BOSNIAN POLITICIANS: COME TO YOUR PLACE, TURKEY!

Original text: September 29, 2012

Turkish conservatism have always had a special concern on Bosnia and Herzegovina. This concern is usually recognized as an uninformed concern. A Muslim land in the middle of Europe does mean a lot for a romantic conservatist. However, on the other side, for example, when they see Bosnian citizens vote for Serbia or Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest, they never understand the reason since they have no idea that only less than half of Bosnia is Muslim, and being Muslim is a national identity more than subject of religious practices.

Turkish conservatists very often visit Bosnia and they have got a pseudo image of Bosnia that the whole country is just a totality of mosques, Ottoman architectural structures, that Bosnia is only Başçarşija or just limited to a few more Ottoman islands like Travnik or Mostar. Apart from the fact that Socialist Yugoslavia was more successful than Republic of Turkey in protecting and conserving Ottoman artifacts, the average Turkish conservatist in Bosnia has got a prejudice that those very historical artifacts do reflect actual reality.

What is reflected on TV screens is not very much different. Those TV producers who have concerns about Bosnia, but who do not have any idea about what really Bosnia is, have similar visions of Bosnia. In fact, this is also preferred by the Bosnian conservatist politicians as well. Whether if he is a Bosnian Serb or Croat, or a Bosnian Muslim, the politicians have a wish to see Bosnia as a totality of religious identities. In this respect, we witness a very successful manipulation of media, not only in Bosnia, but also in countries like Croatia, Serbia or Turkey, which enforces Bosnian citizens to vote for one of the three nationalist parties representing their national identity.

Since the end of the war, the game continues like that, that eventuates with empowerment of nationalist-conservatist parties. Only in the last elections in Bosnia, the game was spoilt by Bosnian Muslims, who were sick and tired of their politicians and voted for Zeljko Komşiç, the candidate for Bosnian Croat member of presidency from SDP. Bakir İzzetbegoviç, son of Alija İzzetbegoviç still represents Bosnian Muslims in tri-presidential system but not the whole Bosnian Muslims. Many Bosnian Muslims voted for a Bosnian Croat, but a 100% Bosnian politician. Nationalist Croats are angry for this as well since the Bosnian Croats are not represented by a nationalist Croat in the presidency.

Erdogan with Izzetbegovic (Photo: haberbosnak.com)

 Turkey stands for the greatest ally for the Bosnian Muslim politicians, who are ironically the cause of Bosnian Muslims to vote for Bosnian Croat candidate. Not only the recent serials like “Valley of the Wolves” or the “Magnificient Century” which praises the honor of Muslims, but also recent international diplomacy of Turkey, which can simply be defined as “bullying” but nothing more, somehow creates an illusion of a strong state of Turkey. Moreover, this illusive state backs Bosnian conservatism under any terms. Of course, this support is not unrequited.

We cannot underestimate the support of Bosnian politicians to their Turkish brothers. The latest reflection of this support was visible during the visit of Erdoğan to Bosnia.  Turkey’s international politics was praised in Bosnia.

Turkey’s recent performance in international politics especially in Middle East is recently very much clear. Despite the blindness of main stream media, Turkey’s direct support to terrorists and indirect responsibility in massacres in Syria is recently recognized. Turkey succeeds to have lousy relations with both Iraqi Kurdish Administration and central Iraqi government at the same time. Turkey not only has problems with her neighbors, but even with those further countries miles away.

However, the conservatist point of view allocates his mind with bullying of Tayyip Erdoğan in Davos three years ago against Yitzhak Rubin and his support to Gaza Fleet, which ended by aggression of Israeli Army. Simply, in the Islamic world, Turkey is recognized as a country stands against Zionist policies in Middle East. Unfortunately, that blind point of view ignores the fact Turkey did not hesitate to locate the anti-missile radar system in favor of Israel, against Iran. The same point of view ignores the fact that Turkey acts like a pioneer of the imperialist policies against Iran.

Paradoxically, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was praised with the “Isa Beg Ishakovic Peace and Stability Reward”.

This is solely like a joke!

Even that joke was not enough. Erdogan’s speech, advising each Bosnian family to have at least five children was applauded by the audience during the ceremony held in National Theater of Sarajevo. Previously, Erdoğan advised Turkish families to have at least three children, and he even did not find it enough for Bosnian families. It has to be noted that Bosnia has an unemployment rate around 40% and younger population seek to escape from the country to find better living standards in other countries.

We have an advice to those Bosnian conservatist politicians who praises Erdogan: Come and involve in politics in Turkey. Turkey has the potential to nurture unconscious politicians like that of in Bosnia. If they will take active role in Turkish politics, they can even earn more money than they do in Bosnia now, and their relatives can benefit more which is the standard practice in Turkey.

Probably Bosnia may have better political scene with the absence of those conservatist politicians.  

NORTH AFRICAN “REVOLUTIONS” AND LEFTISTS FROM BALKANS

Origanal text: February 2006, 2011.

During the last week we had a flow of news about demonstrations in Balkans.

Anti-government demonstrations in Beograd, the demonstration of tobacco producers in Skopje, the strike of railway workers in Bosnia and protests against the mal-administration of the country organized through facebook... Similarly, demonstrations also held in Zagreb organized through facebook. On the other side, we see the strong opposition of Socialist Party in Albania, who does not recognize the corrupted results of the latest elections which were held nine months ago.

After the incidents in Northern Africa, firstly in Tunisia, than in Egypt and Libya, a question comes into mind: “Will there be the same in Balkans?”.

First of all we have to clear some aspects: No matter how the popular culture uses some concepts in daily life through the process of cultural erosion, Marxists should use them in their scientific conceptualization within a theoretical framework. Similarly, they shall pay attention to this when they analyze the current events and actual facts.

In this context, the conceptualization of “North African Revolutions” has to be clarified. In his article published in February 25, 2011, Kemal Okuyan differentiates between “revolution” and “stolen revolution”. (1)

First of all, before making any analysis we have to clarify the basic concepts which we refer in our analysis. In this sense, the basic question concerning the “North African Revolutions” is the question: “What is a revolution?”. The reply to this question is simple, even the teenagers will not have difficulty in finding a basic explanation for this question. Simply and briefly a revolution is a turnover in mode of production, that the owners of means of production do change. Who is the new “owner of production” in Tunisian, Egyptian or Libyan revolutions? If what happened in those countries is revolution, what is the new mode of production? Did the proletariat seize the factories, fields, political power?

Most likely, we can talk about a revolutionary “process”, but can we really talk about a revolution?

I do not think that there is an epistemological difference between when a GSM company launches a new tariff as a “revolution” and when every social movement is precipitately identified as a “revolution”. In this sense the concept of “revolution” should not be used that loutishly while analyzing the Northern African practice. In this context, the quest about the probability of a leap of North African revolutions to Balkans is based on an ontological fault.

We have to take attention to some issue within the specifity of Balkans. It is clear that the political location of North Africa and Balkans, especially regarding to imperialist policies is not similar. None of the countries in the Balkans seems to have a potential to have a conflict with the West, even to oppose West with the lowest volume: Greece, who is in the “Club of West” for more than a half century, the fresh EU members of Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria, and moreover Croatia; the next member of EU club who gained “independence” thanks to member states of EU, Montenegro who can easily be digested by EU, Bosnia, Macedonia and Kosovo who are dependent to West by the colonialist institutions, Albania who is not yet integrated with the West but seems to be willing for that and Serbia who is finally domesticated... None of those countries seems to have the will to conflict with imperialist policies of West. One even can claim that the level of “integration to West” of Balkan countries exceeds Turkey’s level, who is shown as a model to the Middle Eastern countries. In this sense, in Balkans there is no need for a project like that of Middle East’s.

In an atmosphere, where there is no need to overthrow the governments who are in best collaboration with West, what is the position of left wing opposition in Balkans? A more specific analysis prior to each country’s subjective conditions is needed. However, if we will deal the issue with a more holistic approach examining the Balkans, we can assert that the Balkan Marxists, being heavily under effect of Euromarxism do also perceive the latest developments in Northern Africa as “revolutions”. The left wing parties and organizations in ex-Yugoslav countries, do still have problems with ideological and structural stability, where Yugoslavia had a greater dimension of collapse when compared with other East European countries. Thus, Marxists in this geography do not have better option than following the agenda through Western sources since a long time.

At that point, Balkan left, who had just began to make attempts to shape their own agenda, make attempts to meet with working class, who began to steep his head against chauvinism that turned the life into hell for many years, falls into the illusion of the question “Can it happen in our own land as well?” when they follow the so called “North African Revolutions”. The Fourth International, which is still waiting for the second wave of the revolution, seems to not to give up the habit of exaggerating since Spanish Civil War. The same state of mind is likely to locate Balkans in the wave of revolutions.

Dreaming is not a bad thing. On the contrary, it is a very human like, enlightening process. But, there is difference between “to dream” and “to live on dreams”. When we begin to perceive dreams as truth, as the real situation, what appears is a tragedy on the one side, and also a comedy on the other. Marxists do not deserve to be the political subject of tragicomedy.

Balkan Revolution, a geography where tens of different nations live together in brotherhood is the dream of all of us. The recent efforts of Marxists from Balkans who are in charge of transforming those dreams into reality should be considered as important attempts. As mentioned in the first paragraph of this article, what we conceive looking from the recent news coming from Balkans is that winds are turning for the struggle again.

1) Click here for the Turkish original text of the article.

WHY LETTERS FROM YUGOSLAVIA?

Original text: published in February 12, 2011


“Our country [Turkey] is located in a critical region for the process of world revolution. This region, Eastern Europe and Russia experiences the imperialist plunder and a deeper independence through capitalist restoration, includes Balkans and Turkey which are at the sphere of European capitalism, where the most striking forms of inequalities are perceived.” (1)

Those sentences are from the brochure titled “World and Turkey in 2002” published by TKP. Since then, TKP is trying to improve international relations in the region, slowly but surely. TKP, on the one hand follows the revolutionary developments in far geographies, and on the other hand not only follows the developments in the near geography, but also tries to be an actor in it. This is also a natural outcome of the flow of life. The need for international solidarity began to be more vital in the age of globalization and communists are very well aware of it. Therefore, a more rapid reaction towards the developments in the near geography is needed. The latest events in Northern Africa once again showed that international revolutionary movement is more intercnnected than it seems and it also showed how crucial it is to tighten those relations.

In May 2003, we discussed in Gelenek if a “Geography of Revolution and Revolutionaries” is possible. (2) Within this discussion we had mentioned about the importance of near geography for the revolutionary movement of Turkey and we had discussed the meaning of “Being Revolutionary in Balkans”. Today, it became more vital than ever to be concerned with the political dynamics of near geographies and follow the political developments when neo-Ottomanism is rising from the grave. The increasing concerns for Middle East, Caucasus and Balkans by government of Turkey ruled by AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – Party for Justice and Development, the pro-Islamic right wing ruling party) flagging neo-Ottomanism, should not be ignored . For sure, we have got things to say in this geography where the conservatist actors rule by the great support from imperialism! Looking from this perspective, “Letters from Yugoslavia” is a need.

As a symbol, Yugoslavia is a foreground subject for the revolutionaries in the geography of Balkans and East Europe, a country who had been ideologically supported by the West, fed up with the credits as a thanksgiving for their conflicts with USSR, and was not needed by Western imperialism anymore after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is very well known what happened to Yugoslavia as a result of malfunctioning of the “self-management” wasting the huge amounts of credits, especially when the time to pay back the credits came which triggered the ethnic discussions of collaborative politicians. Seven new countries appeared on the ruins of that country which had been one of the strongest countries of Europe with a population of 22 millions as an economic, political and military power. Even only for the sake of the historical experience, Yugoslavia deserves to be scientifically studied as a historical laboratory.

On the other side, Yugoslavia symbolizes the most tragic dimension of the developments which are experienced in Eastern Europe since 1990’s: Ethnic warfare, impoverishment by privatizations, imperialist bribery of an heritage of 45 years... Within this context, understanding Yugoslavia is key for understanding Eastern Europe.

Empirical data is needed when we need to understand or analyze an event or a fact. Within this frame, actually we can talk about the lack of knowledge of leftists in Turkey about Balkans. The lack of information about Balkans is not only specific to the leftists, but we can also talk about an erosion of information about Balkans even among those who has origins from the region. We see that, the information about Balkans is so much false or superficial even among those who have got family and cultural roots in Balkans, who geographically identify themselves by Balkans, who can even be identified as having intellectual interests. The effects of false and superficial information can be seen in between the lines in speeches, such as mentioning Skopje as a city in Bosnia, or claiming Mostar bridge as being in Sarajevo, or assuming that Kosovo neighbouring with Bosnia, and even supposing Slovenia as an East European country which had separated from Czech Republic. The problem is that, “Balkans” is always mentioned “in between the lines” not as the focus of subject.

We have very limited sources about Balkans. Our basic references about Balkans are those which are written by a Eurocentric point of view. If we are lucky to find any, even those most objective, scientific, academic sources do have problem of Eurocentrism by defining Balnas as “the other”. Those memory books of orintalist travelers and journalists are full of forgeries, distortions and even true lies.

Our other source of Balkans is our conservatists [from Turkey] who conceptualize Balkans as our back garden. Their eyes cannot see anything else but the remains of the monuments from our ancestors in every square meter of the region. For them Balkans is not more than the Ottoman leftovers in the region. On the other side, they are the only “local” source of information about Balkans in Turkey, with the help of their nets established by high chools and even by the universities which are closely connected to religious sectarian groups. Those studies which do not have connection with the perspective of Islamo-Turkish conservatism have lack of surpassing the limitations of Eurocentrism. Despite some academic studies may be identified as very quality works, their implications in political life is inadequate.

Benefiting from the local sources is crucial to keep our scientific and actual data about Balkans relevant with the actual developments. We have to use local sources to dispose the neo-Ottomanist and Eurocentrist perspectives.

TKP regularly comes together with the communist parties from Balkans. (3) On the other side, since Autumn 2010, in SoL Portal we pay more attention to give more original news from Balkans. It may have taken attention that we are trying to transmit the latest political developments in Balkans by using the local political sources.

“Letters from Yugoslavia” aims to go one step further. Letters from Yugoslavia will take place in SoL Portal twice a month. Sometimes we will re-handle historical discussions: We discuss on Tito or Caucescu, or we will examine “self management”. From time to time we will deal with actual discussions, such as political demands of Bosnian Serbs, Western mandate in Kosovo, class struggle in Serbia, or newly re-emerging leftist trends in Bosnia. From time to time, we will try to cover social and cultural polemiques as well: We will examine Kusturica’s films, or compare the Nobel Award winner novel of İvo Andriç’s “Bridge Over Drina” with his other works.

We wish from the readers to advice us new topics to write, to ask us to orientate the path of letters from Yugoslavia within the interactive relation between the writers and readers.

1) TKP Conference “The World and Turkey in 2002”(2002 Yılında Dünya ve Türkiye), Gelenek 76, January-February 2003, p. 107.
2) Egemen Aslan, “Geography of the Revolution, Geography of the Revolutionaries: Being Revolutionary in the Balkans” (Devrimin Coğrafyası, Devrimcilerin Coğrafyası: Balkanlar’da Devrimci Olmak), Gelenek 78, May 2003.
3) For the English presentation of TKP in “Balkan Communits and Worker’s Parties Meeting” in Thessaloniki in January 21-23 2011: Click here.
For the joint statement of the conference: Click here.