As I began writing this article, Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) was holding an extraordinary convention. In a lengthy speech, CHP Chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu fought against accusations from the in-house opposition that the center-left CHP was “shifting to the right.” At one point, he made quite an interesting remark: “They say the CHP is an elitist party. I have respect for the elites; they are enlightened people. But there are some elitists who are trying to save Turkey at the raki tables. Let it be perfectly clear to anyone: I will purge those people from the party.”
Kilicdaroglu’s comments — by which he meant party members who only rail about Turkey’s problems with no real effort to reach out to the people — quickly reverberated. His rebuke about “saving Turkey at the raki tables” was seen as a sign that the CHP is changing, with some condemning it and others silently taking note.
And why did this particular reference to the “raki table” stir passions? The answer is simple: as all alcoholic drinks, raki is considered sinful in conventional Islam. And for large segments of Turkish society, “the raki table” is a notion that evokes irreligiousness. Remarkably, “the raki table” is also widely associated with the CHP’s eternal leader, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, whose fabled “raki table” — a ritual he repeated every evening — often doubled as a venue to discuss state affairs.
What was Kilicdaroglu trying to say? Is he really shifting his party to the right?
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