Was Sedat Peker to be the Messiah the left was waiting for?

Earlier, on the occasion of the Gezi event, we had another headline resembling this one: "Will the Messiah the Left is waiting for descend in Taksim?" Turkey's leftists, who saw scenes of Revolution in the incredible vandalism displayed in the Gezi event, long identified the Revolution, which they thought had come right up to its threshold, with the Gezi uprising and churned out a considerable body of literature. They could not see, as an element that diverted it from the path of Revolution, either that directionless vandalism or the fact that the finance giants and the global capitalists, the most savage and merciless of capitalism, openly supported that uprising. The owner of one of Turkey's biggest banks carrying a banner reading "we are looters" and joining them at Gezi was probably attributed to his having been guided to the right path, to his having joined the historical bloc of the Revolution as a breath of fresh air. It was truly an edifying situation.

In fact, the Left's understanding of revolution and salvation has in general and always been Messianic. To every violence it saw, every coup that occurred, every social mobilization, it clung like a Messiah heralding the Revolution, or, with somewhat more theoretical evaluations, like a "modern Prince." This became an expression of the Left's inadequacy. The Left, which fell into these dreams at Gezi, saw this Messiah possibility, when the occasion arose, in the PKK too, and even, when the occasion arose, in FETÖ.

All of these were, in fact, things it was in principle against and ought to be against. The PKK represented an archaic-reactionary ideology, racism, which the left had long since surpassed. However much a connection with the left might be forced to be established, by virtue of its inadequacy, no place in the book could be found for it beyond a feudal theology of salvation, with the cult of a single man and the sanctities woven around him. FETÖ, for its part, had from the very beginning represented, in every respect, reactionary religiosity, a concrete "F-type" organized structure of its cooperation with American imperialism. Yet a ray of hope was seen in all these movements, which are diametrically opposed to all the left's creed and reasons for existence. After all, their being against the AK Party could make them saviors-revolutionaries.

None of them became it, none could, none was savior enough. The AK Party and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan continued to reproduce their power in the most legitimate places and channels of the economic-political channels the left trusted. This situation should have been warning enough for the left, in fact for its own self-criticism, perhaps for questioning this Messianic principle of hope. That did not happen either.

It is very clear that the left has recently seen a new savior figure in the person of Sedat Peker, to whom it attributed no value beyond being an "organized crime group leader." Its appetite for clinging to his statements is full of a Messianic principle of hope. It is trying to push to the limit the possibilities of the attacks he conducts over his personal obsession with Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu turning into a destructive criticism aimed at the AK Party government as a whole. But in doing so, the cheapness and avarice of "we couldn't do it, we couldn't even get close, but Peker seems as if he will, so be it" grins in all its aspects.

That leftists who criminalize every contact with Sedat Peker as "Mafia" can find no material against Süleyman Soylu other than Peker's own statements and claims is more than enough, and then some, as a disgrace. But they are not content with this; they do not stop there, they go further. They go beyond the point at which the means-end relationship kills ethics. Passing that point on every occasion has in fact become a matter of aptitude. Every road is permissible to reach the goal anyway. It is of no importance whether the goal is pursued by the means of Gezi, the PKK or FETÖ. That these means turn around and make the left a means is not very important either. After a while the left's mobilization of all its discourses for these simple means becomes an office of "annihilation" of the meaning of everything.

Sedat Peker, who was belittled for years as a mafia leader on a left-wing website, has even begun to be the subject of eulogies, compared to Eric Hobsbawm's Bandits for the clarifying services he has shown on the road on which the left was helpless. As is known, the best example of Hobsbawm's Bandits is the fabled folk hero Robin Hood.

Peker's statements are not exciting only the left. They have created a new wave of hope in the Western media against Turkey and Erdoğan. And of course the Arab press, which sees Erdoğan as a bad example threatening their own autocratic regimes, does not limit the matter to Soylu either. They even merely pass over Soylu's name and perceive Erdoğan as the real target, as good news for themselves.

I did politics together with Süleyman Soylu for years. I would like to say that I had the opportunity to observe closely, with admiration, his working style, his energy, his determination and his discipline. Thank God, just as I have had no personal request of him until now, I have had no personal business with him, nor will I. But I made many requests of him on behalf of the oppressed, the refugees, those stranded on the road, and the victims who somehow reached me. He fulfilled all of them with incredible devotion and responsibility. I am personally a witness that he received many blessings and prayers for this.

As the attacks he has been subjected to on this occasion are reflected especially in the Arab media, there is no counting the support messages that reach me from the tens of thousands of oppressed, refugees and victims whom he touched one by one and to whom he was a remedy with his always extremely solution-oriented approach, and the blessings and prayers he has received. These prayers form a strong spiritual shield against the feeling of revenge that Soylu's struggle against terror, especially left-wing, PKK or FETÖ terror, has created in these segments.

I also regard it as a duty to announce this testimony of mine here.