The democratization package as a style of politics

It would be too naive to expect those who, before the democratization package was even announced, when no one knew its content, prophesied with declarations that it was empty to back down from their pretentious soothsaying once the package was opened, whatever came out of it. In fact, the attitudes and views displayed before the package was even opened show very clearly that the grounds of the opposition are relatively independent of the content of the matter.

The matter again comes down to the feelings set in motion by a democratization step, or any progressive step in general, being taken by the AK Parti. Since the objections emerged before ideas and arguments had even been put forward, they can be explained not by reasons but only by emotional attitudes.

Undoubtedly, what political science generally neglects is these feelings, which are quite decisive in political communication or debate environments. It is these feelings that determine what our arguments, our theories, our objections and acceptances are or will be in politics. Whether a step taken is right or reasonable does not matter; who says it does. If good feelings are carried toward the speaker, his words and actions are tried to be fitted into a logical mold even if he is talking nonsense. Otherwise, even if he performs a miracle, one does not even need reason or logic to reject what he says. This attitude, which overrides, cancels, and renders unnecessary and invalid all processes of reason and logic, essentially interrupts political communication at once.

Even so, among what has been said about the democratization package, those related to its content must be set apart. After all, what is at issue is a new package of a political style that has been applied by AK Parti governments for the last ten years in Turkey's democratization process. This political style itself can be debated. Indeed it is being debated. On this occasion it is even said that these packages are generally prepared by the AK Parti and in the party's kitchen and in a way imposed on society. Yet the fact that it is cooked in the AK Parti's kitchen does not show that the decision mechanism works unilaterally. After all, this package is a draft and is not closed to criticism, contribution and reassessment in the process of decision.

Second, even if it took its final shape in the AK Parti's kitchen, it represents a dialogical answer given to all the debates taking place on this subject in Turkey, taking them into account. It is precisely this dialogical dimension that has been the distinctive political style of the AK Parti's package openings. (I had previously touched on this political style to point to the contribution to politics of the workshops held with Alevis, Roma and various segments of society.)

However false and aimed at sabotaging the process the reports that the package was prepared in consultation with Öcalan are, this does not mean that the package is entirely unrelated to the resolution process. Undoubtedly the most important dimension of the package was to respond to the expectations regarding the resolution process in particular. The reforms, which include the regulation of education in languages other than Turkish, the abolition of the primary school pledge, the return of village names and the regulation of election thresholds, are issues demanded until now by the parties to the resolution process. It is quite normal for them to be seen as insufficient or for more to be demanded, and a demand, however wild, should not be found strange merely because it is a demand. On the contrary, democracy includes demands at the highest pitch too. Today's democratic environment is one in which every kind of demand can be voiced without being subjected to accusations such as treason or separatism.

However, the discourse about the package's inadequacy on the Kurdish issue has two important problems. The first is that the disease of taking the state as the sole interlocutor for the fulfillment of demands and expecting everything from the state evidently continues. Yet the interlocutor for more of the demands contained in this package is now no longer the state but the citizen. On the ground of politics, everyone, the Kurds first of all, in fact has to see other citizens as the interlocutors of their own demands. It is not possible on the ground of democracy to enact regulations that other citizens are not persuaded of. The second is that it is not seen that constantly reminding people of the weapon as a "possibility," "danger" or sometimes openly a "threat" if demands are not met no longer convinces anyone in Turkey, precisely at this point.

While the BDP members make both mistakes, and on top of that say the package is empty in the same doses of opposition both before seeing the package and after seeing it, they do not neglect, in the end, to turn to the Kurdish people and explain that the package is a gain of the organization's armed struggle.

From the sum of the democratization packages opened so far in Turkey, a silent revolution has indeed resulted, with all its gains. In this revolution, the demands of some were responded to, those demands were triggers, and so on. But there is one fact: for all these democratizing demands that have been met, the AK Parti has had sufficiently strong references in its own party program and founding texts since 2001. Moreover, that the focus has been on listening to and meeting society's demands should be appreciated as a style of politics, since it was not something we were very used to. In fact, this style of politics, continuing for 11 years, has also created a habit. Perhaps for this reason the last package also appealed to this familiarity and its final effect came to be regarded as nothing more than having broken its own record. It has also become a routine for the AK Parti, which has no proper rival or opponent, to have to compete with itself.

In these days when the constitutional consensus that could take the country to a much more radical democratization cannot be reached even in the TBMM constitutional conciliation commission, this democratizing, opening-minded will that the AK Parti displays without needing the support of other parties deserves attention and appreciation as it shows the real dynamic of democratization.