“I give the oligarchy flesh and blood”

A yalı is the name given to the house that embodies a life lived at one with the sea. It is the sultan’s residence, the shore pavilion, the waterside palace; its scale and design carry an aristocratic tradition.¹ The word came into Turkish from Greek, where its root means “shore”.²

In his out-of-print book on Istanbul’s urban culture, “İstanbul’u Geziyorum Gözlerim Açık” (Touring Istanbul With My Eyes Open), Haldun Hürel calls the yalıs “the jewels of the Bosphorus”.

To continue Hürel’s image: below you will read an interview with the author of YALIDAKİLER (Destek Publishing) — a writer who made the ownership of these jewels the subject of research and turned it into a book.

An interview with Tayfun Er: a writer who, in a spirit of great revolt, patiently and persistently spent long nights piecing together raw data scattered across a thousand corners — digging a well with a needle — and who, without playing morality police and careful never to bully, shines a genuinely dissenting torch on the hidden and half-hidden organisations of capital, and describes himself simply as a “socialist writer”.

After his first book, Erguvaniler, Er set out to bring to light the connections of many of Turkey’s key actors, from the political stage to the world of the media. In YALIDAKİLER he reveals the inner workings of the yalı brotherhood, from Nâzım Hikmet to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, from Enver Pasha to Okan Bayülgen. He argues that success is more often achieved in the shadow of relationships than through luck or effort. He maps those relationships outward from two yalıs on the Bosphorus and tells us — ordinary apartment dwellers — “what is told through the history of the Yalıdakiler is really your story: the story of those who produce but do not govern…”

For heaven’s sake, don’t you wonder too why, while the Koç family — the richest Turks, with a fortune of over six billion dollars³ — are entitled to the best of everything, the rest of us scrape by until the end of the month? I don’t know about you, but I wondered terribly. So I asked the author of Yalıdakiler why, how and to what end he wrote about yalıs such as the Sait Halim Pasha yalı, in whose garden I had been a guest at a wedding only this summer.

Who is Tayfun Er?

I was born in 1962. I went to primary school in Bandırma and to all my later schools in İzmir. I am a civil engineer with a master’s degree. I am one of many children in a modest family. In 2007 I put engineering in brackets so that I could write books. I live in İzmir. I have no remarkable life story; I can describe myself only as an ordinary, literate socialist. I have the worries many people have — making a living, what will become of this world.

Writing is a tool for demanding equality and freedom

Why do you write?

Because after forty years of reading I believe I have something to say — and, above all, I write for the oppressed. People give their lives meaning and act according to that meaning. For me the first meaning of life — not the only one, of course — is to stand beside the oppressed and those who suffer injustice. It was the same when I wasn’t writing. Writing, too, is a tool for demanding equality and freedom. Truth is revolutionary in itself; I am simply after the truth.

What kind of researcher are you? How do you get to your information?

What kind of researcher I am is for the reader to judge. But I don’t only write research; I have a good deal of writing in quite different fields that doesn’t fall under “research” — mostly pieces that could be called theoretical, which is why they are less known. I don’t think there is any secret other than reading a lot. Reading widely on every subject is the ABC of this work, and I have done it for forty years. The books you find in any bookshop, second-hand shop or library, the books everyone knows — that is my only route to information. Like digging a well with a needle, I try to piece together a picture of injustice fragment by fragment from thousands of books. I work very hard, and I do it honestly, respecting myself and the reader and pushing my capacity to its limits.

Do you believe your struggle as a writer will make a difference? Aren’t events shaped by their own logic, by national and international forces far beyond us? Do you still aspire to change the world?

Of course I believe it will make a difference — otherwise there would be no point. Dialectics gives us not what will happen but what may happen, as a probability. One has to intervene with will and change the course of life and history in favour of the oppressed — or at least raise the probability. To think otherwise is fatalism. Another world is possible, and it will be built by the hands of human beings. Even at my most pessimistic I think of myself like the doctor in Albert Camus’s “The Plague”: whatever the outcome, I have to act this way. We have risen on the backs of the ants who toiled before us, and those who come after will rise on ours. Defending the oppressed is first a matter of heart and mind. You can’t stop your heart, after all…

Will we see you — the results of your research — online as well? Will you have a website or a blog soon, to reach more people?

I don’t know what blogs or Twitter are — I have never been on them — even though I am something of an old-timer online. I left the virtual world seven years ago and haven’t written anything there since. I have no website or the like. I only read newspapers now. What lasts is the book. I concentrate only on books.

How long did it take you to go through the 200-odd works in the book’s bibliography?

I read very few of them specifically for “Yalıdakiler”. Most of the sources are books I have read over the years without ever imagining I would use them — a reading that stretches over a very long period. It is after reading that I decide to write. First things accumulate; then I think I should gather them up and write them systematically within a conceptual framework. In the reading life that began with Teksas and Tommiks comics — the thing I love most — I remember almost everything I have read. It comes back to me as I write, and I open the book and look again.

I call on the reader to say “Enough!”

What does YALIDAKİLER tell? What kind of awareness does it pass on to the reader in 306 pages?

Through the story of the oppressors it tells the oppressed how they are oppressed. I think it tries to portray an injustice that has lasted for centuries and calls on oppressed people to say “Yetti gari!” — “Enough!” That, at least, was my intention; that is why I wrote it. I hope intention and outcome coincide.

What is your definition of “oligarchy” in general? How would you explain the oligarchic structure in Turkey?

As in Ancient Greece, there are two kinds of oligarchy: timocracy — power that comes from money — and aristocracy — power that comes from family. In Greek oligoi means “the few”; its singular, oligos, means “few in number”. A very small number of people possess at least one of these two powers, sometimes both. What I mean by oligarchy resembles in some respects the elite theory of the famous sociologists who work on it, but it also differs considerably. I am talking about a stratum that holds power economically, politically and culturally — that is, across both the base and the superstructure. I will write about its historical formation in a book I am preparing, where I conceptualise oligarchy very clearly.

In which areas, in your view, does the oligarchy dominate, have a say, or decide things in Turkey?

These people have a say in every area of life. In the media, for example, I once asked someone whose family has run newspapers for I don’t know how many generations: “Is there some genetic talent in your family?” In reply, or so it seemed, he wrote something like “In our family journalism is a genetic talent.” Journalism isn’t a genetic talent — but I hadn’t said journalism anyway; I had said being at the very top of the newspapers. Genetic talent exists in music, mathematics, the fine arts and so on — and apparently editor-in-chief is a genetic talent too! The importance of the media lies in the fact that for generations these people have been transforming and steering life. Can someone become editor-in-chief of two newspapers at the age of 25? Scientifically, that is the sign of an anomaly, and science explains anomalies. I am saying, scientifically, that it stems from oligarchic power. Are you the only talented ones, always? It is an insult to this country. Within an unjust order there is also a hidden inner injustice.

Why did you set out to make the concrete existence of the oligarchy visible?

Faced with what happens to us in life, we all make observations in words of helplessness — forgive the vulgarity — like “In this country you need an uncle” or “He’s got a thick neck.” I am voicing the cry of that helplessness, that weakness. I am showing how accurate the claim “there is an oligarchy in this country” — central to the left movement I support — was in the past. A good student should contribute to the master, and I am trying to contribute to my masters who said “there is an oligarchy”. There is an oligarchy — well, how? Like this. I give the oligarchy flesh and blood. Because if you can’t prove your thesis from everyday life, it remains a scholastic claim. Description makes things concrete.

Are you personally against wealth? Isn’t the yalı brotherhood a natural result of how wealth flows in the world? Where exactly is your objection aimed?

The basic principle of economics, which looks so complicated, is that you cannot give to one class without taking from another. Let us all become richer — but all of us. First let us receive as much as we produce, then as much as we need. There is a whole loaf on the table; because some take more than they need, others get less. What’s more, those who take more can do so through the surplus value produced — but never received — by those who take less. My objection is first and foremost to injustice, to capitalism, to the means of production being in the hands of a handful of oligarchs, to poverty, to people not getting their due, to favouritism, to rising through connections rather than merit. What is truly strange is not my objection but the absence of one. Opposing injustice is the most natural instinct. If you object consciously, you become, in Kant’s phrase, a human being for yourself; if you object only out of envy — “why don’t I have it?” — you remain a human being in yourself. I call on everyone to become a human being with an objection of their own — to be equal and free.

“Owner of goods, owner of property — who was its first owner?”

Do you have a particular anger towards the powers that be?

I have no anger other than class anger. I made my decision and chose my side at fifteen. These people have never harmed me personally, and I don’t know any of them. Nor have I had any personal ambition — if I had, my life would have taken a different course.

What use is it to us ordinary citizens to know the network and biographies of Turkey’s ruling class?

Knowledge is power. A European saying goes: “If they have power, we have reason.” Knowledge is essential both for reason and for claiming one’s rights. Without asking “owner of goods, owner of property — who was its first owner?”, we cannot answer many questions: how primitive accumulation took place, what this country’s mode of production is, how capitalism formed here, who the capitalist is, who holds power, and how much. Science is knowing and connecting the seen and the unseen. These answers offer us not idle erudition but a path for the oppressed to claim their rights. Humanity has three fundamental questions: Who am I? Who are those beyond me? And what are the relationships beyond what is visible? What I write are answers to these questions.

What do you propose in terms of economic organisation? What would make a more ideal world?

Let those who produce govern; on the road to equality let everyone receive a share of production according to what they produce, and later according to what they need. That is the fundamental maxim.

In October 2009 — from its politics to its economy, from its arts to its sport — what kind of Turkey do you see before you? Does it please you?

İdris Küçükömer’s remark about “genetic determination” is famous. Now even our genetics are breaking down. A mother can have her two-year-old child abused for money. That goes against nature, against motherhood, against human genetics. Once that happens, what do the other areas matter? The situation is grave — but not hopeless.

How might the “other Turkey” mentioned in the book be made possible? Is there a climate in Turkey that supports it?

Explaining that this situation is not fate is the beginning. This bad world was made this way by people, and it can be put right by people. The 12 September coup, in which everyone who stood up to injustice was crushed or killed, corrupted the chemistry of this country’s conscience — but human beings are creatures of conscience, and sooner or later they will throw off this fear and this ideological bombardment. A demand for equality and freedom is now haunting Turkey like a spectre. The question is how to bring that demand together with a political solution. The engine won’t start right now; we are the ones pushing the car from behind while it rolls in neutral. All capitalist societies follow the entropy curve, and that curve is not symmetrical. Fools outnumber the clever, cowards outnumber the brave, and so on; on the curve this covers the section from the start to the mean — which in all disordered systems amounts to 61 per cent. What is more, the dominant ideology, like self-replicating systems, tries to pull the section to the right of the curve leftward, to make it resemble itself. Because such a structure runs as a lowest-energy system, it has no need for reason to work — which is why those on the right of the curve are a potential danger. There is only one way to push the curve to the right, towards the good: to supply energy…

One must be able to say “Keep the change”

Are yalı owners really, in your view, part of the “oppressor” class?

Economically, of course they belong to the oppressor class. But oppression is not only economic. Think of what was said about the Christian president of a big sports club because he went to church while travelling with his team in Europe. A so-called sports commentator even claimed he was provoking the public. That man is very rich — an oppressor economically — yet oppressed because of his faith. Oppression is not a one-dimensional relationship. Women, half of humanity, have been oppressed as a sex ever since the division of labour began.

You name many people who enjoy the yalı life. Aren’t you afraid of getting hurt as you wade into dangerous waters?

I am not a particularly brave person; courage is not the absence of fear but doing things by overcoming it. Every living being instinctively wants to survive. They tried once; perhaps someone will try again. I dedicated my book to a young man killed at sixteen for standing up to injustice. I owe a debt to those people and to the oppressed. I have told those close to me who would be responsible if something happened to me. I brought Veysel Güney — executed, his grave still not found — to public attention by writing about him in Yeni Harman. Veysel’s last wish is my last wish too. If you oppose injustice and work against it, you have to be able to say, as in Cemal Süreya’s lines, “But this life you’ve been given isn’t bad / Keep the change.” If you ask “Is it worth it?” — yes, it is!

Putting power and money — ultimately, authority — under the magnifying glass is not something often done in Turkey. Are you alone in questioning money and power?

I am not alone; many people question it, if in different ways. I may do it more practically, more directly, but there are plenty of people taking risks in one way or another.

Why are there so few studies on this subject — can one speak of some particular censorship or obstruction?

Perhaps it doesn’t attract interest, perhaps it is seen as lowbrow work, perhaps it looks too laborious, or there are other reasons. The answer can only be a guess, and it is not my place to give it.

What do you mean when you write in the book that “the AKP is a belated Baroque”?

I drew an analogy with the times we are living through. Baroque is exaggeration; in architecture it means building ostentatious structures to reassert the power of religion. Baroque is a reaction against Classicism. If we follow historical order, I drew a parallel of my own — looking at what came after the Baroque — as a guess at what will come after the AKP.

I chose to make a Fikret Kızılok album rather than a Serdar Ortaç one

Your book ERGUVANİLER received almost no support from the mainstream media, yet it went through seven printings, sold well and became quite famous. Are you interested in popularity — in being known, being widely read?

It was pirated, too. It became a book that got itself read by word of mouth, without any advertising, publicity, proper distribution or support. There are two paths: one is to make a Serdar Ortaç album, the other a Fikret Kızılok album. I loved Fikret Kızılok both for his music and for his attitude towards fame. I chose to write books that, like a Fikret Kızılok album, would last over time. “Erguvaniler” will keep selling a little at a time and will last. So will Yalıdakiler. Fikret Kızılok used to say: let my songs be loved and listened to, but let me not be the famous one. For me fame is an embarrassing feeling — and thankfully I don’t think I have any. After all, I published my first book at 45, and I did it to stand beside the oppressed. If I see a better tool for the struggle, I will stop writing and do that instead. Nobody in my neighbourhood knows I have published books. Nothing in my life has changed. All my life I have tried to be an ordinary, genuine socialist, and I have no other aim until the funeral stone.

Which writers do you read? Whose works would you recommend to readers of this interview?

Among current political writers, Melih Pekdemir is the one I like and admire most. Cemil Meriç, Hikmet Kıvılcımlı, Doğan Avcıoğlu, Mahir Çayan, İdris Küçükömer, Marx and Rosa Luxemburg are the names from whose writings I have learned most. I make no distinction between right and left; I read almost everyone. For those who want to read biography, I recommend Ali Birinci.

Is it easy in Turkey to make your way as a research or investigative writer like you — let alone to make a living from it? Do you feel supported?

I genuinely don’t know whether I am a researcher, a writer or anything of the sort. I don’t say this out of the hypocrisy of false modesty; it is how I sincerely feel. I have a very ordinary life without any luxury. I have no income apart from my books. My only “boss” is the reader. I earn less than I did as an engineer, and I don’t know how long I can hold out. I will try to hold out as long as I can. By my standards I spend a great deal on books. I work alone. I go to the library myself, I make the photocopies myself, I read every book myself — I have no assistant at all. Only my friend and brother Yaşar Taşkın Koç helps a lot with books.

Do you have a new project on the workbench?

I am going to write about the events of 6–7 September. It will be very different from the first two books — something like a detective story. I am trying to reach sources abroad. I haven’t found the case file yet. I am struggling a lot at the moment.

Where and how does Tayfun Er see himself ten years from now?

I can’t believe how I got to this age — I don’t have any projection, not even a dream of that kind. I am someone who buys even an intercity bus ticket at the last minute. My childhood dream was to have a telescope and watch the stars through it. If that counts as a dream, it is still alive — and if I am still here in ten years, that is what I would like to do.