The findings of Prof.Dr. Ömer Çaha’s unusual research on referendum results were published on Star newspaper a few days ago. As far as I have seen, no one but only Kürşat Bumin from Yeni Şafak newspaper has written an article on this research. However, as I said before the findings were found “unusual” as it was indicated on the newspaper. Should we interpret this non-reaction as a situation that touches nobody’s truths?  

First it is said that what goes beyond the ordinary is that the education level of those who said “yes” for the constitutional reform is lower… On the other hand, since the referendum it has been a common claim that those saying “no” are more “educated”. And Çaha’s comparison depending on the data of Turkish Statistical Institute illustrates that there is not a notable difference between the education level of those saying yes” and those saying “no”.

In fact, Çaha’s statistics seem that they can be ignored. However, some observations show that there is a weird inverse correlation between the education level and the adoption of democratic values in Turkey. In other words, the higher the education level is, the less the adoption of democratic values.

This situation is clear in my other personal researches. Actually, it is not weird at all considering the curriculum in Turkey. The curriculum in Turkey is far from giving the idea of tolerance and empathy towards the others. On the contrary, the idea of megalomania spreading from the Turkish society in general to the existence of an individual in particular is given carelessly. The children are grown with the understanding that their history is like a mythology and their historical people are considered equivalent with mythological heroes/heroines. And when these children begin to work, they stay far away from the reality and rationality.

Therefore, the negative relation between the education level and democratic and human values becomes obvious. Under these circumstances, if the “no” rate was meaningfully higher among the educated people it would not be surprising at all.

Another approach that goes beyond the ordinary in Çaha’s research is about some indicators of lifestyles. Similarly there is no meaningful difference about going to cinema or theater more and smoking more between Izmir which said predominantly “no” and Konya which said predominantly “yes”. The conservative people also go to cinema, theatre and smoke.

In Çaha’s research the meaningful difference between two groups of people comes forth with the issues of alcohol and prayer-fasting. The people saying “yes” mostly perform prayer, fast, and consume alcohol lesser.

The determining factor of politics is turned into a “weird” criterion like “drinking alcohol” instead of criteria such as class, education, and identity which are more realistic and more in a parallel with the trends in the world. And depending on these data, Kürşat Bumin rightly finds this very unnerving. However, I suppose we cannot ignore the fact that this unnerving factor –which is also unnerving for me- has been gaining more symbolic quality and thus has been “politicized” by being turned into an indicator of identity. Remember how alcohol issue was put at the center of all discussions from the municipal work of the Welfare Party to the February 28 memorandum, from the discussions on neighborhood pressure to the symbolism of headscarf-alcohol at officer’s club. If the symbolic means of the struggle for freedom is headscarf for the Islamist, it is “alcohol” for the Kemalist-secularists.

“The politicization of alcohol”. I know it sounds weird. Therefore, it is really hard to explain this to the people; yet it is getting harder to believe that the conflict in Turkey is a class struggle. It has been mentioned in different ways: high jurisdiction members accused of excellence or the central controller, the members of military bureaucracy, and middle class people that make the both ends meet. Then, would not it be illuminating if we ask which superiority (in terms of class) those people are trying to protect? However, those opposing them are roughly in the same class. When you make the comparison in various perspectives, you will see that it is far beyond the class struggle.

Of course, it is not possible to reduce the political antagonism totally to “drinking alcohol or not”. Surely everything is not done just to drink alcohol. But, we need to admit that alcohol, in the context of the tension about the lifestyles rather than classes, is an issue which has been symbolized and thus considered as the only reason of all matters. As a matter of fact, do not the political symbols work like that? To make people forget the real reason of the conflict…

When alcohol is in question, it is in its nature that alcohol can make people forget the real reason of the conflict when it is over drunk.

(Published on Yeni Şafak [newspaper] on 27.09.2010).