Turkish Marxist group brings new threats from old faces

I was tired of hearing “Communism is not a threat any more. Marxism is dead and the Cold War is over”. The Cold War is not over because the Marxist ideological front decided that their ideology is not a way to live in this life: Communists did not suddenly decide that humanism could not advance by the ideals of Karl Marx. It is over because the U.S. had an upper hand in crude oil prices and the Russian economy collapsed. The communists decided to take a step back and wait for the right time to make a new move. They followed what Lenin thought them: one step forward two steps back.

The suicide bombing in Turkey this week reminded us that Marxism is not dead but a young policeman is. Those who opposed anti-Marxist education on the grounds that the ideology is not viable any more need to rethink and renew their worldview. Marxism is alive and well.

Turkey’s Marxist DHKP-C, which organized the 2013 suicide attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, carried out another bombing in Istanbul last week in Dolmabahçe Palace. A DHKP-C militant hurled two grenades at the police honor guard on duty outside the Dolmabahçe Palace on the January 2. After this attack, in which fortunately no one was hurt due to the diligence of the police officers, the Sultanahmet police station bombing took place martyring a young police officer and injuring another. A female suicide bomber entered the police station located in Sultanahmet on January 6, distracted the officers inside by saying she had lost her purse and then blew herself up.

DHKP-C claimed the deadly Sultanahmet attack and released a statement explaining the reasons of bombing the station, however, the family of the alleged bomber, Elif Sultan Kalsen, said the body at the morgue may not belong to their daughter. On Thursday, the body has been identified as a Russian citizen named Diana Ramazova. The authorities are working on the latest affiliation of the suicide bomber. Whether or not another group turns out to be behind the Sultanahmet bombing (as it later withdrew its claim), it will not change the fact that DHKP-C (who already claimed the attack), PKK and other Marxist organizations of the same ilk are responsible for terrorizing people of Turkey on a greater scale than the radical jihadists based on the Marxist principles.

Who are the DHKP-C?

The DHKP-C, or Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, is a far-left organization, which indoctrinates young people with pure Marxist-Leninist ideals, and also organizes attacks on security forces and creates scenes of vandalism during protests. The organization was founded in the 1990s as a part of some larger far-left organizations. The DHKP-C is not widely known in the international arena, as its attacks stayed relatively minor when compared to another Marxist menace haunting Turkey, the PKK. Even though there are organizational and operational differences between the two groups, one thing is the same: their ideology.

The foundation of the violent character of these groups lies simply in education. We know that the PKK educates the youth according to strict communist principles. The DHKP-C does the same. When Elif Sultan Kalsen, the first alleged suicide bomber was in prison for being a member of the DHKP-C, she was sent the books 'The Ninth Wave' by Ilya Ehrenburg, Mao Zedong's 'Strategy and Tactics of Guerilla warfare' Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's 'On Youth' and Joseph's Stalin's 'Strategy and Tactics'. She was not born a guerilla fighter; I believe she was indoctrinated, educated and brainwashed to believe a life devoted to communist ideals is the one to live and in the meantime there were no one to convince her otherwise. It is time we completely eradicate this outdated, dark, low-quality and dangerous mentality from the face of this world.

A new Turkey

When we look at the foundations of the new Turkey, we see that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk took concrete precautions to direct Turkish Muslims to foster an enlightened, Western oriented society with sound relations to the Quran. He made sure that societies and organizations which support the bigoted understanding of Islam we see displayed by extremists, would not be supported by the Turkish nation. On the other hand, civil society in Turkey is a very strong wall against extremism. The fabric of Turkish religious groups harbor highly accepting and tolerant factors such as Khadiris, Haqqani-Naqshibandi-Haqqanis and Suleymanites. With the help of such unifying factors and various non-profit organizations, a wide range of anti-extremist education has been carried out in almost all parts of Turkey. As a result, despite having a population of 99 percent Muslims, Turkey has never been the first target of extremist recruiting agents.

An anti-materialist, anti-communist, anti-Marxist education of same intensity – if not more – should be on the agenda for civil society in Turkey. Due to its democratic nature and exposure to all kinds of ideologies and indoctrination, the Turkish youth risks being deceived by Marxist terror organizations far more than radical Muslim organizations. We cannot stamp out communism with economic sanctions or simply taking out indoctrinated individuals one by one: It is a system, a belief, and a way of life. We need to show persuasive evidence proving that communist terror is not “serving humanity”. To do this, we need to stop pretending that the fall of the Berlin Wall and American economic power was the end of Communism. It was not.

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Ceylan Ozbudak is a Turkish political analyst, television presenter, and executive director of Building Bridges, an Istanbul-based NGO. As a representative of Harun Yahya organization, she frequently cites quotations from the author in her writings. She can be followed on Twitter via @ceylanozbudak