Kintsugi to Mend May 14 Election Results
The results of the May 14 election in Türkiye remind me of the fragments of a broken bowl. WorldAtlas describes Türkiye as a complex melting pot of cultures and people, having bridged the Islamic Arab and the European Western worlds with trading, commerce and exploration activities for centuries.
What do we do when a precious pot is broken? We don’t throw it away; we mend it. Mending requires more skill, patience, creativity and insight than originally required while making it from clay. The Japanese have a name for it: Kintsugi, which is the art of repairing broken pottery by mending the fragments with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum. The process highlights rather than conceals the cracks. Over the course of being fixed, each piece goes through subtle changes in color and shape, which adds layers of beauty and uniqueness to its existence overall. When the fragments are put together, the bowl is not just a mended bowl.
Twenty-four parties participated in the May 14 election. Compared to the number of the political parties in other countries (for example in the US there are two major parties andGermany currently has 16), 24 is a big number, but it is not a surprise for Türkiye, where different ethnic groups, religious, cultures, political views and socioeconomic statuses coexist. Eight political parties received somewhere between 1.73% – 35.58% of the votes in the election, according to Anadolu Agency.
When we look at the demographics of Türkiye, the Turkic-speaking people are Turks, Azerbaijanis, Tatars, Karachays, Uzbeks, Crimean Tatars and Uyghurs. Indo-European-speaking peoples are Kurds, Zazas, Megleno-Romanians, Bosniaks, Albanians, Pomaks, Ossetians, Armenians, Hamshenis, Goranis and Greeks. Semitic-speaking peoples are Arabs, Jews and Assyrians/Syriacs, while Caucasian-speaking people include the Circassians, Georgians, Lazs and Chechens. According to the World Bank Group the net migration in 2022 was -301,586, after a sharp drop from the peak migration in 2014 that was +703,144.
There are no official statistics depicting people’s religions – it’s not even a question in the census. According to the government, 99.8% of the Turkish population is Muslim, mostly Sunni, and some 8 million are Alevis. The remaining 0.2% is categorized as ‘other’ – mostly Christians and Jews.
Under the umbrella of the major religion, we observe 50 shades of Islam, which is not largely understood in the non-Muslim world. Not all Muslims are fanatics. Some practice their religion; some make it more universal; some weave it into their regular daily routines in subtle ways, while others don’t practice at all.
Türkiye also has a high income-inequality rate, which adds another layer to the demographics. According to OECD Data, the income inequality in Türkiye is 0.41, according to the latest data from 2019. I could not find the numbers based on 2022 but I think the inequality got worse in the last 2-3 years. The income inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient, calculated based on the comparison of cumulative proportions of the population against cumulative proportions of income they receive, and it ranges between 0 in the case of perfect equality and 1 in the case of perfect inequality. The income inequality is higher than the US which is 0.375 in 2019, a bit lower than Mexico.
The Turkish Inflation Research Group (ENAG) measuring inflation on goods and services recorded a 105.19% price increase in April 2023 over the past 12 months and 29.27% since the beginning of the year, which has affected some people painstakingly more than others.
The earthquakes in February killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey alone and devastated the country, as some people lost their loved ones, homes and livelihoods. Some waited by the rubbles for days with the hope that the voice of loved ones through the rubbles would reach them in case they were still alive.
Mending these groups is challenging. Before you glue the fragments of a broken bowl you need to examine each piece and know where they are supposed to go like solving a puzzle. You start on a small scale, connecting one piece to another. You cannot use too much or too little glue. You cannot skip even a tiny piece or replace it in the process. Every piece is unique and irreplaceable. As you progress, the bowl starts taking shape.
After the bowl is mended, it is even harder to break. It was already broken from the points it was prone to be broken, but mending it fortified those points and made it sturdier. Putting smaller pieces together might be tedious compared to putting together the two biggest pieces, but the mended bowl of only two pieces is easier to break again.
Türkiye needs great leaders to mend all the groups. Each group exists and groups coexist. Leaders need to understand the dynamics of each group.
I haven’t been interested in politics, mainly due to being a child raised during the time of the coup in 1980. We were taught that challenging authority hurts us. Raising apolitical children was a parental accomplishment.
I realize now that I could disidentify myself from that thinking. Like I cannot ignore the health and education systems; city planning; chemical, physical or cultural pollution. I cannot ignore the local and global political systems, especially in Türkiye, where politicians take on more than their official responsibilities and become almost fatherly figures ready to be Devlet Baba – State Father.
After the election, I discussed this observation with my cousin Tuba Tayfun Kayalarli, who is an advisor at Imece Women’s Center in London and a doctoral candidate in migration studies. She provided the insight that it is a reflection of the patriarchal family structure in politics and that people are tolerant of mistreatment. She said “The state is seen as a father who has the right to love as well as beat if necessary. This approach towards authority and oppression finds its roots in the family, society and politics.” We are not children anymore, and we should take more responsibilities on the decisions made on our behalf that affect our living.
We all have the right to express ourselves through our votes. However, when we draw the curtains to vote and create physical separation between us and outside, do we vote consciously? Whose vote is it? Ours? Our family’s? Does the group we are affiliated with have any impact on our vote? What about our location or religion? Is our vote a reaction? Is it a hope? The motivation could be any of these or none at all, but having the awareness of the source or sources for our motivation is important.
Once we acknowledge all these factors, it is up to us which to pick, because now it is our vote. Our expression. We have a voice. After the May 14 election, we will vote again on May 28 for the presidential round-off election. We have a chance to exercise this awareness when we vote on May 28.
After I wrote these sentences, I met my friend Melahi Engin at Melahi’s Kitchen, her business. We talked about the election, among other important topics for us. Before I parted, she told me that her favorite pot broke the other day and she didn’t want to throw it away but wanted to mend it. She showed me the broken part. I laughed and said, “This is how I thought about the results of the election.”
Eda Uzuncakara
IG: eda.u.kara
sparksinshadows@gmail.com
