“Yetmez Ama Evet”in Düşünsel Arkaplanı Olarak Post-Kemâlizm

Abstract

This study aims to discuss the intellectual origins of the political attitude expressed by some left-wing and liberal intellectual-political circles with the composition of "Not Enough, But Yes" (Yetmez Ama Evet, YAE) in the 2010 Constitutional Amendment Referendum, and in this context, its relation with the post-Kemalist paradigm. In the years preceding the referendum, YAE supporters belonging to secular ideologies had articulated various policies of the ruling Islamist-origin Justice and Development Party (AKP) and maintained these attitudes in the referendum. While justifying these articulation processes and the vote preference in the referendum, the concepts of democracy and Kemalism were frequently emphasized. In this context, claims have been expressed that there is a very close connection between Turkey's democracy problem and the policies implemented during the founding period of the Republic. These claims coincide with the approaches that İlker Aytürk called the “post-Kemalist paradigm” in 2015 and stated that it dominated the intellectual life of Turkey after the 1980s. Therefore, in order to understand YAE, it is necessary to include the dynamics of change in the 1980s in the analysis.

The neo-liberal capital accumulation regime implemented by capitalism as a way out of the crisis it experienced in the 1970s has paved the way for a new understanding of democratization and freedom in the form of the freedom struggle of the market or “civil society” against nation-states. In the same period, as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, left-wing movements began to move away from traditional Marxist theory and fall under the hegemony of the neo-liberal approach to democracy. This ideological renewal, which highlights the state-civil society dichotomy, has led to an intense criticism of Kemalism in Turkey, also due to the fact that the 1980 Coup, which took place in the same period, used Kemalism as a means of legitimization.

As a unsuprisingly result of associating Turkey's failure to democratization with Kemalism, some left-wing and liberal circles have come together with different political movements against the “common enemy” Kemalism. The coming to power of the “former” Islamist but new "conservative democrat" movement was considered as an opportunity in this context, and the political moves that the government presented as "democratization", but which were claimed to be authoritarianism by the opposition sections, were supported by these circles until 2010. YAE was the support given to a constitutional amendment regarding the supreme judiciary, which was a new and comprehensive example of these political moves. In this study, the ways in which this support is legitimized and the role of the post-Kemalist paradigm in this regard will be discussed.