Who is back? Ümit Kocasakal. He won the election for president of the Istanbul Bar Association on Oct. 25, returning to the post he held from 2010 to 2016.
And which slogan did he bring back with him? “We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal.” He and his supporters chanted it together after his victory.
NOT JUST A SLOGAN
We cannot ignore it. This slogan once caused serious controversy in Turkish politics. Canan Kaftancıoğlu, then the CHP’s Istanbul provincial chair, drew a backlash even from within her own party for criticizing the use of it.
It had not been heard for some time, but Kocasakal has brought it back. Looking further into politics, we can find other slogans with militarist overtones. Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of political Islam in Turkey and the National View movement, was cheered throughout his political career with the chant “Here is the army, here is the commander.” When former Prime Minister Tansu Çiller turned to nationalist rhetoric, supporters chanted “Say die and we will die, nationalist prime minister.” And another former prime minister, Bülent Ecevit, was hailed as the “Conqueror of Cyprus.”
AMONG THE WORLD’S LARGEST BAR ASSOCIATIONS
Putting aside the discussions on slogans and returning to the main subject, we find a vast professional body. The Istanbul Bar Association, which has once again elected Kocasakal as its president, has some 70,000 lawyers as members, making it one of the largest bar associations in Europe and the world. Kocasakal is a clear-cut, uncompromising Kemalist. He criticizes the ongoing Kurdish peace process from the opposite camp, and accuses the government of replacing the existing regime with one of its own.
POLITICAL FALLOUT
Toward the end of his first tenure as bar president, Kocasakal began eyeing a political career. He went so far as to join the CHP in a bid to challenge Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for party leadership, but failed to win enough support. He was later expelled from the party. So what happens now? If his slogan is any guide, and if Kocasakal still has political ambitions, he will find support among the voters of the İYİ Party and the Zafer Party, both of which operate in the nationalist arena. He may not stop there. The nationalist and secularist-Kemalist left supporting the CHP and the Yeni Party are also likely to take an interest. Of course, never forget the Turkish saying, “Don’t measure out underwear for an unborn child.”
Perhaps Kocasakal has no political ambitions this time. But if he does, he will have little trouble finding support on both the nationalist right and the nationalist left.
