Kemalist fabrications

İhsan Yılmaz

I have been arguing here in this column that there has been a psychological war campaign against both the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Gülen movement at home and abroad.

Journalist and academics who are otherwise respected people suddenly started resorting to either exaggerated displays of fear or to storylines that are pure fabrication. I am not arguing that Turkey is a 100 percent full democracy just like Norway. Quite the contrary, I have always stated that there is much work to be done toward this aim, but the country is on the right track despite several obstacles and mistakes. But we must admit that this delayed aim cannot be brought to life by the attempts of the ruling party alone. Can you show me any single party in Turkey that pressures the ruling party on democratization, civil liberties, human rights, the EU accession process, the Copenhagen criteria, protection of minorities, the eradication of the Kurdish problem, stopping the silencing of media and occasional physical attacks on Christian missionaries and so on? When we closely monitor the discourses and daily practices of the opposition parties, we clearly see that the opposite is true and we are left at the arbitrary mercy of the AK Party on these issues. Outside observers of Turkey should not only look at what these opposition parties and Kemalist intellectuals and journalists tell them but should also carefully analyze what they say everyday in their meetings with their voters and what they write for the consumption of their loyal readers. Unfortunately, they want outside observers to focus solely on the mistakes of the AK Party, stemming from both the party's inherent deficiencies and the yet undemocratized system in the country.

A few weeks ago, I was called by the BBC to talk about press freedoms and so on in Turkey. After a while my interlocutor told me that a journalist told him on the phone that he was afraid to speak over the phone. I was shocked to hear that as this person regularly criticizes both the AK Party and the Gülen movement. Any perusal of his column will show this. What is more, if he were really afraid that he would be wiretapped on the phone, how could there be anything more detrimental to both the AK Party and the Gülen movement than this fact? Is saying that he was so terrified of the party and the movement that he cannot even speak on the phone not more damaging than actually saying something damaging? Unfortunately, what I observe is that there are many people who would listen to these fabricated or exaggerated arguments without any reservation. You may call it a revived Orientalism, an enduring Islamophobia, a result of uneasiness with new Turkish foreign policy, a sign of being uncomfortable with the peaceful attempts to build cultural bridges by the Gülen movement or an indication of the influence of the post-Davos Israel lobby. I am not sure which one it is. Could it be that it is a combination of them?

Let me repeat. I am not arguing that everything is perfect in Turkey and that the justice system in particular is functioning well. But the judiciary is still a castle of Kemalist militarist oligarchy in Turkey. The AK Party has been in power for only about eight years and given the fact that the judiciary has resisted employing new staff to prevent any AK Party “infiltration,” an overwhelming majority of judges and prosecutors are the ones who were admitted into the profession by previous governments. The decisions of the top courts clearly show that to block the AK Party judges regularly fail to adhere to the law. They never apply Article 90 of the Constitution that was amended by the AK Party and clearly dictates that on human rights issues if domestic law clashes with international treaties, international treaties prevail. Moreover, when we look at the decisions of the lower courts we see that it is almost legally permissible to insult Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and swear at him. But when people criticize the establishment harshly, they are punished by the same courts. Despite all this concrete evidence, our good old Kemalists continue to insist on their fabricated myths that the AK Party controls the judiciary and they are chasing after whoever criticizes them. I was shocked to hear this week at a conference on Turkey in an important European city that 5,000 people were being held in prison without having had a trial. The respected Turkish professor who was saying this comfortably said it in such a context that it was as if the AK Party was behind this injustice. Nobody mentions the Kemalist judiciary and how perceived archenemies of the oligarchy -- Kurds, socialists, practicing Muslims, minorities and so on -- suffer at the hands of this judiciary. Also nobody wonders why Armenians in Turkey mostly vote for the AK Party. The AK Party's only role in this mess, as far as I can see, is that they wished to negotiate with the oligarchy to prolong their rule and delayed democratization reforms. Yet, all in all, Turkey after eight years or so of AK Party rule is a more democratic place compared to previous periods. Last but not the least, Turkish people can always get rid of the party in elections that we hold every four years, but we have not managed to get rid of the Kemalist oligarchy for decades. Democratic Turks need the help of democrats worldwide now more than ever as these are difficult times of psychological warfare. They should speak up before it is too late.

Published on Today's Zaman, 13 May 2011, Friday