Crime is OK, Evidence is Not!

Editor-in-Chief Can Dündar is facing two life imprisonments. Photo via Flickr user: abacus.

Elections, arms dealing, and unexpected outcomes: Tarık Günersel rounds up a tumultuous month’s worth of news from Turkey.

Kill the Messenger

Did you seethe recent movie about the CIA intervention in Nicaragua, which allowed drugs into the US and sent arms to the Contras? A similar plot might be unfolding in Turkey.

“Erdoğan’s team” sending arms to ISIS

There are photos showing that Erdoğan’s government has been secretly and illegally sending arms to ISIS.

The daily newspaper Cumhuriyet (Republic) has recently published photos of MIT trucks carrying weapons to Syria, leading to Erdoğan’s rage. He has threatened its editor in chief, Can Dündar, and demanded two life sentences, plus 42 years. The Turkish Journalists Association has praised Cumhuriyet and Dündar for their courage on various issues.

The publication of those photos is now prohibited in Turkey. Sending arms illegally is a crime, isn’t it? Shouldn’t evidence be a good cause for gratitude? Not under Erdoğan’s rule, the foundations of which are trembling.

What a relief…

… it is not to see President Erdoğan on TV! His aggressive hate speeches came to a halt after his defeat in the parliamentary elections on June 7, 2015. His oppressive, religious sectarian Justice and Development Party (AKP) government lost its majority.

I think this is not the end of the 13-year-period of the ruling AKP, but of the 35-year-period that began with the military coup d’etat in 1980.

The leftist movements and the Kurdish reality were harshly suppressed, partly contributing to the development of Abdullah Öcalan’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a guerrilla organization that freely made use of terror against civilians, including Kurdish intellectuals with different ideas. The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a coalition of socialists and some of the Kurdish nationalists, is related to the PKK.

Doğu Perinçek’s Patriotic Party (Vatan Partisi) is critical of the support of some leftists to the HDP, arguing that the separatists are now in Parliament.

Diyarbakır-based Kurdish nationalist Ibrahim Güçlü has a different view. A Kurdish nationalist who has been critical of the PKK for “betraying” the ideal of an independent Kurdistan, he said that “the Kemalist Turkish State” has managed to divert the energy of the HDP to becoming a party of Turkey.

Now what?

The AKP’s criminal record makes it hard for opposition parties to form a coalition. The three opposition parties in Parliament now are the “social-democratic” Republican Peoples’ Party (CHP), which holds 25 percent of Parliament with 132 members (MP); the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which holds 17 percent with 80 MPs; and the HDP, with some left-wing support giving it 13 percent with 80 MPs.

The numbers might change in a few days. The HDP might have 83 MPs and the AKP might have 255.

HDP Co-President Ms. Figen Yüksekdağ has said, “Our door is open for a coalition to all parties,” but one of the leading members of the PKK, Duran Kalkan, was less sympathetic.

“HDP should refrain from a coalition unless the constitution changes. Otherwise, it will become a party of the status-quo,” he said.

Fall of Erdoğan?

Some of the columnists and judges who sided with Erdoğan’s ruling party have changed direction. Has Erdoğan given up his super-presidency goal? Does he want to resign as President and become the official leader of the AKP again, leading to an early election?

A new bestseller reveals some of the in-party conflicts. 12 Years with Abdullah Gül, a book by Ahmet Sever, the chief advisor to former President Abdullah Gül, seems to be an attempt to pave the way for Gül’s return to politics as the leader of AKP. Hürriyet’s columnist Ahmet Hakan has reacted to Gül’s potential return, emphasizing his uncritical support to of Erdoğan’s rule.

Erdoğan’s nasty style has made the late Süleyman Demirel, the ninth president of our republic, appear to be a democratic figure despite his occasional anti-democratic moves.

The “moderate Islam” strategy!

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the US wanted to build a “green (Islamic) belt” around the Soviet Union. The US favored Islamization in secular countries like Turkey. In his in/famous 1990s book The Clash of Civilizations, Huntington wrote that Turkey should get rid of Atatürk’s secularist legacy and accept an Islamic regime, forget about the EU and become part of the Middle East. The idea behind it was that a moderate Islamic state would collaborate with the US for the sake of oil and other geopolitical gains.

Newly elected President Obama refrained from using the term “moderate Islam,” which indicated to secularists in Turkey – like me – that the new US government would be more considerate. The dominant US strategists did great harm to secularism in Turkey by choosing and supporting Erdoğan.

If you push for “moderate Islam” in a relatively secular country like Turkey, what you get will be radical Islam. If there was a relatively acceptable kind of “moderate Islam” in Turkey it was mainly thanks to Atatürk, who was keen on secularism. The “de-Atatürkization” of Turkey has led to a despotic regime under Erdogan. The June parliamentary election was possibly the last chance to stop him. But the game is not over yet. A long struggle is needed.

As a young social scientist from Yemen said on her way to Holland: “Secularism is important. But most people in Yemen need to have a better idea about it.”

It would be great if a movie like Kill the Messenger could be made about Erdoğan’s government sending arms to ISIS, but we’ll have to see if the political conditions will allow such an attempt in the near future.