An Open Invitation to Deniz Zeyrek on the Reality of Hegemony and the Class Horizon

Dear Deniz Zeyrek,

You are an experienced journalist who observes most closely the Ankara backrooms, the workings of the state machinery, and the internal balances of bourgeois politics, and who for years has contributed to the public’s right to information. It is plain that the criticisms you voice on screen and in your columns find a response among broad sections of society and give voice to the feelings of the masses unsettled by the practices of those in power.

But come, let us hold a comradely and clarifying conversation with you on a basic methodology that, amid the density of the agenda, risks being overlooked.

The rapid tempo of politics and the pull of everyday events can at times push us to focus on the appearance of events (the phenomenon) and to miss the deeper material essence that determines that appearance. When in our political analyses we reduce the matter merely to the intentions of leaders, to vote calculations, or to parliamentary tactics, are we showing the masses the whole of the truth—or causing them to refresh an illusion that the system produces within its own limits?

We ask this question not in order to judge you, but so that we may think together about carrying social consciousness to a clearer place.

Beyond Intentions: What Does Process Analysis Tell Us?

Let us look at the way you take up the debates on "Terror-Free Turkey," a "New Constitution," or a "Legal Framework" in your column titled "What Needs to Be Discussed about Terror-Free Turkey" in Nefes Gazetesi and in your on-screen assessments. You rightly ask: "How sincere is the government when it takes these steps? Does it aim to split the opposition in order to win elections?"

These questions are entirely understandable from the standpoint of backroom journalism. Yet when we carry out a dialectical-materialist process analysis, are we not compelled to face more fundamental questions such as these?

Do political powers and ruling classes embark on immense social moves merely out of a leader’s personal desire for advancement, or do the objective necessities of the capital-accumulation regime impose these moves?
Is the need for "non-conflict" or "legal regulation" brought onto the agenda today merely an electoral tactic, or is it a result of Turkish and international capital’s search for markets, energy corridors, and the security of cheap labor power in the Middle East?

There are, of course, tactics of individuals and leaders in politics; yet these tactics are always shaped within the limits drawn by the economic base and by class relations. When we place the matter only in the parenthesis of "Erdoğan’s vote calculation," we face the risk of diverting the masses’ attention from the vast capital mechanism behind it.

The Reality of Hegemony: Power’s Playing Field

As Antonio Gramsci put it, the hegemony of the ruling class is not established solely by police and judicial force (by apparatuses of coercion); it is also built by defining the opposition’s field of discourse and by making the masses feel, in moments of crisis, that "there is no other option" (by producing consent).

When we look at a draft or a process offered by those in power, we must keep the following dialectical table in view:

Agenda Item	Visible Political Discourse	Material and Class Reality	The Question We Must Ask Together
"Terror-Free Turkey" and the Legal Framework	"A search for peace, brotherhood, and an end to terror."	Capital’s need for unimpeded circulation on regional trade routes and in investment fields.	Will this process reduce the exploitation of laborers, or clear the obstacles before capital accumulation?
A New Constitution and Softening	"Democratization and parliamentary compromise."	A renewal of legitimacy that will absorb the reaction of the masses tightening their belts under the Mehmet Şimşek program.	Can the bourgeois state produce a real democracy without changing its fundamental class character?
Calls Made to the Opposition	"Rallying around national unity and the survival of the state."	Drawing the opposition onto the axis set by those in power and preventing the formation of an independent class line.	Does sitting at power’s table widen the ground, or fortify power’s hegemony?

This table shows us that when those in power set up a playing field and squeeze us into the dilemma "Shall we say yes to this law, or no?," the rules of the game have already been set by those in power.

Why Is There No Path Outside a Class Solution?

Deniz, my friend,

In appearance, concepts such as "democracy," "the rule of law," or "the parliamentary ground" look extremely attractive and reasonable. Yet historical experience and dialectical reality have taught us that no legal reform or legal framework that does not touch property relations and class exploitation can be trusted.

Today the real equality and freedom of Turkish and Kurdish laborers cannot be consigned to the legal limits drawn by the ruling class or to parliamentary bargains. The brotherhood of the two peoples and the welfare of the people are possible only through these material steps:

Common Class Interest: The poverty of the Kurdish worker and the wage of the Turkish worker below the hunger line are the result of the same wheel. We can solve the problems not by dividing them, but by uniting them on class ground.
Shedding Intra-System Dreams: Instead of giving the masses the illusion that the bourgeois state apparatus is "capable of reform," we must explain that rights and freedoms can be won only through an independent, practical, and organized class struggle.

An Open Invitation

The responsibility of a journalist with a strong pen and a public standing such as yours is not to search for alternatives to the hegemonic table set by those in power from within that table, but to expose to the masses the class character of that table.

To show the masses that politics takes shape not in the backrooms, but in the relations of production in the factories, the fields, the workplaces, and the streets is the first step in taking them out of the role of passive spectators and making them the subjects of their own destiny.

Come, let us set aside reading events only through "political tactics and leaders’ calculations." Let us ask together the real questions that must be asked in order to carry the truth, in all its dialectical nakedness and with its class origins, into the consciousness of the masses. For the working people need not pink dreams inside the system, but a plain reality illuminated by class consciousness.