WHAT IS TO BE DONE? The burning questions of these times in Turkey

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
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Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

What to do? A presidential election, the first of its kind, is soon coming to Turkey. There are three candidates. One is the prime minister, about whom the less said the better. Another is Selahattin DemirtaÃ...Ÿ, the Kurdish parliamentary representative, affiliated with the PKK, a separatist, armed terrorist organization. The third is a life-long Islamist now tricked out as a secularist. He, Ekmelledin Ä degreeshsanoÄŸlu, characterized himself politically as a loaf of bread. ("Ekmek ià §in Ekmelledin") While perhaps appropriate, it was not meant to be funny.

Think of it this way, the presidential race is a Turkish-American trifecta. Usually one must pick the exact order of finish, 1-2-3, to win. But not in Turkey's three-horse run-for-Ã"¡ankaya. America wins regardless. ErdoÄŸan, who America tried to dump last December, is the odds-on favorite. DemirtaÃ...Ÿ is the long-shot Kurdish candidate to uphold Joe Biden's pipedream of a Kurdistan from his days on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And Ä degreeshsanoÄŸlu, America's new boy, a smiling loaf of plain, white bread who will make a race of it for awhile. He will be run into the ground by the ErdoÄŸan machine and opposition party voter apathy (and anger). Unless America pushes some magic election buttons at the finish line.

Nevertheless, all three America-bred candidates will win. ErdoÄŸan gets his last gasp of glory until America figures a way to excuse him permanently. Ä degreeshsanoÄŸlu, entering his first race, is not likely to win (break his maiden) in this one. But he gains experience and will earn a place in America's stable in case ErdoÄŸan breaks down in a future outing. And DemirtaÃ...Ÿ gains credibility and track-time as an American entry for the next political operation in Kurdistan. So you see, America wins! The American-bred candidates win! And as usual, those swindled into believing that the presidential race matters, that is, the Turkish people, lose, again. Such is life at Imperial Downs, the American home of rigged elections, puppet shows and broken dreams.

Such are the dire electoral conditions in Turkey today. After a decade of Islamic fascist rule, and opposition-party collaboration, its secular democracy is in ruins. This hapless trio of candidates puts the final nail in the coffin of Atatà ¼rk's secular, anti-imperialist republic. This slate was selected by the political parties seated in parliament not the people. The domineering ErdoÄŸan, finishing his third and final term, wants to move into the presidential chair. He will also change the power structure so that his steel-handed, brutish reign will continue. He should win easily. The Kurdish candidate is there to keep his separatist constituency happily dreaming of autonomy and oil revenues. The third candidate, the political opposition's answer to the religious fascist government, is Ekmelledin Ä degreeshsanoÄŸlu. He is running because... because... well, because... perhaps because he was born and educated in Egypt, is a career Islamist, has been mute for years about the continuing dangers of shariah being imposed on secular Turkey and has an unconvincing commitment to the principles of Mustafa Kemal Atatà ¼rk. All this irrelevance somehow fused into a bewildering symbol of a loaf of bread. And, accordingly, his equally bewildering sponsors concluded that he will surely defeat the undefeated and undefeatable ErdoÄŸan. This so-called thinking is called the "Alice-in-Nightmareland Syndrome."

So how did a loaf of bread come to represent the adherents of Mustafa Kemal Atatà ¼rk? The two major opposition parties, cooperating for the first time, swept the countryside seeking a suitable secular, democratic, Atatà ¼rk-loving candidate to face the imperialist-puppet ErdoÄŸan. Amazingly, they could find none. Why? Because the opposition parties are deficient in their knowledge of secularity, democracy and Mustafa Kemal Atatà ¼rk. The truth is that they have both collaborated in the destruction of Atatà ¼rk's republic. They have enabled the religious fascists to come to power and remain in power. One need not be a genius to see this. Being marginally alive in Turkey is enough. And Kemal Kilià §daroÄŸlu's secretive selection, even to his own party members, of an Islamist bread loaf is first-hand evidence of his treachery.

IF ONLY

So what is to be done? Oh, if only Mustafa Kemal Atatà ¼rk were here to save us. He'd know what to do. Yes, he would. Falih RÄ ±fkÄ ± Atay, Atatà ¼rk's close friend, biographer and confidant, told us in 1968. "What would Atatà ¼rk do if he were alive today? Shall I tell you? He would curse the lot of us."

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