Politics with the taste of art

We said that the politics the AK Parti has displayed in the country so far under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has demolished every rote formula known about politics. The New Turkey will be a Turkey in which these formulas are overturned and new political conventions (habitus) take their place.

All of Turkey's sociological components are gradually beginning to get used to this new style of politics, its conventions and its measures. In a sense, the AK Parti's politics takes shape under the pressure of the high expectations it has created in society. This pressure is by no means negative; on the contrary, it is thanks to it that high examples of interactive, participatory politics with its own sociological base are being displayed.

Without doubt, we do have a problem in the form of an opposition that has never managed to play its role on this political stage, repeating the lines of another stage at the most irrelevant moments. This opposition still seems unaware that Turkey has changed.

That is why, each time it repeats its memorized lines belonging to the old Turkey in the most out-of-tune and inappropriate places, it makes the AK Parti shine even more as a political actor. Increasingly, the AK Parti, as the main actor of the change the country is undergoing, becomes the main reason for the opposition's existence.

Each of the 9 elections the AK Parti has entered since its founding had its own context and story. In total, however, we face a great story that is extremely consistent within itself and has direction and integrity.

3 November, 1 March, 27 April, 22 July, 21 October, 29 January (Davos), 12 June, 12 September, 17-25 December, 30 March, 10 August, the closure case, the Ergenekon and Balyoz trials, Mavi Marmara, the Arab Spring, the headscarf and coefficient cases, the democratic opening and the resolution process ... these are important historical days and events within this great story.

Within all of these stories there are, of course, the AK Parti's giant achievements in the economy, in foreign policy and in social services, in education and transport.

The most important concept that has gained esteem from the sum of this whole story is politics. In the integrity of this story there is an artistic integrity, and a sense of consistency and an aesthetic reflected from that integrity.

Without doubt, 27 August, the date on which Davutoğlu will be elected Chairman, will also represent a quite distinct beauty within the political performance the AK Parti has displayed so far, for those who follow this performance with interest and a growing familiarity.

Walter Benjamin warned of the dangers of the aestheticization of politics and spoke of the politicization of aesthetics as an alternative. I think that from the sum of the AK Parti's 13-year political performance we have had the opportunity to watch not so much the beautification of politics as the politicization of beauty. We said that the essence of this beauty is sincerity, and this was a value to which the forms of politics that have been current coin until now were very much strangers.

Politics that is not based on sincerity needs an aesthetic reinforcement to strengthen it, in which case art is put into the service of politics in a very crude manner. Yet where there is sincerity, there is also sufficient beauty. What is sincere is beautiful enough. The politicization of this beauty means, on behalf of politics, putting forward what is original, what is new, what is authentic.

None of the criticisms directed at Davutoğlu and his foreign policy performance can propose a better and more beautiful politics as a suggestion. Indeed, each of the proposed policies proposes moving away from sincerity, and, in the name of being so-called realists, taking part in an ugliness.

For example, what could have been done to come out less harmed, or even to come out profiting, in the face of the events unfolding in Egypt, Iraq or Syria? If you were to listen to those who make profit-and-loss calculations in these fields and who, on that basis, assign Davutoğlu a large share of the blame, there would be neither beauty nor goodness left.