Ergenekon davaları ve solun tutumu üzerine bazı gözlem ve değiniler

Abstract

Polarisation between Turkish bourgeois political forces that has deepened during the time of Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments is continuing with rendering Ergenekon trials as its subject. This article will provide a concise overview of the judicial process and assess various left wing stances that tend to side with respective parties of the procedure, and in particular, will analyse the socialist left’s independent position with its pretexts. By a factual view, it can be observed that ‘paramilitary gangs’ and ‘coup attempts’ are prosecuted in the course of this unfinished process of investigations and trials. Nevertheless, it becomes obvious that the process goes beyond prosecution, in order to form a sort of ‘martial law’ and target all opponents of AKP as part of a process of political and social reconstruction. Liberal left that views AKP’s electoral victory as a ‘conservative revolution’ deems AKP governments’ main goal as weakening the military mandate through prospects of European Union membership and democratisation and consider Ergenekon trials as a part of these prospects. Nationalist left, on the other hand, is arguing that AKP governments’ major direction is determined by regional interests of the USA and the project of a moderate Islamic state, considering the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) as the guarantor of the Republic’s democratic achievements, secularism in particular, against AKP governments’ moves to deteriorate them, therefore, reaching the conclusion that TSK should be kept exempt from criticism. The proponents of this current view Ergenekon trials as an assault to destroy TSK and republican forces. According to the socialist left, both approaches lack an analysis of class struggles and do not harbour the potential to give way to political consequences on behalf of workers and the oppressed. Although socialist left’s approach, based on a generalised analysis of class struggle, methodologically underlines a common and tactical ‘third party’ policy, particularist readings of class struggle bear the potential to contemplate different analyses such as viewing the process as an internal conflict of the bourgeoisie or perceiving AKP governments as a long-term hegemonic project of the capitalist class.