The secular Republic is losing its 'world' in the culture wars. The infiltration of religious judgments, staff, and institutions into the education system accelerated after the elections. The legal system is losing its integrity, and the constitution is becoming meaningless by becoming subject to the 'ruler's' judgments. The 'reserve area' law raises questions like 'Are all the country's areas now effectively subject to the ruler's will?' and 'Are we returning to the Ottoman property system?'

While intellectuals like Kavala, Demirtaş, and Atalay are stubbornly kept 'inside', Ogün Samast, who murdered Hrant Dink and is a terrorist for committing a political assassination, was released on the grounds of 'good behavior'. This was a step showing society which states are 'good' and which are 'bad' in these culture wars.

Culture and survival issue

To explore the tangible aspects of culture, we can draw from biologist and behavioral scientist Prof. Dr. Robert Sopolsky's concept of 'transmitting behavioral styles to subsequent generations through non-genetic means'. We can easily include values, tastes, sexual customs, rights and wrongs, justice, and codes of speech related to 'regimes of truth' within the scope of this definition.

From this perspective, the sustainability (survival) of political powers will depend on the transfer of behavioral styles (culture) to future generations that can reproduce themselves, and the capacity to destroy or melt the behavioral styles of the 'old regime' within the values of the new regime. In this process, a new language, institutions, spaces, and even new times are born, and the old ones die or are redefined. This 'reckoning', in other words, culture wars, takes shape before power changes hands, and the chances of political power that begins to win the culture wars to demolish or protect increase.

We can say that the founders of the Republic, especially their leader Mustafa Kemal, understood very well the reality of the 'survival problem' described in the previous paragraph and the vital importance of culture wars. Changes in alphabet, dress codes, the closure of tekkes and zawiyas, the Civil Code, the redefinition and expansion of women's rights, a new literacy campaign, the institutionalization of the education system, the establishment of art music schools, and deepening these efforts with Village Institutes started to establish a secular 'regime of truth', ensuring its reproduction. These developments took away the 'language' (the means of producing religious knowledge) of the ulema class from the Ottoman era, banning their symbols and spaces, pushing the 'religious regime of truth' and its 'intelligentsia' out of the legitimate political field, securing the future of the Republic.

Later developments, however, show that 'Kemalism' and the Republican bourgeoisie never understood the importance of the gains in the culture wars; they began to easily accept developments that would erode the secular Republic's national independence (its capacity to manage its economy and culture) after starting to fall under the control of imperialism again. Let's also add to this 'confused' list the betrayal of the left-liberal intelligentsia, which facilitated the rise of political Islam. The socialist movement grappled with grasping the concrete nature of culture, persistently misinterpreting classes solely through their economic aspects in a simplistic materialistic approach. This misstep led to their delayed recognition of political Islam's harmful traits. They remained fixated on combating neoliberalism even as political Islam distanced itself from it, leaving them unable to effectively align themselves in the ongoing cultural conflicts.

Under the AKP (the Justice and Development Party) regime, the culture wars have become increasingly fierce, beginning to destroy the secular Republic and its institutions; after it was understood that culture was the weak point of the soft underbelly of the regime in the 'Gezi incident', it accelerated into 'process fascism'. After the last elections, the acceleration of 'process fascism', especially over culture and institutions, is evident.

Political movements that cannot win the culture wars cannot establish permanent powers, stable societies, or even protect their own existence. Without grasping this reality, it will not be possible to turn back 'losses' and stop fascism process!