Why are they shouting?

When you meet a foreigner whose language you do not know, you cannot explain what you mean in your own language, and somehow, when you shout at the top of your voice, you suppose that your interlocutor can thereby understand you. Yet you are speaking in the same language, that is, however much you raise your voice, you are speaking from within a language your interlocutor cannot understand. Raising your voice does not make your words more understandable; it only increases your comicalness and displays a bit more the fact that you lack a language with which to explain what you mean to your interlocutor.

It is understood that Bahçeli in particular, and to some extent Kılıçdaroğlu, have remained quite alien to what is going on. They speak in an entirely different language, they play an entirely different string. They have difficulty interpreting what is happening. Indeed, when Kılıçdaroğlu was asked for his views on the process, he had said, "the government does not inform us about what is going on, so we content ourselves with watching what happens, let no one expect support or the like from us", and we had thought he was merely reproaching the government. After all, he surely could not be this uninformed about events whose every detail the whole world knows.

It turns out that, because he really was not informed, he chose to remain completely blind and deaf to the process. But when he is obliged to speak about the process, he does not shy away from putting forward extreme judgments about an event that he does not understand, does not follow, and from which he is therefore entirely cut off; but he has a problem, he is truly entirely cut off from the event, so he expresses his judgments by shouting as well.

Bahçeli, on the other hand, shouts in any case. As he sees that his words do not express any meaning, he raises his voice still more, but in vain; everyone understands him very well but he understands no one. If he would only lend an ear to the problems being discussed today, or, leaving himself aside, hire an interpreter and try to understand through that interpreter's translation, perhaps he would not need to shout so much. But neither Kılıçdaroğlu nor Bahçeli has any intention of understanding anyone.

If you ask me, they have no intention of coming to power either. Perhaps we can put it more accurately like this: coming to power through democracy, by listening to the people, understanding and persuading them, and getting their votes, is very laborious, and they have no intention of setting out on this path. They still see the way of coming to power by making a promise to the people with their own projects and their own address to the people, and getting their votes, as closed. That is why they write the people off.

All right, we understand, the base they rely on has cultural and ideological characteristics and they need to appeal to that base. That base has ideological expectations from a political party, fine, but you see, this form of relationship you have established with that base never carries you to power, and will not. As the MHP, what do you promise to this country's Kurd, Alevi, headscarved woman? Do you not plan to do anything to win them over? Will you see them eternally as the voters of other parties? Then how will you validate your claim to nationhood with this choice of yours? Have you ever thought about that?

Can we not ask the same questions of the CHP in this way? This country also has its devout-conservative segments in particular, its headscarved women, its Kurds. Are you aware that unless you win them over, you will have to find another Turkey in order to come to power? Because in this Turkey the way of coming to power by the old ways has been completely closed.

The BDP too really needs to ask the same question. Will it limit its mission to representing Kurds in a political arena in which Turks are the majority, or will it also have something to say to Turks? Probably, as a result of the resolution process, the BDP will have gained, compared to the others, an advantage regarding its own mission that the others do not have. How it will make use of this depends, of course, on itself. Moreover, the question of whether all parties must address all segments of the country at the same time also stands in the middle. That is, parties may very well content themselves with representing a segment that will never grow.

What the parties want will also decide that to a degree, but it is understood that Turkish politics, with this process, has come to a crossroads at which all parties will get their act together. To survive, let alone come to power, parties will have to redefine their own missions and visions radically. Otherwise, for those who must accustom themselves, the AK Parti, which up to now has had a word to say to everyone, to every segment of society, and a proposal of a better life it can offer everyone, will be a vision that goes beyond the 2023 target, even to a 2071 target.

The AK Parti truly has a discourse and practice that is promising and in practice also approaching both Turks and Kurds, both the devout and the secular, both Alevis and Sunnis. That is why it can get votes from all of these social segments. For that reason, it became the first party in Turkey, even in Europe, to come to power for the 3rd time in a row, increasing its votes. Because it saw the voters from whom it would get votes as people who have a language, it listened to them, tried to understand them, and addressed them in their language. Without shouting and clamouring, without insulting, it tried to understand their troubles and to produce the best solutions to their problems.

Not that it should feel like teaching the opposition parties the way to come to power, but we can remind them that such a model exists in front of them, close to them, a model they can study and follow for free...