The changing features of fascism is in my opinion one of the most important problems Turkey is facing today as remarkable changes are taking place in fascism's usual base, in its sociopolitical features and its social positioning in general. What needs to be laid emphasis on in this respect is the new developments in fascism, rather than its ties with the State, the official ideology and finance-capital.
In the 40's, Turkey witnessed a Hitler-style type of fascism which originated from outsider Turks, a bit cursed and overshadowed by the State Fascism, and took root among some Turanism fanatics “intellectuals”. However, it was the well-known Tabutluklar (rooms of torture used as of 1944's) that fell to their share after the second World War.
Those who say “We will bring communism if necessary” thinks the same for fascism too and they indeed put this thought into practice.
In the later period, fascism was too important to leave it to the people. Besides, the compulsion tools, armed bureaucracy and army of the state was already doing what was necessary. In the period of 12 September 1980 military coup, fascism even arrested Türkeş (the leader of the MHP, Nationalist Movement Party, at the time) and killed his men too. His words “our ideas are in power but we are in prison” were also indicating this oddness.
For long years, Ecevit, CHP and the “Left” managed to build the “hegemony of social values” on an ideational and spiritual ground against the (civilian) fascism.
The situation is quite different now...
The  Middle/Central Anatolian-originated fascism of late history is now moving to centers of active-efficient population, to İzmir, to the Aegean region and even to Thrace region...
The base of fascism is also undergoing remarkable changes in the categories of age, gender and occupational groups. The “striking power”, which was earlier made up of trades folk, arm students of rural populations, suburban residents, low income and education groups and lumpen section of the people, is now including professional people, qualified workers, “esteemed” people and “modern-emancipated looking” women. You can easily observe this when you have a look at the “lynching” crowd who take to the streets against Kurds. The fascism in the street feeds on new “striking elements” which consist of high-income groups and petit bourgeoisie who are perceived as the head layer in sociocultural aspect.
In this respect, fascism is growing and deepening...
This is also a matter of another growth and deepening which evolved out of a narrow circle, minimized as “extreme right-wingers”, of the classical-traditional political spectrum, into a circle which consists of “leftist” and those in the middle as well.
Fascism has gained a massive social legitimacy today, while in the past “the esteemed” used to evade it silently or cover it up as a requirement of ethic, social and political courtesy. So much so that it is even imposed as a neighborhood pressure at “modern gathering-places” in the sociopolitical area.
All universal ideologies that are collated with “Turkishness” and thus retrograde, such as the Turkish-Islamic synthesis, the Turkish left, the Turkish liberalism, serve the purpose of fascism...
For the first time in Turkey, the state-driven and predominantly top-down fascism is evolving into a fascism of social character. The classical fascism which first got organized as a “Movement” triggered by lumpen circles is now going beyond the “small man” in depression and rapidly expanding to well-situated, educated and modern circles, and becoming a disaster by putting these circles on its front line on streets.
The usual explanations of “economic crisis” and the “social crisis” of “small men” in depression, and the widely accepted consideration of “fascism as the policy of managing Finance-Capital crises” both fail to explain this change.
What in the gens genes of the Turkish state and the Turkish society go beyond these points?
We will continue to lay weight on Turkey's depression and origins...

* This piece was originally published in Yeni Özgur Politika