In Anatolia, after Ottoman Empire in place of Turkey, an other capitalist state or states have been established, big traumas have also been experienced again. The cultural homogenization of a geography like Anatolia, to comply with the capitalization, is one of the biggest crime that the capitalism had commit in the world.
In can’t be wrong to say that during the thousand years of history of Anatolia the essential was peace and tolerance and the war/instability periods which were fed by hate and repulsion were temporary. The ethnic/religious identification special to last quarter century neoliberal capitalism period, indicates one of the temporary period experienced in Anatolia. From 2008 there are signs which present that not only neoliberal economy the identification too experience a crisis.
When the fight between the Western liberal version of capitalism and the Eastern cooperative (socialist) version ended in favor of the West with the fall of the Berlin Wall a new era have begun. The specification of this new era is the blessing of the neoliberal capitalism which dominate the world, by declaring as a beyond economy Democracy. In this new organization the “main problem” was about the equality rights claimed by the new ethnic/religious identities encouraged by the beyond national borders money/business system and Diasporas. In Turkey, according to this, for example unemployment and settlement of social state was not discussed. Instead ‘Turban/secularism and ‘Kurdish problem’ formed the main agenda. The 'Kurdish’ and ‘Muslim’ identification specific to neo-liberalism, in accordance with its beyond economy character, adopts a revanchist general behavior while rewriting and evaluating the history backwards in terms of later produced ethnic/religious identification.
An apparent quality
The most apparent quality of the beyond economy neo-liberal approaches, is that it sets off from people/groups. For this reason is susceptible to believe in conspiracy theories and to explain the history by conspiracy theories. According to this understanding, history is just the voluntary decisions and arbitrary treatment of separate people, independently from global condition and economy. Therefore it becomes easier to hate the bad 'men', 'groups' and 'parties' that believed making arbitrary decisions! For example The Republic of Turkey is a product of sudden one night decision. It is not a result of a process that should soon or later become reality The same way abolition of caliphate, proclamation as Turkish the Anatolia habitants, the turkification of the public according to the Turkish culture, imposition of Turkish as a language are products of the subjective decisions. “some other person, for example ‘a religious person’ wouldn’t have done that!”
Is it so?
One of the 13th century’s legitimate emperor of Turkey Abaka Han, must become furious when he heard the news brought by the messenger from Anatolia in the spring of 1277. Mongolian army, the ruler of the Anatolia have been defeated and dispersed by the forces of Sultan Baibars in Elbistan on the 18th day of April and the Mongolian domination was ended. In these spring months there was a boy in Konya palace, Sultan IIIrd. Keyhusrev, and vizier Suleiman was performing the state affairs of the Seljuk country on behalf of the Mongolian domination. To be saved from the Mongols, the powerful Mameluke Sultan Baibars helped Suleiman who asked secretly for support. Baibars attacks firstly to the Cilicia Armenians who were allied with the Mongols than to the Mongolian army situated in Anatolia. The pure minded Suleiman who was thinking that the Mongolian domination will get loose, goes to the pavilion of Baibars and thank him and was careless enough to welcome Abaka Han at the entry of Konya. Abaka Han blames vizier Suleiman with betrayal. He hangs him first and than orders to make a meal from his meat and makes his men eat this meal. This horrible event, is totally strange for the peaceful character of Anatolia which has tolerance for differences and is also totally contradictory to its spiritual cortex and maybe for this reason is completely forgotten. Instead of holding a grudge, forgetting them and being forgiving is one of the qualities specific to Anatolia.
‘Turcia’
In the period where this event was experienced, in Latin resurces Anatolia was already metioned as ‘Turcia’ (Turkey) for minimum 150 years. And there was a subjective reason to name a country dominated by a Sultanate insisting calling himself as ‘Greek’, Turkey. After The Seljuk Sultan Alparslan for approximately one million Turkish people that their residency was determinate in Anatolia (by complying with today’s saying, we call ‘Turk’ all of the similar migrant tribes) during 11th and 12nd centuries in Anatolia (at most) six million people were living. While each Anatolian people were maintaining their life on their chosen geographical region, The Turkish people were spread all around Anatolia. For this reason Turkish has become the most known Anatolian language and had determined the name of the Anatolia.
There was a significant reason for the ‘one language-homogenous national culture' understanding imposed under obligation by the capitalist life style’s nation-state nationalism to the people within his national geography, was not emerged on the ancient agricultural societies. On the societies before capitalism, the main quality of the written culture was his support on differences. More definite the difference was between the societies, more easy was to cover themselves in their internal worlds. Thereby they could more definitely define themselves and they could be more protected from the effects of other cultures. Being as many people as possible to be different from each other and speaking different languages, was a situation encouraged by both of these peoples elites and the central government. This was also just like this in other places in the world. For example today, each of the communities that we call Armenian or Turkish, were separated to denominational, regional and dialect related different groups and they were named themselves differently.
In the agricultural based economy before capitalism people and cultural groups can behave independently from each in economical ways. And they were also paying attention to reinforce this independency in cultural base. Before capitalism individual specific working system was letting this. The method of production was not complex and ‘anonym’ as in the capitalism.
Meta/material
In societies before capitalism the products were mainly produced on order/need one by one specific to people, by masters and apprentices. The products presented characters, they were not a copy/clone of each other, they were not anonym. The workers ended to work after manufacturing the product with character. Nothing was produced like today during eight hours non stop for only just payment/profit, and nothing was anonym. Marx named something anonym which was only manufactured for money as Meta/Material (Ware) and in this concept the Meta/material is completely different than the individually specific object of the ancient ages. The ancient manufacturing method, is convenient for different cultures/languages to live side by side as compartements.
But in capitalism there is the quick exchange, treatment, purchase, sale of the various material/service/raw materials at the same time and finally the conversion of this process to money. The engine of the system is the profit motivation which works on money use. In the history for working this only specific to capitalism, extremely heavy money/work system, the working people has to have not only a common language but also a common culture. Because in the complex system a lot of common concept, complicated symbols and similar things are formed. In the business society these have to be understood by everybody and has to be set back to all society. The operation of the capitalist economy as a complicated whole depends on this. The establishment of the basic principles of the main culture is supported by national education. In every where the capitalization (money/business relations) are concentrated the societies are compulsorily have to comply with the cultural homogenization stimulation. The carrier ideologies of the cultural homogenization have been nationalism concepts.
The most significant source of the deep hostilities and polarization produced by the ethnic and religious identification specific to the neoliberal period started from the mid of the 1980s until 2008 economical crisis, is the globalized material economy. For the first time structuring which get over the borders of the national economies and control and feed from the global economy and Diasporas and therefore get out from control of the nation-states and challenge them. These political groups which are the new products of the global capitalism, mark the old statements from the first capitalization period. They are essentially only periodical/cyclical phenomenon.
Apocalypse period: 1908-1922
During the 1908-1922 period that we can consider as the ‘Apocalypse of the Anatolia’ the people who immigrate from the Balkans, Palestine, Caucasians to Anatolia and who consider themselves close to the culture of the central administration are declared as ‘Turkish’ and than they created the new business society of Turkey. Establishment of the homogenous 'Turkish society' is mostly a necessity imposed by the system other than the choice of the separate politicians. The Armenian and The Greek nationalist had also the same idea. If one or two of them had won the Eastern and western Anatolia, In Anatolia –in accordance with the hature of the nationalism-a couple of enemy nation-state might be established. During the Second World War ancient accounts might certainly re-opened and a second Apocalypse could be re-experinced.
To take the revenge of the wiping out of the Armenians and the exile of the Greeks from Anatolia and the revenge of the Turkification of the Kurdish people, the revenge of the ending the Ottoman Empire, from the old republicans and to create hostility for this reason is ungrounded for two reasons and is condemned to fail: Here the essential matter is the challenge of the ethnically /religiously identified neoliberalism which feeds from the global economy to the nationalist nation-state liberalism. Therefore there is a kind of power struggle between them. It is experienced all around the world in various forms and it is known that in this form the neoliberalism dangerously weaken the nation states. This conflict now started to act against neoliberalism with the 2008 crisis. Which means that the financial actions specific to the global savage market, hot money and the expanded criminal finance applications specific to the period (smuggling, money laundering, debit etc.) are more frequently supervised. The loss of power of the Diasporas who are the castle of the neoliberal identification is also included to this. The economical crisis is negatively effect the neoliberal movements in a multidimensional way. The second reason is about holding responsible individuals and parties for capitalization/homogenization. In Anatolia the homogenization was inevitable taking under consideration the consistency of the capitalization. In the final analysis this is not significant who realized this. Therefore the most developed central countries of the capitalist system (from USA to Japan only a few country) are the country which people is culturally homogenized. Countries which are capitalized afterwards aimed to culturally homogenize with the help of their nationalism.
In the world where English become the main communication language, we have to take under consideration not only the national homogenization but also the global homogenization. In a world like this the cultural differences are smaller than the old days. This situation opens a great area for the development of the local cultures but (because of the tighter controls in favour of nation-state/national economies) it makes difficult the neoliberal politization. It is a tragicomic situation the citizens who live in places which resemble each other, who think by the same thinking patterns and dresses similarly, who go to the same burger places and watch the same movies and seem to be happy to live in the homogenized world, exaggerate the differences in hostility dimension and without questioning the capitalism in any way.
In Anatolia, after Ottoman Empire in place of Turkey, an other capitalist state or states have been established, big traumas have also been experienced again. The genocide trauma, exiled from the Anatolia trauma, defeated and lost an empire trauma etc. Would also happen again. Just, it may differ which trauma is experienced by who. The cultural homogenization of a geography like Anatolia, to comply with the capitalization of the World, is one of the biggest crime that the capitalism had commit in the world.
Anatolia is forgetful and forgiving. By this it don’t let to poison his soul by grudge and hatred. Today in Anatolia neither the name of abaka Han nor one of the his proud Mongols name is known. By looking into the history we can say that the identification devastation of the neoliberalism which produce hostility and polarization will also overcomed and be forgotten. For this it looks like we firstly need common sense and than time.
Selçuk Salih Caydý
(Radikal.Com.Tr, August 6th 2010)