OUR PEOPLE ARE NOT FALLING FOR THE AKP’S PROVOCATIONS

The policy of “divide and rule” has historical roots in class society. Today as in the past, nationalism, chauvinism and provocations are a weapon in the hands of imperialists and their collaborators to be used against the peoples and the revolutionaries by inciting the peoples against each other. Imperialist and collaborationist governments do not scruple to strengthen their rule by inciting the peoples and stirring them up against one another. This is one of the most dangerous policies of imperialism – inciting the peoples, getting them to attack one another and even go to war against each other. It is the duty of all revolutionaries, democrats and forces on the side of the people to obstruct this policy.

The oligarchy in Turkey is one of imperialism’s most loyal servants. It has been a diligent implementor of policies of imperialism like the contra-guerrillas, ideological propaganda and methods of exploitation such as “stirring up the people”, “inciting the people against one another” and “divide and rule”. It resorts to this in periods when popular opposition and the revolutionary struggle are in the ascendant. In the face of Vietnamese resistance US imperialism was made helpless and practised what was called “Vietnamisation of the war”. This policy aimed to use the Vietnamese people against each other. Today this policy of imperialism is used by AKP fascism.

For a thousand years our soil of Anatolia has hosted various nations, beliefs and peoples. It is the soil of fraternity among the peoples. With their affection, the sharing of their pain, resistance together against oppression, they struggled together and freed our homeland from the imperialists. For this reason – our labouring peoples of all nations. beliefs and viewpoints are all equally in the right when it comes to living together, struggling together and ruling together. This is why imperialism and the oligarchy could not make our peoples enemies to one another despite their massacres, plots, provocations and contra-guerrilla attacks.

The AKP is aware of the danger for its government that stems from all sections of the people organising and showing solidarity and unity to one another. This is why, in order to protect and strengthen its own government, alongside repression and terror it uses lying propaganda in an attempt to affect the people, polarise them and dull their consciousness. There is just one reason for this  – fear. Because of this fear, since the day the government first came to power it has striven to divide the people, make them hostile to one another and weaken them. With reactionary, fascist, nationalist and chauvinist propaganda it poisons the minds of the masses who vote AKP and incites them against the opposition. The AKP creates racism, nationalism, chauvinism and tyranny. Our people live with poverty and misery and the AKP wants to incite them and make them enemies to one another based on national identity, religious belief, culture, ways of life, differences of belief, work and sexual differences. To do this they resort to every kind of mean and dirty policy.

Whenever AKP fascism finds itself in a tight corner it finds a way out by dividing the people into camps and polarising them. It threatens to make the portion of the population who do not vote for it the prisoners of the fifty per cent who do, frightening the people into confrontations with one another.

The people are divided into Kurdish, Turkish, Arab, Laz, Cherkess, Armenian and Greek national groups, and according to religion and sect are Muslim, Christian, Orthodox, Yezidi, Alevi and Sunni.

The houses of Alevi families are marked, their beliefs are ridiculed. Alevis are subjected to catcalls, as is the mother of Berkin Elvan. The President of the country encouraged violence to women by saying, “I do not believe in equality between men and women.”  Supporters of the Fenerbahce, Galatasaray, Besiktas and Trabzonspor football teams are incited against one another. The people who believe against those who do not. Those who vote AKP versus those who do not, those who wear head coverings against those who do not. Differences are played up between “those who are sober as opposed to those who are drunk”.

People who have been deceived attack people whose houses have not been demolished. Gangs attack revolutionaries who struggle against drugs and prostitution. Lynch attacks are organised.

The AKP encourages people to turn informer by talking of “patriotic duty”. Turning informer degrades a people. But lowering the people and corrupting them is not enough for the AKP which seeks to make them enemies of one another.

The most effective aces in the AKP’s hands are power and religion. It firms up its own base by using religious and reactionary politics. With religious policies and statements it tries to maintain and protect its electoral base. And people with meat cleavers in their hands shout “Allah Akbar” and attack those of the people who do not think, dress or live like them.

During the June Uprising the AKP endeavoured to incite the people against one another with lies like “they drank alcohol in the mosque” and “they attacked women who were wearing head coverings”. Those hundreds of thousands who demonstrated in 80 provinces of Turkey were insulted as “looters”, “marginals”, collaborators with foreign forces”. Our people in the June Uprising resisted shoulder to shoulder and were from different nations, religions and viewpoints but did not fall for the AKP’s provocations or believe its lies. But the AKP will not desist from its efforts to silence the opposition by stirring up hostility among the people and this hostility will attain dangerous dimensions.

In countries ruled by fascism, it resorts to civilian fascist and reactionary terror in order to overcome economic and political crisis, obstruct opposition from the people, and intimidate and render the masses of people passive. This is what the AKP is doing today.  The AKP is boosting the numbers of the police as well as their powers but it is not enough to equip them with TOMA water cannon vehicles and gas canisters. So civilian fascists and reactionary organisations are also used against the people,

On October 6 and 7, in a number of provinces of Turkey but especially in Diyarbakir, the AKP organised civilian fascists like the MHP as well as Hizbullah which was used in the 1990s by the oligarchy, and organisations like IBDA-C, Hüda-Par, BBP, SP and Mustazaf-Der to attack the people who were protesting the ISIS attacks and in support of Kobane, and over 50 people were killed. It was the AKP government which gave these organisations instructions to attack, wanting to incite the people against each other. These organisations are the “civilian” wing of fascism used against all sections that oppose the AKP, revolutionary, democrat and progressive forces and the Kurdish people. At the same time these organisations are a part of the AKP’s project to liquidate the Kurdish nationalist movement.

Organisations nourished by the AKP like the IBDA-C, Hüda-Par, BBP, MHP, SP and Mustazaf-Der held a meeting on October 7, 2014 on the premises of the Adimlar magazine disguised as an “Eid celebration” but what they were actually talking about was preparing war on the people. An MHP member said that during the June Uprising they had stayed passive but believed that it was necessary to be more active in future and go out into the streets, while the general publishing director of Adimlar, Ali Osman Zor made statements that amounted to a confession as to who was attacking and who was behind them. At the same time it was proof of AKP fascism’s readiness for war on the people. Zor at the meeting: “Conditions are pushing us towards war. Warlike conditions are approaching, we must come together more tightly. We have not mentioned stockpiling food but all of us know that we must make preparations… We as the MHP and Hüda-Par constitute a front. The reason we are together is the Kurds…. We must fight against the pro-Kurds. We must go to Kobane to fight against the Kurds. Since October 6 the Kurds have been rebelling and we must immediately move into action and fight the HDP and the BDP. This is the time for it.” This war programme is at the same time the AKP’s programme,

And again in January, it was the AKP that also directed the Hüda-Par clashes with the YDG-H in Cizre (translator’s note: mainly Kurdish town in extreme south-east of Turkey). It is the AKP that sent the gang known as Kasimpasa 1453 and civilian fascists to Okmeydani to attack the people and revolutıonaries after millions attended the funeral of Berkin Elvan.

When the state has the police and the army, the reason why the AKP uses civilian fascists, reactionary organisations  and gangs against the people and the revolutionaries is that the government and its parties do not want to openly involve themselves in contra-guerrilla activities and the related illegal and dirty work, So the anger of the people over massacres and provocations will be directed against its pawns rather than against the AKP itself.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the following while there were protests in parliament against the introduction of “internal security laws” – “What is necessary will be done,” which amounted to a declaration of civil war in the view of opponents. Davutoglu replied, “Let nobody make calls to people in Turkey to resist or support that resistance. Then let all the people rise up against those who defend the throwers of Molotov cocktails, in order to defend the city,”   

 Three months earlier, back in November, President Tayyip Erdogan made a speech with the same content: Speaking at the fourth Council of Tradesmen and Artists, Erdogan said: “In our civilisation, in our national and civilised soul there is trade and art; where necessary there are soldiers, alperen (translator’s note: figures from Turkish nationalist mythology – Erdogan was making a pitch to the Turkish ultra-right), where there are martyrs, war wounded, heroes defending the homeland, where necessary there is the police established to defend public order, where necessary judges and umpires to ensure justice.” 

Both the President and the Prime Minister of Turkey are engaging in provocations. They are inciting the people to attack one another. Those who take their cue from the president and the prime minister take meat cleavers and other weapons and attack those who are opposed to the AKP. Recently the journalist Nuh Köklü was stabbed and killed by one of these people, a local businessman in Kadiköy, after a snowball hit the latter’s window. The true killer was not the businessman, for he gained his boldness and sense of entitlement from the AKP government. The killers of Nuh Köklü are Erdogan and Davutoglu.

Our people who vote and do not vote for the AKP, women and men, from all nationalities, beliefs and professions – let us unite against imperialism and AKP fascism. The 50% of the people who vote for the AKP are not the AKP’s, they are ours. We must draw into our ranks our people affected by the AKP lies and demagogy, and its fascist, reactionary and religious propaganda.  

Let us unite, fight and defeat the AKP “divide and rule” policies of incitement, lies and demagogy, Because the imperialists, collaborators, fascists and chauvinists gain and love it when the peoples fight each other. The rulers want the peoples to fall upon each other and devour one another. This situation is a major gain for the rulers and a major loss for the peoples.

Our people who vote for and support the AKP! Let us not allow the AKP to make us enemies to one another with its policies and incitement based on divide and rule! Do not be drawn into this game! Do not believe what the AKP and the newspapers and TV that support it say! Do not let the AKP and its bloody-handed puppets use you. It is the AKP that is responsible when a businessman becomes a killer after an argument over a snowball. 

We are the people in our millions in this country, workers, civil servants, peasants,  students, the unemployed, men and women, those of different views and ways of life, Kurds, Turks Arabs, Laz, Cherkess, Muslims, Christians, Alevis and Sunnis. And AKP fascism is the common enemy that condemns us all to hunger and tyranny.

To frustrate the AKP”s policies of enmity to the people involves organisation, unity and struggle. We are obliged to unite and struggle against AKP fascism and imperialism which condemn the people to division by inciting them with every kind of chauvinism. The AKP is not just the enemy of those who do not vote for it, it is the enemy also of those who do vote for it. The AKP divides the people with nationalism and religious sectarianism, we will unite them. The AKP creates hostility and problems among the people will resolve them.

The AKP attacks all sections that are not part of itself, we will organise and in the people’s parliament unite and resist its fascism, we will learn to govern and together we will march towards people’s power.