From: Zeynep Tufekcioglu <zeynept-AT-turk.net>
Subject: M-I: The Retreat of the "Intellectuals"
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 04:50:58 +0200


The current "triumph" of capitalism does not rest on improving the material
well being of the majority of the population. In the first 20 years of the
post-war area, average incomes of working people steadily increased in most
of the developed countries. In Turkey also, overall incomes of public
employees (a phrase used to refer to state sector employees, mostly doing
white collar jobs of non-managerial nature) and workers increased, if not
steadily but in an overall manner, during the 60s and the 70s.

As of 1980s, (military coup in Turkey, ascendancy of the neo-liberal model
in most of the world) income levels for workers in most countries have
either stagnated, or worse fell. Whereas each individual countries'
experience may be different, I am not aware of any country in this region or
in Latin America where real wage levels of the lower 50 percent of the
population have not decreased. Also, wealth concentration has increased in
most countries. (A recent study for Turkey indicates that the top 20 percent
now gets 54.9 of national income, the lowest 20 percent 4.9. The numbers
have steadily decreased over the last 16 years. In fact this study was
banned between 1987 and today. The share of the top 20 percent in Latin
America is 67.5). 

So, both trends:

- Insufficient increases or decreases in real wages of working class and
poor people

- Growing income inequality

change the lanscape of political struggle.

In a society where the working people are worse off compared to the past and
compared to the richer segments, the role of ideology (cultural life,
intellectuals, mass-media) and state-sponsored repression (selective
violence, extrajudicial summary executions, kidnapping and murdering of
high-profile activisits) take on a new importance.

Now, capitalism has never been a peace-loving system, nor has it ever
emphasised particularly egalatarian income policies. However, the last
decade and a half, roughly, have seen the diffusion of "emergency/temporary
precautions" into the mainstream political life. Bourgeois "democracies"
have incorporated features of military dictatorships and juntas on an
enduring and permanant basis. 

Now, it such a context the role of ideology is very important to propagate
the following arguments and beliefs

Economically:
1- There is no alternative to capitalism
2- If anyone is poor, this is their fault
3- It is possible to leap to a better class if one works hard, uses his/her
brain

Politically:
1- If we push the limits of democracy, the military will come back 
2- Those that push the "limits of democracy" will be severely punished by
uncontrollable forces
3- We do have democracy, even if imperfect. It is better than no democracy
at all.

Now, some of this can be undertaken by "organic intellectuals" of the
capitalist class. However some issues such as the level and the systematic
nature of corruption by the politicians and the bourgeoisie, the
impossibility for working class people to organise economically or
democratically (unions or otherwise), the very obvious correlation between
austerity packages, IMF style restructuring of markets and immiseration of
ever growing segments of the population can't be twisted simply by "false
consciousness". 

A new "intellectual" class has taken on this job in Turkey. Although some
are from the right, most are either social-democratic leaning liberals
(yeah, such thingies exist in Turkey) or ex-leftists turned civil society
advocates of a very shallow nature. This breed flourishes in two
institutions, the universities and research institutes and, of course, the
media. 

A recent article I have read in the almost only surviving opposition daily,
"Democracy" -which has had its headquarters bombed to pieces once, has had
17 (no typo ; seventeen) of its correspondents and columnists killed and has
had to change its name every year because of being closed down and hence has
been publishing on and off for the past 3 or 4 years, with a lot of
ex-editors in jail- called the mass-media "kontra-medya". "Kontra", is short
for counter-insurgency or counter-guerilla (kontra-gerilla). The term is
most appropriate.

Now, both the universities and the mass media operate on real money. And
lots of it. Most of the "intellectuals" ("institutional intellectuals", as
per my new terminology, thanks to Petras) in the media and the universities
and the research institutions receive very high salaries, indexed to foreign
currency. Enormous amount of public money is poured into the kontra-medya
(in forms ranging from direct transfers to "investment incentives" to
interest-free loans from state banks to..) system. In return, the
kontra-medya turn a blind eye to all working class news or progressive news,
promote the state/government ideology. 

I'll close this post with a recent example to highlight the extent of the
media cooperation with the state. 

A week or so ago, four teachers were killed in Diyarbakir, the biggest
Kurdish city in the Southeast. The kontra-medya (duplicating the army line)
said the PKK killed the teachers, and immediately started denouncing the PKK
as a bunch of teacher and baby killing savages. The PKK has repeatedly
rejected the claim, saying that the teachers were not killed by the PKK and
asked for national and international investigators to come to the area. The
Humans Rights Association (IHD) committe that went to the area found a muddy
situation, and stated that there was not sufficient evidence to claim who
had killed the teachers. Parents of one of the teachers made statemens
saying that there was a lot of confusion regarding the official story, and
they weren't sure if PKK had killed their son. 

And the kontra-medya went on for days, condemning the PKK around the clock
for killing the teachers. Not a single word of the fact that the PKK had
denied the allegation was mentioned. Not a whisper. Not in any paper or
channel I watched or heard of. It was presented as there was no controversy
whatsoever over who killed the teachers. In spite of the fact that the PKK
has a track-record of claiming its own actions even if unpopular.

This might have been understandable if there were no private channels and/or
papers in Turkey. Yet, all those channels and papers *are* privately owned.
I did not see the subject mentioned by ex-leftist and/or civil society
advocates in the media either. The private institutions (in competition with
each other for all other purposes) were acting quite in harmony.

This murder of the teachers occurred a few days after 10 prisoners were
killed in the Diyarbakir prison. Also, more than 10 people "disappeared"
(most of the bodies have now turned up, beaten, burnt, tortured and dumped)
in Diyarbakir. The state looked too brutal all at once. The "dirty war"
needed to be justified, hence teacher (and baby) killers as the enemy were
needed. 

Again, all of those channels and newspapers are privately owned. They are
not, explicitly, censored. The journalists / columnists have become more
than apologists for capitalism. They have, literally, become paid agents of
the state. 

(I am writing about this subject in bits and pieces, sorry)

Zeynep






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