28/08/2023 | Writer: Selma Koçak
“In the June 7 elections, when we received the highest number of votes, we had nominated more LGBTI+ candidates, we had much more LGBTI+ executives and we had been working with more LGBTI+ activists than today.”
How is the process of self-criticism that has begun in the People’s Democratic Party (HDP)- Greens and the Left Party of the Future (Green Left Party) right after the parliamentary elections progressing, what issues and what kind of insights are coming to the fore? How are they preparing for the local elections?
1+1 Express put all these questions to Cengiz Çiçek, the MP for İstanbul from the Green Left Party. Çiçek responded the questions from Anıl Olcan and Bekir Avcı about the party’s ideological regression. He described the decline in the party’s position on LGBTI+ rights as “capitulation of the government’s black propaganda”.
The relevant part of the interview is as follows:
Are LGBTI+ debates also part of your “ideology” assessment?
Surely. We are faced with a discriminatory language and hate speech established and adopted by New Welfare Party, Felicity Party, Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Free Cause Party (HÜDA-PAR). There are some approaches that put the blame for failure on being close to LGBTI+s. Be it weak or strong. Even such a thought is the sign of the ideological danger we were pushed into. However let’s remember our recent history: In the June 7 elections, when we received the highest number of votes, we had nominated more LGBTI+ candidates, we had much more LGBTI+ executives and we had been working with more LGBTI+ activists than today. So the problem is not here, but in our timid attitudes and our ideological regression due to the manipulations and the black propaganda of the ruling bloc.
We entered the last elections almost without LGBTI+ people and there is a failure. In this case, is it possible to put the blame for failure on the existence of LGBTI+s? It is evident that there is a problem of surrendering to the black propaganda and ideological arguments of the government, moreover not being able to protect our own ideological hegemony against the ideological hegemony of the ruling bloc. This is the case in almost every issue. We should not forget that we are an organization that is supposed to be locked up in a cage of masculinity, Sunnism and Turkishness by the statist policies. And we must remember that we are an organization that owes its success to not succumbing to these imposed identities.
Click to read the full text of the interview in Turkish.
Tags: human rights
