Islamism and the genealogy of the left

The reactions to the pieces I have been writing for some time on the left, and specifically on the Islamic left, require me to complete one or two points that remained lacking. First of all, I must say that the first reason that prompted the writing of these pieces was the wish to answer the claims, theses and discourses of the Islamic left. As I wrote, I thought that the matter could not be confined to the left alone. Because before us there is no fixed story, attitude or framework that can be defined as the left.

It is true that an interest and demand from a section of the left wing toward the Islamic left existed both in the past and today. I would not want to reduce these demands to a certain reactiveness or to a single bad or naive intention and waste them. This wish may have a very different meaning for each person. Everyone's interest in a subject cannot be reduced to a single pen, a single human situation. After all, each person encounters every event under their own particular conditions, shows their own particular attitude and is affected in their own particular way. There were always traces of an effort from the left to follow the examples of historical compromise in Europe or Latin America and to carry it to Turkey as well. Some of these remained a thoroughly pragmatic search aimed at co-opting the revolutionary power of Islam. At times these examples could also take much more opportunistic, utilitarian and scheming forms by dividing the Islamic political front with other alliances. On the Islamic side, the main axis of interest in this synthesis remained nothing more than surrendering to the influence of the left's popularity. The story of these relations, these contacts, from their own perspectives has probably often been written from within the left. It is perfectly normal for it to be written by them, but leaving the narration dependent only on their point of view creates a problem: the whole judgment about the event remains confined and flawed by their ideological testimony. The fact is that their narration is badly ideological. Moreover, they also at times have the skill to conceal with strong rhetoric that it is ideological.

For that reason, in the longer term it is actually necessary to show the historical conditions and development of the Islamic left discourse with its examples in Turkey and the Arab-Islamic world, both as discursive themes put forward and as examples of encounters experienced on the plane of movement. At this level, rather than delivering a judgment on whether the thing is possible from the Islamic side or from the left's side, it is more important to try to understand the people who took part in these encounters together with the mental or active products they sought to bring forth. What these encounters meant for the parties is, of course, very important. In sum, a genealogy of the matter must be drawn up. A genealogy of a possible synthesis or debate between Islam and the left is needed, as well as a genealogy of the left itself.

It must be shown that reading politics and history along the right-left axis is, in the end, a choice of world, and that even if it claims to close all the fighting valid in the world, and even if it wishes to overlook the real primordial fight, it is a part, or another link, of that real fight.

On the other hand, if we are to speak of an encounter between Islamism and leftism, one as a religion and the other as a political-ideological stance, this can only be done through their adherents. For the left and Islam do not themselves meet. It is Muslims and leftists who meet. It is a fact that these encounters have produced a very rich and instructive human experience both in the world and in Turkey.

Within the lineage of the left, its European origins and its dependence on Orientalist epistemology and ontology are the elements that strike the eye at first glance. Within these lineage features, the incurably chronic inconsistent position of the left is related to its lack of a binding text.

Just as, and for the reasons for which, Marx made the salvation of the Jews dependent on salvation from Judaism, I think that, for the same reasons, the salvation of the left too has become dependent on people's salvation from the left.

Because the left's theory creates one set of problems, and the formations, dynamics and practices of its communities create other problems, and all these problems taken together bring about not a contribution of the left to humanity but its becoming a burden upon humanity.

The Gezi incident was an important turning point both for the Turkish left and in the relationship between the left and Islamists. Gezi provided important data on what kinds of alliances the Turkish Left is open to in Turkey, or what margins it has regarding alliances. At the same time it was an interesting experience that led to the exposure of all the lust for power in the left's subconscious, and of all the feelings it nurtured, concealed or suppressed against the people of Turkey and the segments representing it.

To watch leftists, with their intellectual levels that in a process of intense socialization had poured out tonnes of literature on subjects such as revolution, change, coexistence, democracy and civility, suddenly turn, with the Gezi incident, into the most archaic partisans and even hooligans in the most Vandal scenes must undoubtedly have affected the view of many fancy concepts.

It was seen that the unfulfilled revolutionism that had remained a grudge within the elders of the Turkish leftists suddenly turned into the expected Messiah for the new generation of young militants. The cries of "This time it's done" gave away precisely the excitement of the expectation of the Messiah.

It is clear that Gezi has a sociology, but the deep meanings attributed to it from the revolutionary perspective itself, and the diversity among what the participants in Gezi saw in it, make a phenomenology of Gezi inevitable. A phenomenology, that is, "To whom and how and why did Gezi appear this way?"

It was very clear that there were certain alliances behind the events, and pointing to these alliances was instantly condemned as conspiracy-mongering. Yet afterwards these alliances had begun to act much more openly. For example, FETÖ preferred to appear not to give open support to this movement, but with all its components gave unimaginable support to increase Gezi's impact and to turn Gezi into a broader mass movement. We are not even counting the other actors.

When the contribution made to the Gezi movement by the elements known as anti-capitalist Muslims is also taken into account, it becomes inevitable to see this event as an important link in the genealogy of the relationship between Islam and the Left.