Önder Özden wrote: Why don't the poor kill us?

I recently came across an online post about India, strongly nationalistic in nature. The article was riddled with contradictions. On the one hand, the author argued that everyone living in Turkey should be called "Turk," and that a term like "Türkiyeli" should never be used. He was demanding absolute unity through national identity. On the other, he claimed that Indians were not integrating into the countries they lived in abroad, portraying them with the crudest clichés: their food smells bad, they are too proud, they consider people second-class citizens...

The paradox here is clear: nationalism both demands a sharp difference—“we are Turks, we are not others”—and claims that “we” are the ones best integrated abroad. The contradictory dance of exclusion and inclusion… It was while contemplating this contradictory picture that I came across Manu Joseph’s strange book: Why the Poor Don’t Kill Us.

Joseph is a renowned novelist and commentator in India. His book is not an academic study, but rather comprises anecdotes and observations. The author often resorts to the easy way out, criticizing a vaguely defined "woke culture." Yet, the title remains: Why don't the poor, in a country like India, live with such profound inequality and violently eliminate the rich?

Writing from the perspective of "us" in the face of the poor, Joseph suggests different answers. One is fear: India's penal institutions are brutal, and people know the price of the violence they face. But another insight is more interesting and deserves further consideration. For him, India's disorder—its chaotic traffic, its dirty streets, its noise—creates a sense of belonging for the poor. The city doesn't exclude them; on the contrary, its chaos mirrors their lives. The poor are at home in this disorder, feeling a sense of belonging.

There's a strange consolation here: dysfunction, chaos, acts as a buffer. Because nothing is orderly, no one feels completely excluded. Joseph's observation suggests that everyday chaos, rather than alienating, generates belonging.

But perhaps the question needs to be moved beyond a context that evokes the use of individual violence: Why don't the poor try to change their own situation by acting together, within a political framework, in a radical way, rather than targeting the rich individually?

This was, in fact, the question Marx posed: what prevents the working class from revolutionizing? Marx's answer was ideology. The ruling class imposes its worldview as universal, so that workers see their conditions as natural, not unjust. Later thinkers, combining Marx's ideas about the unconscious with Freud's, argued that it is not only external pressures but also unconscious desires and fears that keep the poor passive.

This framework, for all its problematic aspects, invites a reexamination of Joseph's observation by pointing the issue beyond an economic one: the daily chaos and rhythm of daily life require that poverty be situated within a specific social and moral context. In other words, the very fabric of life—traffic jams, delays, dirt, constant waiting—reveals that poverty cannot be reduced to a purely economic issue.

But mediocrity isn't neutral and stable. Sometimes it breeds generosity and patience, sometimes distrust and deception. It's constantly changing, neither entirely good nor entirely bad. What matters is that it connects people. Within this bond, acceptance and solidarity exist side by side.

From this perspective, poverty isn't just an economic condition. Of course, statistics, income levels, and consumption patterns are important. But poverty is also a cultural and social condition; it's a way of being woven with habits, desires, and values.

Turkish captures this rich dimension. For centuries, poor didn't just mean someone without money. It possessed a spiritual dimension. Being poor meant turning away from worldly wealth and drawing closer to God. Poverty wasn't a disgrace, but an exaltation, even a virtue.

Of course, in modern times, under capitalism's logic of productivity and wealth, the poor have been stripped of this "nobility." Today, as is well known, they are reduced to a flat economic category, often subject to moral condemnation: laziness, undeservingness...

Yet, its older meaning reminds us that poverty is not merely a matter of deprivation, but also of values, moral perspectives, and lifestyles. This broader meaning complicates the question, "Why don't the poor rebel?" It tells us that poverty is not merely a matter of lack, but also of a certain excess.

I believe this perspective is particularly important in Türkiye today. The country is in a severe economic crisis, and the poor are struggling in their daily lives. Public opinion polls confirm that economic hardship is a primary concern. But economics alone cannot explain people's political behavior, dreams, and aspirations.

If the issue were simply about survival, the opposition would have been much stronger. But the composition of the rallies seems to tell a different story. The turnout and the street action tell us that something beyond mere bread and butter is on people's agendas. They demonstrate the motivating power of a deeper issue: justice.

Alongside the hardship of subsistence, the absence of justice reminds us of the "excess" that touches the poor and the capacity to transform that very absence. In the courts, in politics, and in daily life, the lack of justice becomes a common concern. This injustice is the thread that binds these diverse grievances together.

All of this reminds us of the forgotten excess of the Turkish word "fakir," its "divine" theme: Poverty cannot be explained solely by economics or statistics. It is a cultural, social, and moral phenomenon, and its political nature stems from this excess; to look back to statistics and economics is to reduce it back to nothingness and poverty.

If the poor are to transform the world, it will go beyond mere material transformation; it will also involve demands for justice, so that it becomes possible to speak beyond the language of poverty. Justice is what transforms acceptance into resistance; it is what transforms everyday patience into political action.

So why aren't the poor killing us? Because the issue isn't struggle, personal violence, or a blurred distinction between "the poor and us." Even if the texture of daily life somehow creates a certain connectedness, poverty is not just deprivation, but also a state of belonging, sometimes amounting to "nobility."

When injustice prevails, when the issue becomes politicized, the same ordinariness that fosters acceptance can also transform into solidarity. Poverty is not merely a deficiency; it carries the seeds of transformation, along with its cultural and spiritual depths.

Therefore, instead of reducing poverty to the poverty of economic language, we must insist on a political understanding that reveals its surplus, the radiance of the divine touch. Perhaps only in this way will it be possible to bring mathematics and theology together.