Are nationalists simpletons?

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently said, “What do you call the Kurdish issue; there is no Kurdish issue.” Immediately after he said this, political analysts presented their assumptions with their all-knowing attitude: “Hmm… He is playing to the nationalist votes before the elections.”

Is he playing or is he not playing? I don’t know.

However, there is one thing I know: if he is playing for the nationalist votes, then he is treating the nationalist voters openly and blatantly as simpletons.

He is assuming that a nationalist will not ask the question, “Well, since there is no Kurdish issue, then why are you building a bridge between İmralı Island and the Kandil Mountain?”

Also, not thinking that they will ask, “Since there is no Kurdish question, then why do you count on the flashy message jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Öcalan will deliver on Nevruz?”

Hoping they will not ask, “Since there is no Kurdish issue, than why did you support Öcalan’s 11 articles at Dolmabahçe?”

Not calculating they will ask, “Since there is no Kurdish question, then why do you boast about conducting a process called the resolution process?” 

These are all nothing but treating nationalists as if they were the simplest people in the world.
Even if the nationalist votes had any tendency to shift to the ruling party, after this treatment, which even the simplest simpleton of all could immediately understand, they will not change their place.

Dominance of the left in arts and literature

A producer of the unsuccessful film “Kod adı K.O.Z” (Code name K.O.Z) recently spoke to Cengiz Semercioğlu from daily Hürriyet. He said, “It is the leftist view that dominates the cinema and literature worlds. I wanted to show that some people from our community could also come up and do such films.”
Correct, the cinema and literature worlds are dominated by the left. However, this dominance is not one that does not let anybody else pass.

Let us go through selected examples. For instance, the doyen of film critics, Atilla Dorsay, has always approached the Islamist, rightist or nationalist cinema with great compassion.

For example, Mesut Uçakan’s, Yücel Çakmaklı’s or İsmail Güneş’ films have been carefully taken into consideration and commented upon by film critics who were genuinely interested in all. 

For instance, the father of literary critics, Doğan Hızlan, has never given up, not even for a moment, promoting good writers regardless of their world views.

For example, it was Enis Batur who first expressed his yearning for a writer such as Nuri Pakdil, who was about to be forgotten.

It was Cahit Zarifoğlu, for instance, who was saluted as “the real poet” in the literary circles where the left was dominating.

Also, one of the famous pens of the right, Tarık Buğra’s books are printed by İletişim Publishing House, which is the publishing house of the leftists.

For example, Mustafa Kutlu, is known in today’s literary world as “Turkey’s best short-story writer,” not as a rightist or Islamist.

Well, let’s not keep going on and on…

What I am saying is that no matter if you are rightist or Islamist, just as you produce a good art piece, then it is always possible to break down the barrages of the culture and arts world where the left is dominating.

Besides, these barrages are not as non-permeable as you assume they are…