Tutelage and democracy

In our 60 years of democratic life, we have never reached the point of being at ease with what we do as democracy. There are influential circles who think that when left to itself the will of the people runs either to the drummer or to the piper, and who regard themselves as the meritorious owners of the system, and they believe that the people are too naive and childlike ever to decide what is good or bad for themselves.

And yet the "good" these circles deem fit for the people never turns out to be something the people favor. That is why democracy inevitably always disappoints this elitist crowd about the people. However, in the early stages of Turkish modernism this disappointment was experienced as a truly simple and sincere disappointment, because these elites, while trying to make the people adopt the "correct" knowledge, as they saw it, that they had memorized in the enlightenment-minded education system, truly believed they were doing something for the people. That the people did not favor this knowledge or lifestyle seriously saddened these missionaries of enlightenment.

Over time, however, this disappointment turned into a kind of alienation and rage. Because they, too, probably realized that the relationship with the masses they aimed to educate could not be reduced to a simple relationship between the enlightened and the ignorant. They began to look at the problem through the political tensions produced by looking at the world from an entirely different point. At this stage, the old enlightened elitists' lust for power, which recognizes no rules or ethics, began to make itself felt in all its dimensions.

The form of domination that the elitists are trying to establish over the great majority of the people today, quite unlike the guardianship approach that was set in motion by an enlightenment instinct at the outset, rests openly on the logic of eliminating, excluding and destroying an adversary. We face today a regime of tutelage different from the tutelage of the enlightened despot who could decide which identity is right for people, which lifestyle is appropriate or which knowledge is useful. Today's tutelage confronts us with the most merciless and most destructive enmity of the passion for power.

This year the 22nd Meeting of the Abant Platform convened, truly in Abant, to discuss the elements of tutelage that overshadow our democratic life.

Admittedly, the concept of tutelage has been applied in too many places, like a code name for every kind of evil we encounter in our democratic life. In this respect, a danger arises similar to the one caused by the concept of "civilian tutelage," as a diluting and emptying move against military or judicial tutelage. However, the subject is closely related to the problems we are living through continuously, in real time.

The military's intervention, extending into every area of civilian life, even though the military itself can have a series of problems with its technical knowledge in its own field, constitutes a system of tutelage that is hard to remove. This system of tutelage is definitely counted as the greatest reason why Turkey, with all its institutions, has not been able to develop as much as it should have for 60 years. On the other hand, although its influence on the judiciary is also beyond dispute, the judiciary's own exercise of influence and authority over the legal system, exceeding its own job descriptions and powers, constitutes the greatest reason why our democratic system does not work according to its rules and is subject to an arbitrary will.

The AYM, with the annulment case concerning the constitutional amendments on its agenda, faces a serious test precisely within the framework of tutelage. In this test it may choose the difficult, even the impossible, and claim an exceptional superiority over the system. Judging by its actions so far, no one can be sure that the AYM will not do this. Yet when it does so, as it has tried several times before, it will have displayed an attitude that formally suspends the constitution.

It is also noteworthy that in these suspensions there is no claim of any benefit to the people. In the AYM's discretions that, in its own view, violate the Constitution when necessary and place itself above the Constitution, there is no claim, explicit or implicit, of any "good" for the people. On the contrary, in decisions of this kind it always acts as a party that regards a certain segment as its adversary, like an actor of destruction, with the ruthlessness that a power struggle against that side requires.

Every kind of tutelage over democracy rests on the principle that the people are not self-sufficient, and, not being of age, that their decisions are to be supervised by those who are wiser or more knowledgeable; this is a thought fundamentally contradicting the concept of democracy, "primitive" from the standpoint of the logic of democracy. The concept of democracy and tutelage are in no way compatible. Yet, when looked at optimistically, one can still find an innocent side in this kind of tutelage. But in the form of tutelage we face today there is no sign of innocence. On the contrary, it manifests itself as a form of domination that regards the law it is authorized to interpret as a weapon it can use as it pleases against its adversaries.

I hope that thinking about all the dimensions of the concept of tutelage can fulfill a liberating mission against this form of domination.