TRT World

[Jay]

 

[Jay]

Not long ago, the Turkish Workers Party, a marginal force, ideologically communist and politically fringe, was dismissed as a relic of Cold War nostalgia. Today, it governs Türkiye.

What happened earlier this year was not a coup in the traditional sense, though many are calling it one. It was a collapse of legitimacy, a kind of ideological revolt against decades of economic stagnation, elite dysfunction, and democratic decay. Into that vacuum stepped Ayşe Arslan, a former academic turned revolutionary, now President, backed by a party that until recently struggled to poll above single digits.

Arslan and her Prime Minister, Yıldız, promised nothing short of a reinvention of the Turkish state. So far, they've delivered — but in ways that have left the country reeling. The Turkish economy, already strained, is in freefall. Inflation has returned with a vengeance. Foreign capital is fleeing. And now, Arslan is reportedly preparing to declare an economic state of emergency that would give her sweeping new powers.

This is not just about crisis management. It is about transformation. Twenty-two billion dollars in private assets were recently nationalized under the justification of "wealth redistribution," a prelude, many believe, to a new centrally planned economy. Thai economists, veterans of Bangkok’s post-crisis socialist experiments, are rumored to be advising Ankara. Whether that advice proves visionary or ruinous remains to be seen.

Arslan and Prime Minister Yıldız Demir appear poised to use the deepening economic crisis as a vehicle to accelerate their ideological project. The expected declaration of an economic emergency would unlock extraordinary powers, enabling the executive to bypass Parliament, override market regulations, seize assets deemed vital to national interest, and impose wage and price controls. Already framed in the language of “economic justice,” such a move would legitimize policies that might otherwise be politically untenable under normal circumstances.

Central to this shift is the push to collectivize significant portions of the economy. State ownership of key industries, workers' councils in factories, and the redistribution of land and capital are no longer abstract goals — they are policy priorities being trialed in real time. Business leaders, particularly in Istanbul and Izmir, have responded with a mix of panic and defiance. Several major firms have relocated assets abroad, and a number of CEOs have reportedly gone into self-imposed exile. But Arslan and Yıldız see in this backlash not a warning sign, but validation proof, they argue, that entrenched wealth is resisting the will of the people. For them, the crisis is not merely economic; it is revolutionary.

The institutional structure of the Turkish state, however, is struggling to contain this new ideological fervor. In a moment that raised alarms across Ankara, Prime Minister Yıldız appeared to suggest the government might suspend Parliament entirely, relying instead on presidential decrees to push through reforms. It's unclear whether this was a trial balloon or a warning shot, but it landed with force.

The Turkish military, long seen as the self-appointed guardian of the republic’s secular and democratic order, has been conspicuously silent in the face of the sweeping ideological shift brought on by President Ayşe Arslan’s government. This silence is not without context. In the early days of Arslan’s administration, hundreds of senior military officials were purged or quietly retired, accused of disloyalty or links to past coup plots. What remains is a hollowed-out officer corps, stripped of its historical autonomy and uncertain of its standing under a government that openly distrusts its role in political life.

Amid that void, the creation of the People's Revolutionary Guard Corps (HDMK) has emerged as one of the clearest signs that Arslan’s regime is building parallel institutions not just to govern, but to protect itself from internal threats, particularly the military. Officially described as a “civilian defense force tasked with protecting the revolutionary gains of the people,” the PRGC is, in practice, a new security apparatus loyal to the party, not the state. Many analysts view it as a preemptive shield against the possibility of a military intervention, a lesson learned from decades of military tutelage in Turkish politics. The PRGC’s growing presence in urban centers and critical infrastructure has sent a clear message: this is a regime preparing not just to lead, but to defend itself at all costs.

Unsurprisingly, street protests have erupted, sporadic but increasingly tense. Türkiye's cities are becoming flashpoints. The state, for now, appears unsure whether to crack down or compromise. That ambivalence is dangerous.

The Turkish government, for its part, insists this is a long-overdue reckoning, a rejection of neoliberalism, a pivot to equity. But even officials within the Ministry of Finance privately admit the current path is unsustainable. The tools of economic revolution, nationalization, emergency powers, centralized planning, require legitimacy, efficiency, and stability. Türkiye today has little of any.

What’s unfolding is not just a story of economic turmoil. It’s a test of whether ideological governance, in this case, a deeply redistributive and authoritarian communism, can take hold within the framework of a post-imperial, post-globalization state.

Arslan's government argues that Türkiye can be remade. The deeper question is: At what cost, and for whom?

 

[Jay]

There’s a tendency, especially in the Western imagination, to see authoritarianism as something swift and cinematic. A military coup. A leader in exile. Tanks in the streets. But in Türkiye, we are seeing something slower, more methodical, and far more insidious. The second wave of purges inside the Turkish Armed Forces has begun not with a bang, but with 820 arrests and the dismissal of over 60,000 soldiers. The justification: “counter-revolutionary ideology.”

What’s emerging under President Ayşe Arslan is a new, distinctly 21st-century model of authoritarian governance ideologically saturated, fear-enforced, and frighteningly adaptable.

At the center of this transformation is the People's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the once-marginal paramilitary force now elevated into a central tool of statecraft. The Guard is not merely enforcing the purges; it is slowly absorbing the functions of the traditional military, taking over security in major cities and, most symbolically, around the presidential palace itself. This is not just a reshuffling of power, it’s a revolution in institutional loyalty. Arslan isn’t just eliminating opponents; she is replacing them with true believers.

Türkiye's new communism is not about state control of the means of production, at least not primarily. While Prime Minister Yıldız is focused on ideological governance, undermining state institutions and coup-proofing the revolution, President Arslan has been focused on ideology building and implementing socialism. However, it is clear that both are aligned that controlling the ideological means of loyalty, the media, the military, and the narrative of the state itself is a necessary step to achieve both of their dreams. As Türkiye's economic and political situation worsens, the government is not loosening its grip but tightening it, as if repression itself can serve as a form of governance. History offers examples, East Germany and Maoist China, but this feels different. This is not a revolution emerging from the streets but one consolidating from the top down.

The role of foreign influence adds another layer of instability. According to a source close to the Turkish Land Forces Command, the crackdown may be proceeding with the “blessings” of Thailand—a state with its own authoritarian legacy. If true, this hints at a growing informal network of illiberal solidarity, where governments share not just arms or trade but tactics for political survival.

Here lies the real tension. For decades, the Turkish military served as guardians of Atatürk’s republican ideals, willing to intervene when civilian governments veered too far into religious or populist territory. Now, that same institution is being hollowed out, disarmed ideologically and structurally. The message is clear, there will be no savior in uniform this time. Arslan got there first.

And so we’re left watching a slow-motion erosion of a state’s core institutions, one that’s happening not under the pressure of chaos, but through its meticulous management. This is what the end of liberal democracy can look like in the modern era: not a collapse, but a transfer of power, of loyalty, of fear from the people to a party.

 

[Jay]

BARCELONA — This wasn’t Sarajevo in 1914 nor Budapest in 1956. But walking through the scorched alleyways of El Raval and watching teens drag debris into makeshift barricades like they were laying the foundation for a nation, I couldn’t help but think, we’re watching the future of sovereignty unfold in real time, and it’s messy.

Catalonia has always been a story Spain tried to footnote. A proud, distinct culture relegated to the margins of national identity of the collective Spanish story. But what we’re seeing now is not just a regional rebellion. It’s a confrontation between two 21st-century visions of legitimacy, one built on institutions and borders, the other on networks and belief.

On the ground, people will tell you it’s about self-determination. On the balconies, it’s about dignity. In Madrid, it’s about the law. But in the backrooms of the Hague and the quiet corners of the Global Assembly (GA), it’s something else: a test of what global governance actually means in the age of identity politics and decentralized insurgency.

Here’s the dirty little secret no one in Geneva or Washington wants to say out loud: the GA is paralyzed. Not because it lacks empathy, but because it lacks imagination. The international system we’ve built since World War II simply wasn’t designed for these kinds of crises, not when the rebels livestream on Twitter, not when secessionists form provisional governments with the help of Google Translate and GitHub.

And so the GA says what it always says: “calls for calm,” “respect for sovereignty,” and “a peaceful resolution through dialogue.” It's the diplomatic equivalent of telling a forest fire to consider its actions.

That’s the question haunting diplomats in Brussels and activists in exile alike. Reformists still believe in the possibility of internal change. They hope the Spanish constitution, that aging holdover from a post-Franco era, might stretch enough to include the dreams of seven million Catalans. But the youth in the streets? The ones blocking tanks with their bodies? They’re done asking for permission.

There are, broadly speaking, two Catalonias now.

The first is institutionalist, led by politicians, lawyers, and former ministers. They still speak the language of negotiation, still see a path back to the Spanish state, reformed and federal. They want to work from the inside, maybe with international mediation, maybe even under GA supervision.

The second Catalonia is post-institutional. It's rebel fighters in a tunnel under the Generalitat with a satellite uplink and a map drawn on the back of a pizza box. It’s the firefighters, police officers, and security services ignoring orders from Madrid. It’s teenagers guarding intersections like they were checkpoints in the Spanish Civil War. It’s what happens when people stop believing their votes matter and start believing only visibility does.

One wants a deal. The other wants recognition. The irony is that both will probably lose if the world keeps pretending this is just an internal matter.

The question facing global affairs isn’t whether to intervene in Catalonia, but whether the West can develop a new vocabulary for secessionist movements. Because this isn’t just about Spain. It’s about Quebec. It’s about Scotland. It’s about Taiwan. It’s about any place where people are trying to redraw lines that were drawn by someone else’s grandfather.

For every diplomat arguing for non-interference, there’s an activist saying, If your global order can’t protect peaceful people from their own government, what’s the point of it?

Yes, sovereignty matters. But so does legitimacy. And when those two ideas collide, when armored vehicles roll into cities that are technically part of your own nation, global leaders have a moral obligation to do more than issue tepid statements.

If Madrid overplays its hand, it will lose not just Catalonia but the moral high ground in Europe. If the rebels fragment or turn violent, they risk becoming another cautionary tale in the West’s long history of crushed independence movements. Either way, the question remains: how do we as a planet respond to these moments of rupture?

We are entering the age of networked nationalism. Movements born in group chats, armed with GoPros and Reddit threads. And the structures built in Bretton Woods and Geneva simply aren’t ready. We need a new toolkit. One that respects sovereignty but also human dignity.

Until then, the people of Catalonia will keep asking a question no one in power wants to answer. If we are not allowed to leave peacefully, were we ever free at all?

 

[Jay]

BARCELONA — When armed police escorted former Commander Júlia Riera into the National Court under floodlights and riot shields, Spain insisted it was simply enforcing the law. But laws, as every constitutional crisis reminds us, are only as legitimate as the people who believe in them.

What began as a regional standoff over autonomy is fast becoming a test of what the international system actually stands for in 2006: sovereignty or self-determination, order or recognition, process or legitimacy.

On August 1, a separatist coalition known as the Free Catalan Assembly, backed by disaffected municipal police and remnants of the regional emergency services, seized control of government buildings in central Barcelona. Calling the operation “Albatross,” they declared a transitional Catalan republic and demanded international recognition. The Spanish government, in response, invoked Article 155 of the Constitution, suspended Catalan autonomy, and deployed military and national police forces to reassert control.

Civilian casualties have been reported. Communications remain unreliable across much of the region. The images of young people manning barricades, of armored vehicles rumbling through Plaça Sant Jaume, have already become emblems for a generation disillusioned by what they see as the decay of democratic accountability.

And yet, the international response has been muted.

Since the end of World War II, the liberal international order has operated on a fundamental premise that within sovereign borders, change should occur through dialogue, ballots, and the slow machinery of reform. What Catalonia and other emerging movements around the world are revealing is that this machinery is grinding to a halt.

Júlia Riera, for all her tactical militancy, represents a deeper crisis in democratic systems. She emerged not from the fringe, but from disillusionment with institutions that offered participation but no transformation. To her supporters, she is not a criminal but a symbol. The consequence of political failure rather than a cause of it.

Let’s not pretend we don’t see what’s happening in Catalonia. A liberal democracy has arrested a former military officer turned separatist commander. Armed police flood the streets. Protesters chant in the square. There is blood on the pavement in El Raval, livestreamed on social media, and yet in the Hague, in Washington, in Paris, there is only silence, or worse, law.

The arrest of Júlia Riera was supposed to be a demonstration of the Spanish state’s strength. Instead, it became a window into something deeper and far more destabilizing: the inability of the international liberal order to grapple with demands that don’t fit neatly into the institutions it built.

They are political emotions that have always sat uncomfortably inside liberalism's procedural shell. What do you do when the ballot box fails, the courts defer, and the Constitution becomes a cage? What happens when people stop asking to be represented and start asking to be seen?

This is what the end of liberal imagination looks like. Not just at the national level but globally.

A source from Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), confirmed to TRT an aggressive diplomatic lobbying campaign in the days since the request for an emergency session at the Global Assembly. According to sources familiar with the effort, Madrid’s representatives warned that allowing peacekeepers into Catalonia would “irreparably erode” the principle of non-interference in domestic constitutional affairs.

The pressure appears to have worked.

Poland, citing the “looming specter of urban warfare,” proposed a limited peacekeeping mission with mandates for civilian protection and infrastructure stabilization. But major powers, including France and the United States, refused to back the measure. A senior Spanish diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the response to the proposal as “well-intentioned but legally untenable.”

Türkiye and Portugal aligned with Madrid. Only Australia seemed to have backed Poland, according to the Spanish diplomat.

Not because these countries don't see the danger, but because they fear the precedent. If Catalonia, why not Scotland? Why not Quebec? Why not Balochistan, or Xinjiang? The message was clear however, the Global Assembly’s member states may profess concern, but few are willing to redraw the lines that hold their own states together.

And that’s the uncomfortable truth that liberal democracies are deeply ill-equipped to handle the question of illiberal self-determination. What if a people democratically choose to leave a democratic state? What if they do so not because they are oppressed in the traditional sense, but because they no longer feel part of the story?

For decades, the postwar order relied on two fictions: that borders are sacred and that liberal institutions can evolve to contain new demands. Catalonia, like so many other regions around the world, is showing that neither assumption holds. Not anymore.

What we’re witnessing isn’t just a constitutional crisis in Spain. It’s a philosophical crisis for the West. Can liberalism accommodate deep identity without suppressing it? Can a rules-based order survive when people believe the rules were written without them?

And so, we arrive at a moment of clarity. The question is not whether Catalonia will gain independence. It is whether liberal democracies can remain legitimate when their only answer to secession is suppression.

The military may restore order. The Global Assembly may issue its statements. But legitimacy is harder to recover than territory. And once a generation loses faith in the institutions that claim to represent them, the world doesn’t go back to normal. It reorganizes itself.

If the West appears paralyzed, then the East is watching and it is moving.

Thailand, long seen as a regional middle power, has emerged as the most vocal supporter of an alternative model one based on “communitarian sovereignty,” a mix of democratic socialism and regional autonomy rooted in collective cultural identity. Leading academics across the West are warning that the Catalan crisis “illustrates the moral exhaustion of the Western order” and that many may see the need for a new international compact that recognizes “the legitimacy of collective selfhood.”

Thailand’s soft power is growing, especially in parts of Europe and Asia, where states are increasingly skeptical of Western double standards. In this context, Catalonia becomes not just a local rebellion, but a proxy for a wider contest between two visions of world order: one institutional, rules-based, and increasingly brittle; the other fluid, identity-driven, and still taking shape.

Madrid has reclaimed administrative control, at least for now. But sovereignty regained by force is rarely a long-term solution. A new generation of Catalans, networked, decentralized, ideologically agile, has seen what visibility can do. They have watched their hashtags trend and supporters chant for them across the globe. They do not fear illegitimacy; they see themselves as the leaders of a new global movement.

Whether the world accepts them or not, the question lingers. If we cannot imagine a legitimate form of exit within liberal democracies, are we not declaring that democracy itself is forever bound by the choices of previous generations?

We may be watching the first sparks of a post-liberal world.

And no one is ready.