When did the Democratic Opening begin?

At a time when we have passed the 10th anniversary of the AK Parti's taking office by forming the government, asking when the process spoken of as the "democratic opening" began should, truly, be a precaution against its being squeezed into the parenthesis of the Kurdish issue and losing its meaning today. Taking this precaution is important, because while the democratic opening is being put in the parenthesis of the Kurdish issue, on the one hand what has been done in the name of the Kurdish issue is being belittled and downplayed, and on the other hand the aim is for everything that has been done to be spent exclusively within the framework of a single problem.

Indeed, when did Turkey's Democratic Opening program begin? Can August 2009, that is, the package announced by Minister of State Beşir Atalay for a comprehensive solution of the Kurdish issue, be considered the milestone for the democratic opening? If the democratic opening began on that date, what did the series of practices carried out before it, which pushed back military tutelage step by step, the EU harmonization packages, calling the Kurdish issue by its name, going after coups, deep forces and unsolved murders, and the paradigmatic change experienced along this path, signify?

Truly, the steps announced in August 2009 for the solution of the Kurdish issue were not such big steps when compared with the democratization program the government had started and carried on much earlier. More plainly, this date also pointed to a ground that made possible the introduction of a package directly addressing the Kurdish issue. So was this ground simply sitting there ready from the start? If that ground was sitting ready, why did no one before that try to take similar steps on it, why did it not even cross anyone's mind to try?

Seen from one angle, Turkey's democratization is a process that has been continuing since 1946. Although there has been demand and pressure in this direction from broad segments of society, this process has not come about painlessly; indeed it has been subject to the obstructions of the forces resisting it even more than to the demands pushing it. For that reason, since the day it began, the process has advanced under the pressure of repeated direct military interventions and countless instances of tutelary oversight and control. Very important steps were taken in the field of democratization in the time of the AK Parti, which came to power in 2002 and has governed the country for ten years..

For example, for the first time in this period military tutelage was directly ended, and the line that should exist for military-civilian relations was indicated. A significant part of this indicated line has also been drawn. Of course, there are still places where this line remains unclear. There are still things to be done in the field of democratization so as not to return to the order of military tutelage. The steps taken in the democratization process during the AK Parti's rule, even if they have not yet completed the process, have been steps so deep and resolute that they cannot be compared with those of other periods.

Meanwhile, the ground that made it possible in 2009 to take steps for the solution of the Kurdish issue, to call the Kurdish issue by its name, to open a debate within this framework, and to be able to say everything in this debate had begun to be prepared long before. So much so that the steps taken on that date were possible only thanks to these real breakthroughs and openings made beforehand.

In fact, it is possible to evaluate the AK Parti's political struggle since 2002, when it came to power, as a whole in the context of democratization. The AK Parti's coming to power, with its manner and discourse of arrival, is in general a great democratization move. Because its winning the 2002 elections was possible by its overcoming the barricades that all the anti-democratic elements of tutelage had piled up against it until then. When the 2002 elections were entered, there was also a closure case against the AK Parti, which had been founded after two parties closed before it, and its leader could not run in the parliamentary elections because he was banned from politics.

The absence of democracy in Turkey has victimized, and continues to victimize, all segments of society. That is why democratic openings relieve everyone, not just a certain segment of society. Indeed, today the democratic openings, while improving freedom of expression and democratic freedoms in the lives of all citizens, are not leaving the Kurds or the Alevis outside. Kurds, Alevis and the religiously observant alike benefit from the improving freedom of expression and level of democracy. Thanks to the democratization packages implemented, there is today no thesis left that cannot be discussed, addressed or defended. The pushing back of military tutelage, going after unsolved murders, the democratization of the judiciary are openings whose results benefit not only the conservative segments but all segments of society, the Kurds first of all.

By contrast, it is a problem in itself that today the openings aimed at making the Kurds too equal and happy citizens of this country are not sufficiently appreciated by the Kurdish politicians themselves. For the opening to concern the Kurds too or to please them too, it is not necessary for all the packages to have "To the Kurds" written in the address section.

Undoubtedly there are still steps to be taken for the Kurds, for the Alevis and for other segments of society. But whatever steps are to be taken, they will remain extremely feeble beside a big step already taken. The big step that has been taken is the abandonment of the state's denialist and lordly attitude. This is a very clear paradigm change.

The paradigm now envisages all citizens being regarded as equal to one another, as owners and partners of the state. In this paradigm the state is no longer the citizen's lord; it is a structure that exists for the citizen and through the citizen, and whose legitimacy is formed by the citizens' contract.

This is the point that Kurdish politics still cannot see. Perhaps it is because some people see this that they employ Kurdish politics to sabotage this change that contains the real solution of the Kurdish issue.

ANNOUNCEMENT:

Today at 10 o'clock at the Foundation for Strategic Thought we will discuss, in a panel around a report that we prepared together with Prof. Yusuf Şevki Hakyemez, Dr. Murat Yılmaz, Assoc. Prof. Hamit Emrah Beriş and Assoc. Prof. Hüseyin Yayman, Turkey's ten-year democratic transformation. Before the panel, Deputy Prime Minister Prof. Dr. Beşir Atalay will give an evaluation speech on the point reached in the opening.