The unthinkable, which cannot even be proposed to be considered

As usual, the new Constitution debates have come down to the question of whether the first articles of the Constitution should be changed. In fact, since the day it was made by coup-makers and imposed on this society, its change, whether wholly or partly, has repeatedly been put on the agenda. Many of its articles have been changed on various occasions. The first comprehensive change, we can say, took place in the referendum of September 12, 2010, on the very anniversary, the 30th, of the coup that had imposed it on us. 26 of the Constitution's articles were changed at that time. Later, in 2017, the September 12 Constitution underwent an even more comprehensive change that also led to the transition from the parliamentary system to the Presidential system. During these changes, in fact, there is no subject within the Constitution left untouched. That is, almost nothing has been left that gives this Constitution the character of the September 12 military coup constitution, except of course the "preamble," the first 4 articles, and of course their "unamendable" and "amendment cannot even be proposed" provisions.

One truly wonders what a new Constitution that will not touch these articles would do apart from them. The whole source of people's disputes in society is already the contents of these articles. Of course not all of it, and of course there is no consensus in society on all these articles, and there is no need at all, from this hour on, to go to so much trouble for a constitutional change that will not touch these articles. Let it stay as it is; after all, in this state, even despite the existence of those articles, society has somehow found a way to ensure both its quarrels and its disputes, and its togetherness and its peace.

The expression "unamendable, its amendment cannot even be proposed" is essentially an expression that belittles a society's mind, disregards its will, and imprisons it within a certain frame. Putting up a barrier in this way against people's will, against a new consensus that society might reach in a debate it would conduct within itself, could occur only to the fascist mentality of September 12. Indeed, even the earlier coup constitutions did not think of such a thing, did not think of putting such an expression into the constitution. Neither the 1924 Constitution nor the 1961 coup constitution has such expressions. Our friend Mehmet Metiner, in yesterday's article, gave a fine summary of the developmental history among the relevant articles of these constitutional texts.

I am saying nothing about this or that article. I only want to say that the imperiousness contained in this expression is certainly not something that a society in diversity could do by its own will, and that, whatever its content may be, such an expression is an insult to the will, mind and intelligence of a society that lives together by contract. This negative imperious language is, unfortunately, beginning to determine our social character as well. This is its greatest visible harm.

In essence, this expression itself is also contradictory to Atatürk's revolutionary principle, referred to in the preamble of the constitution. What will a Turkish politician working in a field whose amendment cannot even be proposed be a revolutionary about, in which fields will he continue his revolutionism? Let alone revolution, such an approach produces, and has produced, nothing but a fanatical conservatism that puts up a barrier against change.

Unthinkable domains, domains whose amendment cannot even be proposed, consume space from the domain of politics and from the domain of reason and thought, always narrow those domains, and put a brake on thought as well.

There is a concept that the famous Algerian Islamic reformer Mohammed Arkoun put forward in order to criticize Islamic thought: the unthought. Every religion, ideology or politics, at the first stage, opens a field for itself by making "thinkable" all those domains that another ideology, religion or philosophy had closed off the fields of politics and thought with unthinkable domains.

Arkoun regards as a landmark the fact that Islamic thought was able to make thinkable again the domains that the Westerners had at one time narrowed by making them unthinkable, domains in which they had made the ancient Greek philosophers and the questions they posed unthinkable. Islamic thought reduced the unthinkable domains enormously, but in time, while forming its own orthodoxy, it also determined its own unthinkable domains and gradually expanded them, to such an extent that for Muslims the unthought domains came to constitute a far larger total than the thinkable ones.

Truthfully, such a criticism was very misplaced and unjust toward Muslims, or Islamic thought, who in the conditions after the First World War had been deprived of every kind of political representation and hence of educational institutions, universities, madrasas and channels of intellectual production, whose lands had been occupied and colonized. Moreover, the matter of unthought domains for Muslims was never what he exaggerated it to be. For the Muslims of that time or of today, there is almost no unthought domain, and never was.

But if we take this conceptualization of his and apply it to the system we live in, whether global or national, our picture is closed off precisely by these "unthinkable, cannot even be proposed to be thought about" domains.

For example;

The first 4 articles of the Constitution, together with all their content, are unamendable, and cannot even be proposed to be amended.

How the Palestine front fell in 1918 and how the Ottomans were immediately occupied after that fall is never thought, never taught, and cannot even be proposed to be taught.

How, passing through British-occupied Istanbul, Samsun and Ankara, a national struggle for independence against the occupiers could be sustained, how it could be won, and what the British took before withdrawing without even being the target of a single bullet, this is unthinkable and cannot even be proposed to be thought about.

How was the abolition of an institution like the Caliphate, which united all Muslims and was a great trump card for Turkey, a matter of power, of authority, presented as a revolution, a great gain for Turkey? Unthinkable.

Which of these changes described as reforms was made by asking this nation? Did this nation consent to them? Cannot be asked, unthinkable.

Many more questions can be asked about the unthought domains. We have a logosphere, in Arkoun's phrase, that today does not even bring these questions to mind, that finds even bringing them to mind frightening or intimidating as if entering a taboo domain.

Are there not those who, without ever questioning this logosphere with its tons of unthought domains and questions, indeed taking refuge in it, take swipes from there at Islamic thought and tradition? May God reform them too.