Mehmet Türkmen: In the Ranks of the Class, the Vanguard of an Independent Resistance

Mehmet Türkmen's regaining of his freedom today is not merely the release of an individual; it is a salute to the resolute resistance of all workers and rights defenders living under the "authoritarian labor regime." This process should be seen as a reflection of the systematic pressures that unionists encounter in their pursuit of rights, of the desire for a "pure state," and of the authoritarian policies that shrink the social sphere.

Today, union processes are besieged by a conciliatory and bureaucratic mentality carried out under the name of "social dialogue" with capital. In this period—when even the confederations seen as the fortress of the class have, in places, drifted away from a combative perspective and become confined to a narrow sphere that codes the worker merely as a professional—the struggle for independent unionism represented by Mehmet Türkmen and BİRTEK-SEN takes on vital importance. Overcoming the existing union bureaucracy and weaving horizontal and flexible solidarity networks that encompass every stratum—from the "cybertariat" to the textile worker—is indispensable for the future of the class struggle.

The essential element that must lie at the center of the union struggle is the fundamental rights and freedoms of the human being under neoliberal domination. Real freedom is possible only with a world that is oriented toward social benefit, in which the worker can exercise control over their own life and over the means of production, beyond merely their working hours. On this path, unions must liberate the worker from the myths of the "privileged specialist" that separate them from the rest of the class, and unite them around the concept of the "collective worker" at the very center of relations of exploitation.

Mehmet Türkmen is not a figure who speaks from ivory towers; he draws the profile of a true "organic intellectual" who emerges directly from within the class, who speaks its language, and who universalizes the interests of the workers. This stance, which transforms knowledge and accumulated experience into a means of defense against the domination of capital, is the most concrete example of building "a destructive alternative."

This piece is dedicated to our comrade Mehmet Türkmen, who defends the honor of the class against every form of oppression.

Long live, Comrade Mehmet!

In the ranks of the class, on the road to freedom, shoulder to shoulder.