Those who have difficulty to understand what has been happening in Turkey should read these columns by Birand: “Yes, we did have pro-coup-thoughts in our genes”; “Why did we lend support to the coups?”; and “Why we have supported the coups?”.
These are mind-refreshing historic confessions for those who are unable to understand why some military officers, academics and journalists are being held in custody in connection with the first coup investigation called Ergenekon.
It will be good to take a look at Birand's column in order to understand why our media, which is supposed to side with democracy against juntas, ignored this case for a long time and preferred to sabotage the case by exaggerating some minor flaws in regards to the procedure as well as undermining the performers in the case rather than dealing with the core of the issue.
In his column, “Why we have supported the coups?” Birand writes: “Since the formation of the republic, we have always adopted this tough stance against these two traditional enemies. We engineered our own system. While forming our own system, we never accepted that this country did not belong to us only and that we need to share it with the religious segment and the Kurds. We did not even give it a thought. We jailed those who did. We did not share the political system of the Republic nor the economic cake dominated by the secular segment. We have always said, “Only for us.” Under such pressure, both of the two enemies became radical. They formed separate fronts and started asking for a fair share of the political-economic cake. In each case, we immediate consented to the military. In the name of democracy, we fine-tuned with coups.”
Below are a few lines from his column, “Yes, we did have pro-coup thoughts in our genes.”
“For us, members of the secular central media, the General Staff was more important than democracy or parliament. And this was quite normal. This was the way we were raised. Maybe we were unaware that pro-coup thoughts had penetrated our genes. We unquestionably accepted the superiority of commanders. We used to at the same time admire and fear the shimmer of uniforms. We used to appreciate and support all coups.”
In fact, a number of other figures have been criticizing this flawed outlook by the media that Birand is referring to. Alper Görmüş, who played a key role in the initiation of the Ergenekon investigation by the coup journals he published in Nokta Newsweekly and criticized the media, is one of these names. It should be noted that his book “Ergenekon Journalism in Big Media” was what convinced Birand to make these confessions.
According to Görmüş, who gave details on what happened to him to foreign correspondents from El Pais, Reuters and the BBC in İstanbul, Birand's confessions actually confirm his statements and arguments on the media.
Görmüş holds that, unlike what a democracy should have, the central media considers itself part of the state apparatus rather than a part of society and this has gotten into its genes. Görmüş, despite his distance to religion, criticizes a broad list of names from different backgrounds including the military, judiciary, leftists, Western media, government and conservative segments of society.
All these deserve separate attention and deliberation. However, as noted in a recent statement to Today's Zaman by Nilüfer Göle, Görmüş's deliberations and conclusions on how the Western media reads Turkey because of a growing number of publications against the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which has played a key role in Turkey's transformation into a pluralist country, and the Gülen Movement that has lent civilian support to this process, are fairly important. The murders of missionaries, the Hrant Dink assassination, coup attempts and other issues that European states are normally supposed to pay attention to are covered by the Ergenekon case. Görmüş holds that despite this, the West is reluctant to support the process.
Görmüş also adds that this is because of the European media's stereotypes of Turkey: “I clearly remember how the Western media covered the murder of the missionaries in 2000s, the Dink assassination and the problems in regards to minorities. The Western cliché suggests that there is a pro-Islamic government in Turkey and secular circles intimidated by Shariah. If you fail to ignore the nuances, you will suppose that Turkey's Islamists attack the Christian minority. However, the case is just the opposite. Secular nationalism, not Islam, is the source of murders. This incorrect perception is reinforced because Western media has frequent contact with secular circles in Turkey. However, Turkey is a country that cannot be properly understood in reliance on clichés.”
Is it surprising that genuine democracy has not arrived in Turkey yet considering that the approach of both national and international media is so flawed?
Published on Today's Zaman, 03 June 2011, Friday
