Contribution of the Communist Party of Turkey

Contribution by TKP to ECA Teleconference on “The Communists of Europe against the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum”

 

20th October 2024

 

Dear comrades,

Today, in this teleconference, we are addressing the migration issue in an important aspect. It is of great importance to discuss what the framework drawn by the European Union for the management of the migration means for the people forced to migrate, to commonize the approach of the communists to this issue, and to make it more visible both in our countries and the international arena.

It is known that migration is a multidimensional phenomenon all over the world and in our country, it has become even more complicated interacting with multiple dynamics. In the past 13 years, Turkey, as a “neighboring country”, has encountered a significant portion of mass movements of migration, which forced the EU to develop new legal frameworks. Moreover, the migration movements have become one of the most important issues of Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy because of the political role of the Turkish government in the conditions that have led to such a mass displacement.

Throughout these years, in this manner, the Communist Party of Turkey has focused on the fight against imperialism, struggled against the AKP government’s interference in the internal affairs of other countries and its disregard for their sovereignty, worked to organize the migrant workers who have settled in Turkey and become part of the working class, and waged a political and ideological struggle against the hostility towards migrants escalated by the actors of the bourgeois politics in order to divide the working class.

The results of the Readmission Agreement signed between Turkey and the EU in 2013 and the subsequent agreement from 2016 make it necessary for TKP to develop a multidimensional approach to the issue as this approach becomes even more crucial in the presence of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, which further consolidates the philosophy of the agreement mentioned.

 

• Turkey has become a migrant depot for a long The AKP government bears the primary responsibility in this situation as it has disregarded the borders of other countries and acted with Neo-Ottomanist aspirations. However, the EU’s approach to the issue of migration and the agreements and pacts signed with Turkey in this regard are also of critical importance. From the viewpoint of the TKP, these agreements, which are the products of the EU’s imperialist perspective, must be torn up and thrown away.

• Apart from the imperialist EU, Turkey’s capitalist class and the AKP government have benefited the most from these agreements so The migrants have been ruthlessly exploited. They have been abused by the AKP to implement an Islamist political and social project. They have been used as an instrument to intervene in other countries' internal agendas. They have become bargaining chips against imperialist actors. However, a large portion of the immigrants have already become a permanent part of Turkey’s working class. It is of great importance for these immigrant workers to organize in the struggle against the bosses, against imperialism and against reactionary forces. This will also mean that a trump card will be taken from the hands of the AKP.

• However, when the current level of organization of Turkey’s working class and the unregistered precarious working regime are taken into consideration, the immigrant population in Turkey, which also includes jihadists in its ranks, does not have any potential to pull Turkey’s working class forward. At the same time, Turkey’s working class also lacks the dynamism to pull immigrant workers forward for now. For the Communist Party of Turkey, this situation turns the task of organizing immigrant workers into a challenging work that requires patience and time.

• At this point, it is necessary to open a parenthesis for the class division among the We need to state that not all of the immigrants who settled in Turkey due to the wars in both Syria and Ukraine have the proletarian character. The facts that the practice of selling citizenship for money has become increasingly widespread in recent years in Turkey, and that the conditions for granting citizenship are not announced by the government publicly undermines the sense of social justice in the society.

• These complex conditions require that not every discomfort with migrants in Turkish society should be labelled as racism. There exists a migrant problem in Turkey. What is required for the communists is not to deny this problem and to approach the issue not only from a one-dimensional perspective of migrants’ rights, but to ensure that the class roots of the problem and the role of imperialist actors are understood well. Throughout history, however, we know that fascist movements have risen by relying on reactions arising from real problems. Therefore, the fight against racism is one of our primary tasks, not only because it is a responsibility required by communist morality but also to prevent the political actors of the capitalist system from using the problem of migration to divide the working

• The approach presented by the EU on migration has a direct or indirect legitimizing effect on the rise of right-wing movements in many European countries. The AKP, which has become a partner in the EU's approach that disregards freedom of movement with the bribes it has received, has turned Turkey into a concentration camp for migrants while acting as a protection shield for the EU. The fascist parties that are rising in Turkey are only providing covert support to the AKP since they are directing the public's reaction to the wrong target. Therefore, revealing how empty the rhetoric of these political parties is and fighting them also means struggling against the AKP and the EU policies.

 

The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum will further deepen the EU policies that have turned Turkey into a migrant depot, the Mediterranean and the Aegean into a migrant cemetery, that have usurped one of the most fundamental freedoms by blocking millions of migrants who want to move from Turkey to Europe, and that have created a great shame for humanity by selecting and in a sense “purchasing” the more qualified among migrants.

As decided at its 14th Congress held in September, TKP will continue to demand the termination of the Readmission Agreement signed with the European Union, and will make efforts to expose and put an end to the talks and bargaining process that have been intensified once again with the European Union in this context. And with the awareness that migrants are so desperate and exploited by the capitalists due to the weakness of organisation of workers in Turkey, it will continue to undertake the raising of the struggle against exploitation together with migrant workers as a task that cannot be postponed.