A full 54 years have passed since May 6, 1972. The slogan "Fully Independent Turkey" that Deniz Gezmiş, Yusuf Aslan, and Hüseyin İnan cried out as they walked to the gallows is, half a century on, far from becoming an object of nostalgia; today, within the digitalizing order of exploitation, it stands before us as a far more vital and far more scientific necessity.

Today, looking through the eyes of a modern organic intellectual, we see the legacy of the Denizes not merely as a tale of heroism belonging to the past; but as the sharpest strategic guide in the hands of the information worker, the engineer, and the scientist who will build the future.

The Promise Given at Dawn: Full Independence in the Age of Digital Feudalism

The struggle of the likes of Deniz Gezmiş was not merely a defense of a flag or of territory. They were defending the sovereignty of labor against the plundering of everything from Turkey's underground resources to its labor power by international monopolies (the oil and steel giants of that day). Today that "plunder" continues over our data, our algorithms, and our mental labor.

1. Modern Independence: Sovereignty Over Data and Technology

In the 1970s, independence meant driving the American Sixth Fleet into the sea. In 2026, independence means breaking out of the "Techno-feudalism" wheel set up by international technology monopolies (Big Tech).

• If all of a country's data is stored on servers across the ocean,
• If its software developers have been turned into mere code workers within the global monopolies' "Kill Zones,"
• If scientific production has been severed from the people through chains of patents (anticommons); then there can be no talk of "Full Independence."

The Denizes' slogan whispers this to us today: Unless the means of production (servers, algorithms, accumulated knowledge) become the common property of the people, independence is an illusion.

2. Trade Union Struggle: The Class Trench of Independence

Independence is not merely a matter of inter-state law, but a matter of class struggle. The worker turned into a "screw" within the wheel of international monopolies is, if not organized, the easiest morsel for imperialism.

• A union is a barricade: Class-focused unions such as BilişimSen do not merely bargain over wages; they also set up an "independence position" against the dispossession of labor by global capital.
• International Solidarity: Independence is not cutting oneself off from the world; it is rejecting the exploitation standards imposed by the monopolies, hand in hand with the working classes of other countries against global exploitation.

3. Scientific Freedom and the "General Intellect"

Deniz Gezmiş and his comrades also fought for university autonomy and scientific freedom. We know that if science in a country is tied to the profit greed of international monopolies (to the principles of patenting and secrecy), then that science is not "free" but "captive."

• Knowledge Commons: Full independence is the removal of knowledge from being the property of a minority and its use, in Marx's words, as the "General Intellect" for the well-being of society.
• Scientific Freedom: It is the order in which the scientist can write code and conduct research not to raise a company's share value, but to solve humanity's common problems (the climate crisis, hunger, the digital divide).

4. The Meaning of the Three Saplings for Turkey: "Frightening Fear Itself"

Deniz, Yusuf, and Hüseyin are sparks on Turkey's horizon that will never be extinguished. Their execution was not an end, but a "blood transfusion" to the revolutionary vein of these lands.

• They proved that a ruling class umbilically bound to imperialism could go mad enough to hang its own youth, but that it could never hang ideas.
• Their importance for Turkey is this: they bequeathed to us the will to stand against what seems "impossible," and the virtue of sacrificing one's personal fortunes to the liberation of one's class.

Conclusion: Homo Commonans Will Complete the Unfinished Song

Today is May 6th. When we look up at the sky, we see not the shadow of those three saplings, but the tomorrows of the great march they began. As modern organic intellectuals, we will complete that "composition of independence" left unfinished that day—with our pen, our code, and our organized power.

A Fully Independent Turkey is possible only through a World of the Commons in which data is emancipated, the dignity of labor is protected, and technology is in the service not of a handful of monopolies but of all humanity.

The greatest promise to be given in their memory is to build a world without exploitation or dependence—the world of Homo Commonans.

Salute to those who became immortal on May 6th!

Salute to the laborers organizing on the road to full independence!

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MARE NOSTRUM

If revolution is the longest race, then in Turkey too,

He ran its finest hundred meters

Bursting from the muzzle of the truest mauser…

He was the fastest of us all,

The first to breast the tape…

If I grieve for you, may my mother be forbidden to me,

But bravo to you, child, bravo!

Can Yücel