(In Turkey) “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce” (Karl Marx)

Commentary by Gökhan Kurtaran
AKP (Justice and Development Party) has many common points with the Democrat Party which was ruled by Adnan Menderes. For the ones who have some limited knowledge on contemporary Turkish history; Adnan Menderes was a Turkish statesman and Prime Minister between 1950–1960. He founded the Democratic Party (DP) in 1946, the third legal opposition party of Turkey. After this brief information we look at some of the main common points these two parties which gained public support through their times in power.

Adnan Menderes often associated with Islamic forces and there were claims of the main party CHP (Republican People’s Party) that the one of their main aim was to change the secular direction of the country. Ismet Inonu who was the second President of Turkey warned about his actions and speeches for few times as well. Adnan Menderes drew the attentions mainly with his changing the language of call for prayers from the mosques from Turkish to Arabic. This was accepted as an attack the secular changes done by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk with his various reforms in Turkey after the fall of Ottoman Empire. This action is always considered as“backwardness” by many republicans in the country. He has been arrested with the army de coup in 29th of May 1960 and hanged along with two other cabinet members, Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Hasan Polatkan.

Certainly army de coup was a terrible intervention into democracy and parliamentarian system in Turkey and Menderes and his other two colleagues to be hanged in 1961 was also written with embarrassment in Turkish history. Turkey has gone through a long way in the way of democracy and these events are now seen the times of extremism of military power in 1960’s. Turkish people have placed their faith in to democracy more than anything else and today’s conditions except some nationalist no body is in desire of army de coup anymore.



Similarity between Menderes and Erdogan that they both often used religious quotations in their speeches and their actions were always related with somehow with Islam. Their common point is their pressure over the press in their coming to power for their second time. For example, Menderes had ordered for his minister Gedik to prepare a list of communist to take them into jail as the responsible of 6th and 7th September events took place in 1955 in Istanbul. These events had taken place after a local newspaper spreading the false news that Atuturk’s house was bombed in Thessalonica in Greece. Turkish nationalists had gather in riots and attacked to non-Muslim community living in Istanbul and their properties for two days. In that time, Kemal Tahir and his brother Ratip Tahir, Aziz Nesin, Hulisi Dosdogru, Hasan İzzettin Dinamo, Nihat Sargın, İlhan Berktay, Müeyyet Boratav, Can Boratav, Aslan Kaynardag, Asım Bezirci, well known leftist intellectuals, journalists and authors were taken into custody in order to drow the public attention from government to fore leaders of the leftist movement. They were not the responsible of the riots of 6th and 7th of September for sure, but the vehicles used by Menderes government in those days.

Karl Marx stated that “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”. This is very much true for recent cases in Turkey. Justice and Development Party has been acting recklessly in order to change the public agenda. Tayyip Erdogan instead of greeting the entire nation with 47% percent of the votes he got in 22nd of July general elections, he chooses to suppress the opponents and opposing newspapers and TV channels harshly.



Today, Turkey has waked up into a day which is marked with the news that 83 years old prominent Turkish columnist being taken into custody from his house with forces. As a columnist who has been working in Turkey all his life and contributing the intellectual life of Turkey for years, he deserved certainly a better treatment even if there are suspicions over him about any illegal actions. But it seems that Justice and Development Party is so much in the fear and trauma of the possibility of being closed down with call of prosecutor Yalcinkaya.

After the events taken place in 1950’s and 2008, do you see some similarities now? Do you think that the fear will bring Turkey into edge of clash between republican and Islamists in close future? I assume that close Turkish history should be meaningful for the ones who are in power now and it should be understood better by them in order to release the tension and secure the rights of people in Turkey, starting from journalists, starting from prominent columnist of Cumhuriyet newspaper Ilhan Selcuk.

Gokhan KURTARAN