The perception of the discourse of the (human) rights of the Turkish Left

As it is known that Marxism and its perception of Human Rights was/is a problematic relation during the history of Declarations. The Marxist critiques of human rights (and even the discourse of rights) was seen as the bourgeois rights and the the idea of fundamental rights of individuals as the advocacy of market values. That was also true for the Turkish Left. Until 1980 the main axis of the struggle for the Turkish left was the class and all the aspects of bourgeois ideology, and also human rights, had to be refused in the name of this struggle. There were no struggle apart from the “class struggle” among the many different branches of Turkish Socialist and Marxist left. However, after the 1980 military coup and its destructive effect (arrests, tortures, extra judicial executions etc.) on the individuals forced the movements to reconsider on the both meaning of human rights and the struggle for the rights. After these years some branches of Turkish Left begin to defend and adopt the human rights discourse in their agendas. In this study, first of all the relation between discourse of rights and human rights with the Turkish Left will be question within a historical perspective. Then I will try to present the interviews conducted with the leaders and senior officials of different Turkish Marxist and socialist parties and movements in order to denote their perspectives regarding the discourse of rights and human rights. 

Keywords: Discourse of Rights, Human Rights, Turkish Left