The Anatomy Of Polarization

In Turkey, political tension is fast turning into a societal breaking point. Avenues of communication between differing factions of society are either narrowing rapidly or disappearing altogether.
We are now living out a situation that could be compared only to that strange era before the Sept. 12, 1980 coup. In the meantime, the political leadership should be using sociological research to treat this dangerous situation with care.
We may soon turn into masses who are not only so exhausted from fighting, but who are unable to move as unified citizens on anything. And in the meantime, if the law and legal concepts are not adequately protected and not implemented as they should be, then it will no longer be possible to talk of “society” in Turkey and only of the “masses.”
Living in unity becomes much more difficult when shared wisdoms and beliefs disappear; at the same time, clashes become deeper and more violent. A recent piece of research carried out by Istanbul Bilgi University makes clear just how dangerous the point we have reached really is. Speaking about this research, Dr. Emre Erdoğan notes that “the voter bases for various political parties no longer wish to work with one another, marry off their offspring to one another, or even be neighbors with one another.” This is the new era into which Turkey appears to have entered.
According to the research, the percentage of Turkish citizens who label themselves “pious” is 57 percent, while 48 percent see themselves as “Atatürkists.” At the same time, those who say they feel close to the more educated people of this country amount to 37 percent. And while those who say they feel close to the Kurdish identity stand at 25 percent, just 16 percent say they feel close to those who identify as Alevi or Gezi (protest) supporters.
But perhaps the most striking aspect of this piece of research was the data revealing the chasms that now separate supporters of various political parties on the spectrum. A full 83.1 percent of respondents said they wouldn't want their daughter to marry into a family that supported a political party they felt was most distant from them. Similarly, those who said they wouldn't want to work with or live next to people who supported a vastly different political agenda totaled 78 and 76 percent, respectively. Another 74 percent admitted they wouldn't want their children to become friends with children from families with differing political views.
To put it into rougher street-type talk, the report showed that people “don't wish to see each other's faces on the street.” So, we are now looking at a society in which people don't want to live next to one another, work with one another, even have their children become friends, all because of political views. Could the alarm bells ring any louder? It appears our problems are much more serious than the daily rhetoric and polemic we hear. Our society is no longer able to act in a unified, compromised way. And actually, this entire topic is no longer a question of passive discrimination or the pushing away of others. Problems which were small and could have been solved between individuals in the past have turned into enormous barriers. And as society loses its sense of empathy as a whole, its first response to every misunderstanding is not to try and find a solution, but to try and gain revenge.

A recent observation from head of the Human Rights Foundation Günal Kurşun lays it bare for all to see: “The era of polarization in Turkey is dragging us into an era of clashes. It is making us all go to war against one another. One-third of the country wants to take another third of the country to court, so to speak. There are now more than 2 million files awaiting trial at the Supreme Court of Appeals. This means three years of blockage for the courts. If your file headed off today to the court, it would be another two years before it was even looked at at this point. We have become an angry, polarized society. We have forgotten the very concept of peace. We no longer know what serenity means. And it is politics dragging us in this direction and politicians who are fanning the flames.” If the polarization continues, it will obliterate the stage on which politics normally takes place. And those who refused to listen to the cries of a society that longs for its serenity again will be judged by history.

ORHAN OĞUZ GÜRBÜZ [Cihan/Today's Zaman]