Türkiye’de Siyasal Toplumsallaşma ve Siyasal Katılım Ziyaret Fenomeni Örneği

Political Socialization and Political Participation in Turkey Example of Visiting Phenomenon

Özet

Bu makale ziyaret fenomeni bağlamında Türkiye’de siyasal toplumsallaşma ve siyasal katılımı konu edinmiştir. Çalışmanın örneklemini Sivas ili merkezindeki Ali Baba Türbesi ile merkeze bağlı Çeltek Köyü’ndeki Çeltek Baba Türbesi oluşturmuştur. Araştırmada siyasal toplumsallaşma ve katılıma bireyin toplumla girdiği diyalektik bir süreç olarak yaklaşılmıştır. Zengin bir dini, tarihi ve kültürel birikime sahip ziyaret fenomeni Türkiye’de geniş bir kitlenin dinsel eğilimini tayin etmesi bakımından önemlidir. Onlar farklı ilgi, görev, rol ve statülerle özgün sayılabilecek bir kültür ortamında siyasal toplumsallaşmalarını gerçekleştirmişlerdir. Yine bu birikimden hareketle dinin anlam dünyasını refere ederek bir siyasal katılım ortaya koymuşlardır. Seküler paradigmanın aksine din, bütün toplumsal sistemle karşılıklı ilişkilerini herhangi bir spekülasyona fırsat vermeyecek şekilde sürdürmeye devam etmektedir. Din ve siyaset kurumsal yapıları gereği bu canlı ilişkinin temsil edildiği önemli iki alandır.

Abstract

This article deals with political socialization and political participation, in the context of visiting phenomenon, in Turkey. We took the Ali Baba Tomb in central Sivas and Celtek Baba Tomb in Celtek village as the sample of our study. In the study, political socialization and participation was seen as a dialectical process between individual and society. Visiting phenomenon embodying a rich historical, religious and cultural accumulation is important in that it defines the religious tendency of huge masses. As a matter of fact, they have realized their potitical socialization in a pretty much authentic culture with different interests, duties, roles and positions. At the same time, they have shown their political participation with reference to the religious world of meaning.In the contrast to the secular paradigm, religion continues to keep its reciprocal relations with the whole social system without giving an opportunity to any speculation. Religion and politics are two important fields in which this living relationship is stood for institutional structures. This article focuses on political socialization and political participation in Turkey by taking into consideration the phenomenon of visiting. The question of how the visiting phenomenon provided an input to the political system in terms of political socialization and political participation constitutes the problem of the research. Ali Baba Tomb in the center of Sivas province and Celtek Baba Tomb situated in central Celtek Village were selected as samples for the study.The political socialization and participation were talked with 33 visitors who had been selected randomly from different days between September and December 2015 and were tried to understand the data obtained by semi-standardized interview form. It has been examined in terms of its historical development and orientation of relationship between the visiting phenomenon in the research and the political system. For this reason, the basic methodological acceptance of the research has been to understand and interpret political socialization and participation in its specific environment. In this framework, firstly, the socialization of the sample in the context of family, school, mass communication and social environment was evaluated. Later, it has been tried to understand the religiousness in the context of the visiting through the same group. Their political participation has also been resolved according to the classification of Milbrath and Goel’s hierarchical political participation level through the field of political socialization and religiousness. Finally, this research, which is considered as a singular case study, has been subjected to a systematic and phenomenological analysis according to gender, age, education and belief variables on the basis of data obtained through problem-centered interviewing and participatory observation.The visiting in a phenomenological sense involves a trip and travel made with certain requests to the people who are believed to have been buried in places such as tombs, attributed to certain spiritual powers and virtues. The visiting phenomenon in the field of research had brought a rich historical and cultural content, exceeding a simple grave visit. Today, in the religious and traditional meaning world the traumas caused by the modernization and other socio-psychological thrillers have brought a different interest in Turkish society than ever before. The visiting phenomenon has created a continuity with a perception of sanctity and understanding which were shaped by an interaction with many different cultures, pre-Islamic beliefs and eventually mystical and charismatic personalities. However, the visiting phenomenon according to the severity of the individual and social crises experienced in the modern period has also revealed some variations that included popular patterns in both structural and practical contexts. Thus, the visiting phenomenon today is seen in a change by creating new universes appropriate to tradition in different social categories. In the modern era the influence of this change on the political culture is evident. This effect is generally related to the social structure of Turkish society and manifests itself as a closing within the sense of protection of the world of meaning. The visiting phenomenon, which has a special place in the religious life of very large masses in Turkey, has created a peculiar structure of political socialization and political participation around a profound historical accumulation. The participants have realized their political socialization in a unique cultural environment. This culture was formed in the context of family, school, mass communication and social environment.The dramatic situations that have taken place in the process have brought the important socialization problems in this environment. The community associations, the system of obsolete values, the distorted hierarchical relationships and the insecure environments created no longer lead to the searching for meaning by them. These people, who express themselves not like politics (27 people) at last, instead of expressing politics themselves with ideological concepts like ideological rightist, leftist, Islamist, communities people (ʾumma), Kemalist (5 people), but rather Turkish, Muslim, homeland, nation, human and righteousness as the concepts and words to prefer to identify. This should be a socialization that they carry out by transferring the objective world they created outwardly around a set of meanings to their subjective consciousness again. It should be a socialization again that they carry out by transferring the objective world they created outwardly around a set of meanings to their subjective consciousness. The visitors have carried out a political participation with the accumulation created by this field of political socialization. They saw themselves as often religious and the visiting activity as a sign