Violently Dispersed States

The development of the state-individual relationship, which is one of the cornerstones of political philosophy, for centuries did not actually emerge with the existence of the first state. From the first moment the idea of the state emerged, this idea of relationship has continued. The idea of the state, on the other hand, emerged unconsciously when people looked at society from either optimistic or pessimistic perspectives. Hobbes bases the establishment of the state on the state of nature. This is such a state that it has both order and great disorder. It has order because in this environment where people do not trust each other, the idea of uncertainty has become order. Irregularity is also dominant because the behavioral norms of individuals in an environment of insecurity are very diverse. How the establishment of the state was, the rules coming from the traditions of the society continued completely. In the past, the establishment of states was concerned with how the idea of statehood was understood. Afterwards, the borders changed with the idea of the subject. These borders can be concrete borders of states, as well as the borders of ethnic identities of citizens within the same state. “Every state is founded on violence. Therefore, there can be no moral justification for the existence of the state and obedience to its laws” is what the social customs at the time of the establishment of the state say, in fact, these are the things that technically and emotionally justify the establishment of the state. In other words, no matter if every state is founded on violence, it means obeying the existence and laws of the state, obeying the traditions and rules of the time and normalizing the understanding of the majority and dominant view at that time. In other words, whatever the society at the time of the establishment of a state called normal, and since complying with a state that was vigorously established with these normal foundations, it may also be a moral justification for complying with the existence or laws of the vigorously established state, since it conforms to the traditions and moral structures of the people at that time. The establishment of a state by violence may be due to the requirements of the time or the traditions of the society. While the state structure has not yet become the normal of the world and social groups such as tribes and tribes continue their existence, there is already a common state consciousness in societies, even if the idea of uniting in a common state has been brought to these groups by the founders of the state. An example of this is the Central Asian statelets from the distant past. Even if the obas here are against unification with the turbulent political environment or the interests of those who have the idea of a common state do not match, as long as the idea of unification in the society is strong, it would be moral to violently bring down the leaders of the obas and gather the people in the bands under one roof. The explanation of its moral justification can be explained by the idea that what ought to be is the state. The idea of going under the roof of the state, which results in political fluctuations and thus the worsening of the people’s situation, will be a must for people anyway, and in this case, what people think for the morally right thing will be shaped. The idea of Central Asian groups to gather around an inn was to establish this state, even if it was with the violence that came to them morally, because they thought that the people of that time would be better in terms of the survival of the society. Secondly, the Ottoman principality and then the Ottoman Empire can be given as an example of a vigorously established state. While the Ottoman Empire was a frontier principality attached to the Seljuks, the Ottoman Empire gained a kind of independence after its conflicts with the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuks’ losses against the Mongols. Since the establishment of the Ottoman state can be called the establishment of a state with violence, the moral basis of the establishment of this state and obeying its laws can be explained by the fact that its subjects saw this establishment phase and the sultan-father-slave relationship of that time as normal and evaluated it as morally correct. As another example, the idea of “Nizam-ı Alem” (the order of the world) from the later periods of the Ottoman Empire can be given. This idea is the legalization of fratricide for the continuation of the state. In fact, in the idea of fratricide, which cannot be evaluated as moral within the framework of logic, the social comparison of what will come from the future of the state and what will come after fratricide results in the winner of these two competing feelings is the moral value of the society. That is, the idea that there is no moral justification for obeying the existence and rules of violently established and even violent states is actually a simple reasoning. Changing moral perceptions are not considered in this reasoning, and moreover, Hobbes’ idea that even the worst tyranny will be better than the state of nature may actually form the basis of moral justifications. Since the covenant made in Hobbes’s idea of social contract is between the subjects but not between the subjects and the sovereign, and since the laws of the state are legitimized by the sovereign in order to maintain social order, obeying the laws of a violently established state is actually the whole of the promises made by the subjects to each other, not to the sovereign (Hobbes 232). Therefore, the moral justification for obeying the law is this contract between the subjects. What gives the idea of obeying the law its moral character is the wish of most of the society to abide by this rule and stay away from the state of nature. For example, there is a famous decision in a law other than the penal code in Turkey regarding the prohibition of selling coal. Although there is a regulation in this decision that it is forbidden to transfer a substance distributed by the government after an engineer who does not speak Turkish has worked in Turkey for a certain period of time, this engineer does not know this. The law to which this regulation refers was enacted in order to overcome the economic difficulties during the second world war. In other words, since the thing that should not be done especially at that time is not to sell the property distributed by the state to those who are in distress, and this is considered moral at that time, the existence of such a crime and the regulations of the state on this issue may be considered moral by the citizens. Therefore, sometimes the laws of the state are considered moral and applied because they obey the moral laws of the people. As in the example of fratricide in the Ottoman Empire, although the laws of the state sometimes do not comply with moral laws, it will still be moral to comply with the laws of this state, since the state has made it for the future of its subjects and there is a covenant in the establishment. To sum up perhaps comes as a more sustainable idea to people from the fact that states exist and are kneaded by violence, from the fact that people exist in the state of nature with violence. Halide Edip Adıvar, one of the symbols of independence of Turkish women, uttered in the famous Sultanahmet rally the words “Nations are our friends, governments are our enemies” and instead of individuals who do not trust each other in the state of nature, nationals who do not trust each other but trust each other because of their own existence, and the promises they make to each other with this trust. can be said to be moral. The next step may be for the states, which have a kind of hidden purpose of Halide Edip’s statement, to get out of their own state of nature. Perhaps when that day comes, the moral foundations of states’ agreements and trust in each other will be questioned. WORKS CITED Hobbes and, David Lynn Golemon. Leviathan. Penguin Books, 2015.