not be sufficiently explained by a class-based antagonism. Evidently there were other determining antagonisms, and recognizing them could be seen as a deviation from the classical Marxist line. Moreover, the age is now a postmodern age, and in this age, which brings relativity to the fore, it is not possible for a political movement to monopolize a claim to truth. In such a period, a prince who would both sustain claims to truth and be able to assume the authority vested in the common subject must also be postmodern.

When the left, which is in essence a messianism, finds its main concern in the postmodern environment to be saving itself and continuing, it turns to searches that are wholly incompatible with its initial friend-enemy perception. Environmentalist, feminist and lifestyle-based movements, and even oppositional nationalist movements against ruling nationalist governments, each point to antagonisms that were initially alien to the left.

The left's giving up hope in its own proletariat and beginning to take an interest in these movements in the name of the plurality of antagonisms creates, in the literal sense of the word, a problem of "the book" for the left. From then on, only the interests of the stratum once formed in the name of the left decide with whom it will do business according to circumstances, and nothing remains of principle, book or doctrine.

The left's current interest in Kurdish nationalism, for example, constitutes a perfect example of bookless-ness in terms of the left's initial principles or motivations. We had said that even Birikim, which for years maintained a level-headed line of criticism against the PKK's methods that sanctify violence and operate with all kinds of intrigues, and which "we too respectfully acknowledge," has almost become a bulletin devoted to glorifying all of the PKK's fascistic character.

Naturally, we ask as well: for this left discourse that readily brands even the most basic Turkish nationalism as fascism, what does the PKK lack of fascism? If you like, we can present countless "democratic autonomy" or "self-rule" scenes from Cizre, Yüksekova and Silvan. If they can reconcile these with their leftist utopias, well and good.

Can there be a prudence that makes it possible to regard as superior to the nationalism of the ruling nation a thoroughly chauvinist Kurdish nationalism that forms masses that will submit to it by force of arms and even attempts to organize the whole of society with all its elements by the force of this weapon?

There are of course, and there may be, fascistic elements in Turkish nationalism too, but let nobody take offense, the fascism the PKK displays today, with fancy words such as liberated regions and democratic autonomy, has already earned the right to be the most violent fascism recorded in the history of this region. Evidently there is a motive pushing the left to ignore the chauvinist, oppressive, racist, nationalist practices in Kurdish nationalism. Evidently they see in Kurdish nationalism a strong potential that would open the way for the 'Postmodern Prince.'

This in itself shows that the left no longer has a mission of saving any society or the world; it is concerned with saving itself. It seems to be looking for a vehicle that will carry it to power and to cling to whatever it finds. What it clings to can no longer take anything from it, because the left has nothing left to lose in the name of values and principles, not even its chains.

In sum, the entire effort of left politics consists of the eagerness to be a "modern prince," or in the present case a "postmodern prince," in the transformation of the world. All the left-socialist strategy debates are aimed at denigrating the course of the world if their own organizational existence does not figure in it as a subject.

Instead of doing good things for humanity in the world in general and, while doing so, seeking new alliances suited to the situation by focusing on "good" deeds, a very special sensitivity has been developed about not letting someone else snatch the princeship.

Perhaps this stems from having got too carried away with the vanguard Messianic role attributed to the proletariat. The aspiration to be a Postmodern Prince also prevents seeing or appreciating other developments in the world of which it cannot be the subject. Especially if these developments generate a great deal of agenda and it sees them as stealing its role, it assigns itself the mission of developing an opposition against them.