By Hazal Toprak – ISL Turkey
The sum of 2022
In Turkey, we are leaving behind another year in which each and every one of us became poorer under the capitalist order, laborers lost their lives in workplace murders, women were subjected to violence and oppression, and we could not save our children from the clutches of sects.
This year, we have seen how the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention can have dire consequences for women and LGBTI+s. This year, we saw that perpetrators of violence, abusers and rapists were even more “openly” protected as a result of the AKP’s political Islamist policies imposed for 20 years and its support for cults. When a 6-year-old girl was raped, we witnessed the brazenness that said “No, she was actually 13”. Until November, 327 women were murdered and 209 children were abused.
The burden on working people has increased. Although the official data announced 80% inflation, the inflation felt was at least 200%. Every day we saw that market prices increased, the minimum wage became widespread, and the number of laborers living at the hunger limit increased. People committed suicide out of poverty. Furthermore, 2022 was a year of currency shock. TL went down immediately. In the end of 2021, 1 usd was around 9 and now it is almost 19 TL. It would not be wrong to say that the rapid depreciation of the TL will continue in 2023. On the other hand, let’s not forget that Turkey is a growing economy and the new China of Europe. The depreciation of the Turkish lira only hurts the laborers. The capitalists are in a good mood!
Environmental plunder has not stopped either. The Regulation on Protected Areas was amended to open protected areas to partial construction and industry. In the case of the proposed nuclear power plant, the Administrative Court rejected to stop the built of it despite the negative opinion of the expert report. In Erzincan, Turkey’s largest cyanide gold mine is expanding its site with new projects. In June, one of the pipes in the mine’s tailings pond burst, releasing 20 tons of cyanide waste into the soil and water, posing a threat to life and limb, but no satisfactory explanation has been forthcoming from state authorities, except to cover up the incident. One of the most prominent environmental issues was the import of plastic waste. After China banned the import of plastic waste in 2017, importers switched their route to Turkey. In 2018, Turkey imported a total of 418,000 tons of plastic waste. In 2021, the figure is around 757 thousand tons. We will know the figures for 2022 in a few months. There is no supervision in the imports made with mafia methods, especially around Adana-Mersin. Air, water and soil are being poisoned. Last year forest fires were everywhere. This year, forests are being cut down for industry… With the increase in the value of wood in international markets, planned cuts in the coming years are brought forward and trees are being slaughtered under the name of rejuvenation. Forestry Directorates are in contact with private companies in the forest industry.
People who came to the fore in the Gezi uprising, which is Turkey’s largest and most massive uprising, were arrested by the AKP judiciary and sentenced to 18 years in prison each.
This year has been not only a year of increasing oppression, poverty and violence, but also a year of growing resistance. On May 1st, we witnessed the most massive rally in recent years. Many strikes of workers, big and small, were enough to scare the bosses and the government. We learned a lot from the organizing struggle of courier and warehouse workers, who increased their weight in the working class, especially with the pandemic. We learned from the women’s stance on March 8 and November 25, when they did not recognize the bans and took over the streets, so to speak, and stood firm in the face of police violence, torture and detentions.
What to expect from 2023? Another year of elections
Elections have been in the air in the country almost since the beginning of 2022. In 2023, it is obvious that this will be a much more intense agenda. There are two alternatives within the establishment: one is the AKP and MHP alliance and the other is the Nation Alliance (also known as the 6-party table). In the face of the shortsightedness and weakness of the “table of 6” (so called because it is an alliance of 6 political parties) led by CHP and IYI Party, the Labor and Freedom Alliance (led by HDP and TİP) is on its way to becoming an alliance that millions of people turn to. This alliance is a big step towards making working people a subject in politics, which has been the main problem of politics in Turkey for a long time. The alliance of labor and freedom expresses a partnership of those who do not accept that politics should be confined only to the ballot boxes, and that the elections should be confined between the blocs formed by the two actors of the politics of order, and those who struggle for this. Here we can talk about two separate but united tasks: First, the creation of an effective popular movement in all areas of social life against the reduction of the people’s participation in politics to just going to the polls and voting; and second, the construction of a concrete pro-labor option against the condemnation of the people who are looking for a real hope of salvation in the elections to one of the alliances of the People and the Nation.
The concrete result of this perspective is a ground where all the forces that refuse to squeeze themselves into the current picture and the options offered by the politics of order, that strive to overcome it and therefore cannot be represented in the existing alliances will come side by side. Therefore, the subjects of this alliance are the Kurdish national movement, socialist organizations, trade unions, labor organizations and democratic mass organizations.
It is clear that Turkey’s problems cannot be solved by electoral success. The quagmire into which Turkey has been pushed has long passed the stage where it can be solved within the limits of an election, and it has been proven that it is only possible through a radical reorganization. However, it would be a mistake to interpret this as meaning that the elections are unimportant and that there is no need to develop a pro-labor strategy and tactics in the elections. Therefore, the Third Alliance, while aiming for the people to assert their power in all areas, and perhaps precisely for this reason, must also develop a position on elections that reflects the interests of the people to the greatest extent.
The main task of the alliance is to become a unity that goes beyond the elections with the work carried out among the people in the run-up to the elections and the success achieved in the elections, and to become an effective political/organizational force that voices the interests of the people in the political and social processes after the elections and manages to continue its struggle. The socialist left and the HDP should endeavor not to lose the positions gained through this alliance after the elections and to take them further.
In 2023, the wind of elections will blow in Turkey, every agenda will somehow be tied to the elections. After the elections, the results will continue to be discussed. Therefore, every move that the Labor and Freedom alliance makes and will make from its foundation until the end of the election will be of historical importance.
Are we hopeless?
No, we never are. This country will be a country of equality and freedom. We are aware that we can only do this through socialist construction in Turkey and all around the world as well. 2023 will be a big test for the Socialist Left in Turkey. 2023 is a year in which we must aim to get rid of the AKP on the one hand, and to grow the struggle for socialism on the other. While the Erdogan regime makes our lives more difficult every day, the only solution is for the class as a whole to seek its rights. But there is hope. A hope that we witness during the workers strike, a hope that surround us during the demonstrations which people stand together against the police oppression, a hope that we feel in the resistance of the youth.