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Inside The Ergenekon Case

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  • Inside The Ergenekon Case

    INSIDE THE ERGENEKON CASE
    By Ece Temelkuran

    A CounterPunch
    December 4, 2008

    Turkey's Sinister Blend of Watergate and the Dreyfus Affair

    Turkey is facing a new round in her relationship with
    democracy. Opponents of the Islamic governing party, known as the AK
    for the initials of its Turkish name, are being accused being members
    of a secret state gang called Ergenekon. The trials in this case,
    which are expected to last for years, began last month. The sinister
    undertow portends the likelihood that Turkey is about to experience
    its own version of a 'colored revolution'.

    A few weeks ago in Diyarbak?r, in the Kurdish region of Turkey,
    a prominent Kurdish intellectual said: 'Maybe I should appear as a
    commentator on the Ergenekon case'. Putting on a sour, hesitant face
    she carried on: 'Since my husband's assassin is still unknown I can
    be counted as a victim of deep state like many other Kurdish and
    Turkish leftists.' The group of well-known intellectuals from both
    ethnicities gathered round the table were silent; nobody knew how
    to respond. Those who had for years been vocal about any political
    issue were now, like many of their peers, speechless.

    That is why one should be warned about the Ergenekon case. Since the
    Ergenekon case represents the advanced level of classical Turkish
    chaos, this is not a good time to start learning about Turkey unless
    yo u are experienced in this 'lonely and beloved country'. Of course,
    it makes the story easier if you are promoting a certain political
    engagement such as Kemalism or political Islam, but if you want to
    maintain a leftist stance on the Ergenekon case, there starts the
    hesitation, silence and confusion. And unfortunately this messy,
    pervasive state of mind has arisen at one of the most important
    cross-roads of not only Turkish political history but also the
    Middle East.

    Ergenekon is the name of a legendary valley in Turkish
    mythology. According to the legend, the valley in Central Asia was
    home to the ancient Turks, until a grey wolf led them out onto the
    road to the eventual nationhood.

    Since last January this piece of mythology has become extremely vital
    for Turkey. Ergenekon is now the name of an alleged ultra-nationalist,
    ultra-Kemalist gang, which has been operating since 1999 as a part
    of the 'deep state'. Their alleged aim is to organize coups against
    the AKP government. Like coups, the term 'deep state' has been and
    still is a very popular term in Turkish, used to describe renegade
    members of the security and military forces said to act outside the
    law in what they judge to be Turkey's best interests. The term has
    a very long history, which goes back to the Ottoman period, but the
    contemporary version generally begins with the Cold War era. Under the
    name of 'counter-guerrilla', it was formed to combat the rising leftist
    movement and later on the Kurdish uprising in South Eastern Turkey. The
    secret entity represents illegal state violence, but also drug dealing
    and all kinds of smuggling, first in the Kurdish region then in whole
    country. The growing illegal, invisible and untouchable body has been
    the source of state terror against Kurdish and Turkish politicians,
    intellectuals, trade unions, leftist student organizations.

    Although the whole country became aware of the concept, especially
    during the coup years in the 1980s, the deep state was revealed
    beyond any doubt in 1996 when a car accident happened in Susurluk,
    a town in the Marmara region.

    In the car were a senior police chief, a prominent right-wing
    politician and a wanted assassin who was especially famous for killing
    or ordering the killings of Kurdish leaders and intellectuals. Although
    the accident revealed the relations between government and assassins,
    the case opened against the 'Susurluk gang' was obscured and blocked
    by the concept of 'state secrets'. Soon after the interrogations
    began, Mehmet Aar, then minister of the interior, was linked to
    the case because of his alleged relations with mafia bosses and
    ultra-nationalist organizations. His defense was built on the
    concept of 'state secret', which was powerful enough to legitimize
    any illegal act. The accusations were paralyse d with the help of
    the term and the case never progressed. But the Turkish left, that
    has been politically dispersed since 1980, for the first time came
    together en masse to protest. The name of the civilian action was
    'Darkness for 1 minute'. We switched our lights on and off for 1
    minute at 9 o'clock every night. It was an easy and legally costless
    action, so as a result the mass got bigger and even included those
    who live in the apartments of the National Intelligence Service. For
    a couple of months people blew whistles, called the residents of their
    districts for action and chanted 'One minute darkness for daylight!',
    a reference to the idea of bringing the criminals into daylight. It
    never happened. The case followed a spiral-like route and every time
    the prosecutions ended up with either the sacred term of 'state secret'
    or the immunity of the MPs. The only positive outcome of the case was
    that society was mobilized more than it ever had been since the coup.

    Among the sulking faces were the Islamists. The Felicity Party
    did not admire the mobilization at all. The leader of the party,
    Necmettin Erbakan, created a sarcastic metaphor for the activists and
    the action. He said 'They are doing glu glu dance' which practically
    meant nothing but he was referring to the African tribes and their
    native dance. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then Mayor of Istanbul, w as one of
    the leading figures in the Felicity Party. As far as the Turkish media
    knows he was silent about the deep state and the Susurluk gang. There
    was another silent name, Mumtazer Turköne. He was the consultant
    of Prime Minister Tansu Ciller, during the Susurluk case. His fame
    comes from making her say 'The one who shoots or is shot by a bullet
    for this country is a hero' about the Susurluk case. This motto was
    created not only to defend the Susurluk gang members and eventually the
    counter-guerrilla but also to exacerbate the racist, ultra-nationalist
    attack on Kurdish society. This name and this little story does not
    mean anything to you at the moment but just keep him in mind for a
    couple of paragraphs. At some point this name and the political route
    that it followed will show how the political compass of Turkey broke
    down during recent years. This name also will function as a beacon
    to find our way through the mess of the Ergenekon case.

    Turkey couldn't judge the Susurluk gang but public opinion was
    convinced there were links between the mafia, ultra-nationalist
    organizations and the state. Radikal, then a very new, leftist
    newspaper made its debut publishing striking stories about
    Susurluk. They now and then gave two-page spreads to maps showing the
    links between illegal organizations and political figures dating back
    to the coup years. But even this committed newsp aper lost track when
    things got so complicated that no map was sufficient to show all the
    links. The complexity of the issue created a pollution of information,
    and gradually those following the case gave up. The Susurluk case left
    behind '1 Minute darkness' activists who eventually became a loose
    civil action group which, among many other oppositional actions,
    organized the anti-war campaign that stopped Turkey joining the
    invasion of Iraq.

    The 'oppressed' becomes the 'oppressor'

    To cut a long story short, in 2001 after the Virtue Party, descendant
    of the Felicity Party, was closed down because of its anti-secular
    actions, the young, dynamic politicians in the party started a
    new movement and soon they established a new party, the AKP. Their
    leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan was held as a political prisoner for
    reading a poem which runs: 'Minarets are our spears, mosques are our
    helmets'. He was a young, fledgling leader when he was imprisoned
    but when he stepped out his prime ministry was almost guaranteed
    along with his image of being an 'oppressed political leader', an
    image still in use even in his second term in office. He was the
    handsome face of moderate Islam, an oppressed soul and, as an owner
    of fast-growing companies, a capitalist. These virtues made him the
    tailor-made leader for new neo-liberal party with conservative topping.

    On coming to p ower the AKP began one of the most important eras
    of Turkish political history. Their civil discourse was pleasing to
    liberal intellectual circles.

    The party fitted in with the Greater Middle East Project long
    envisioned by the White House. The big corporate fat cats were
    quite happy with this business-oriented government. The supposedly
    long-oppressed conservative Islamists were looking to the future
    with hope. Fetullah Gulen's community, the widest religion-based
    economic and political network in Turkey, constituted just after
    the coup in 1980, supported the new government. Seeing the support
    of liberal intellectuals and up to a certain degree leftists, the
    European Union was reassured about the party. Since the party was
    talking about pluralism and the 'Kurdish question' openly, Kurdish
    politicians were fine with the AKP as well. For a while, an absolute
    and uniformly annoying 'stanno tutti bene' situation was in place.

    >From the beginning of their first term the AKP, starting from their
    leader to the lowest-ranking party member, created and shared a
    mythology of being oppressed. The history of 'oppressed Muslims' goes
    back to the establishment of the republic. In the common description,
    the Kemalist elite, centering power in a secular, unitary state,
    oppressed the Muslim community. Sociologists defined the AKP government
    as 'the margins' taking over the 'centre' or the trium ph of the
    'tradition' against the 'modernist state'. Since the intellectual
    staff of the political movement wasn't capable of theorizing and to
    a certain degree polishing the reign of the AKP, the party gathered
    an intellectual support group consisting of former leftists who have
    converted to neo-liberalism. The group legitimized the Islamist AKP
    basically by saying that the long wait of the oppressed people of
    Turkey is over, as they are now taking the country from the old guard
    of the Kemalist elite. The AKP leaders, members and supporters were
    represented as the 'light bulbs' of freedom and 'real democracy'. The
    same liberal intellectual circles also all but became the guarantors
    of democracy and the regime, especially for the European Union.

    On the other hand, for ordinary people these complicated democracy
    theory lessons were not suitable. Another strategy was used for that
    level. A variety of rumours was spread around. 'Before Ataturk we read
    and understood the Quran but his legacy made us less Muslim', 'Before
    the AKP nobody thought of poverty, but now its civil extensions,
    the charities, are pouring money on the poor', 'Our girls will go to
    universities with their headscarves'. . . And there were more.

    Anatolians never thought about the meaning of the Quran, the AKP has
    been charged by German courts with committing fraud over i nternational
    Islamic charity organizations, and the girls never made it to the
    universities. But the rumours fulfilled their duty and among the
    public the moral triumph belonged to the AKP.

    Each and every time the party was going through a crisis of
    public trust, there came an incident of 'oppression of Islam and
    democracy'. While these two concepts stuck to each other in a very
    dangerous way, the tension between the party and the army was the
    issue causing the most agitation. A mythology was created: the grass
    roots of the AKP were resisting the military, civil bureaucracy
    and the elite that together have long been exploiting the religious
    beliefs of the country. The masses who are intimidated by the AKP's
    rise and the possibility of the second man of the party, Abdullah Gul,
    becoming president went onto the streets for 'flag demonstrations'. The
    demonstrations were against anti-secularism first, but soon turned
    into ultra-nationalist meetings.

    Shortly after these famous meetings came the elections, and the AKP
    won a second term after getting 47 per cent of the votes. The Prime
    Minister said in his victory speech that 'the ones who didn't vote
    for them are the colours of this country'. It was obvious that for the
    prime minister the ones who didn't support him were only the garnish
    of the country, and the AKP would be served as the only main course.

    =0 D In its second term the AKP was even more reckless. Not only the
    personal political style of the prime minister became more ruthless,
    but also financially the party became more fearless. The alleged
    corruptions of the AKP mayors and the cabinet were growing. But
    then came the great rescuer of the AKP -- the case for the party's
    closure. It was vital PR for the party and it did its job. Since it
    is anti-democratic to close down a party, even the most committed
    critics of the party wrote and spoke out against the closure. Plus,
    in the political and intellectual arena it was now an ideological
    sin to criticize the AKP. An atmosphere was created in which every
    criticism of the AKP made you seem like those who are trying to block
    the democratic process by means of the closure case. The AKP was once
    again the 'great oppressed' in spite of its long list of human rights
    violations, fierce neo-liberal policies and anti-secular moves at
    every administrative level. It was now once again a sin to 'oppress'
    the oppressor.

    A political tool or the end of deep state: Ergenekon

    It all started in last January when a large cache of hand grenades
    was found in a district on the margins of Istanbul. Soon these
    hand grenades were linked with the attack against Cumhuriyet, the
    secularist, Kemalist newspaper and gradually to the attack against
    the Council of State. These attacks were=2 0carried out by a group of
    people who described themselves as 'very religious'. The reason for
    their attacks was that the newspaper was against the headscarf and the
    State of Council delivered a verdict against the lifting of the ban
    on headscarves in government buildings. The grenades were also linked
    to retired generals who became committed defenders of secularism and
    Kemalism in their civilian life by founding associations.

    These associations became even more famous through their involvement
    in the flag demonstrations. So the main idea was that there was a gang
    making provocations against the symbols of Kemalist state, actually
    in order to agitate people against the government. A 2,500-page
    indictment was handed to the court on July 14, 2008. 86 people,
    editors of newspapers, retired generals, political party leaders,
    directors of TV channels were accused during the Susurluk Case. Most
    of these people were known as 'nationalists' who still religiously
    believed in the secular nation-state and saw the AKP as a major danger
    to a unitary, secular Turkey.

    Some of them were famous paramilitary figures who have long been
    wanted for questioning.

    The name of the case, Ergenekon, came from a document found in a
    former TV host's home. TV host Tuncay Guney once made programs for an
    Islamic TV channel and at the moment he is a rabbi in Canada. Now and
    then we see him saying obscure things live on air from Canada. The
    alleged gang's name was written on a piece of paper at his place,
    according to the indictment.

    The timing of Ergenekon overlapped with the case for closing down
    the AKP. A considerable number of people came up with the argument
    that this case was a political tool against the nationalist-Kemalist
    camp--an eye-for-an-eye kind of move. The way the suspects were
    prosecuted exacerbated this argument. Although his latest works were
    calling ultra-nationalists to action, the well-known leading columnist
    of Cumhuriyet Ilhan Selcuk was for years a highly praised and respected
    leftist columnist. Selcuk, 84, was taken from his home at 4 o'clock
    in the morning as the alleged leader of the gang. Mustafa Balbay, the
    representative of the same newspaper in Ankara, was also taken into
    custody as though he was a fugitive. The arrests were like a 'lesson'
    to those who take an oppositional stand against the government. On
    the other hand, among the names there were suspects of political
    assassinations. So it was not easy to categorize the case purely as an
    attack on opponents of the government. Once you talked about the case
    negatively it was guaranteed that your name would appear in pro-AKP
    newspapers as an 'Ergenekon-lover', 'coup-wanter', 'military-toy-boy'.

    The newspaper, which was confiscated by the State and then sold
    extremely cheaply to=2 0a group whose CEO is the prime minister's
    son-in-law, has been and still is the most enthusiastic celebrator
    of the case. Among many TV channels, radio stations and newspapers
    Yeniafak, shamelessly close to the government, and Zaman which is
    a trademark of Fetullah followers, represented the case as an iron
    fist against those who want a coup in Turkey. The new newspaper,
    Taraf ,was the most vocal one about the case. Its columnists were
    former leftists who have now become liberals. One of its editors is
    famous for articles supporting the attack on Afghanistan and the
    Iraq invasion. She was shown as the 'voice of the White House in
    Turkey'. The financial sources of the paper are still being discussed.

    Among many arguments the most interesting one is that followers of
    Fetullah Gulen finance the paper.

    With the zeal of converts, all the 'retired leftist' columnists
    baptised the AKP as the most courageous government of all, and the
    Ergenekon case as the end to all our problems of democracy. Through the
    media the case became a witch-hunt. Anything that hinders the AKP's
    program was probably linked to Ergenekon gang. I remember the fierce
    oppression that the unions went through on Mayday in Istanbul. One day
    prior to the demonstrations the prime minister was sharp in his words,
    saying that there would be no holds barred against those who wanted to
    demonstrate in Taksim, the centre of Istanbul. 'It would be a disaster
    if the feet became the head', he said. It was a symbolic act for the
    workers to show that they don't recognize the limits of the 1980 coup
    that banned them from the city centre on Maydays. But what happened
    was that the police even dropped a bomb in the emergency department
    of a hospital, where demonstrators were trying to hide from the tear
    gas spreading almost across the whole European side of the city. The
    following day, press releases and pro-AKP intellectuals were commenting
    on probable links between trade unions and the Ergenekon gang.

    Yet another interesting detail was that in those mainstream American
    newspapers which are more than eager to put Turkey on their front
    page when it comes to lifting of the headscarf ban or any other
    moderate Islam issue, there was not even one sentence about the
    Mayday violence which turned Istanbul into an invaded city. Instead,
    national and international media quoted the prime minister saying that
    'I am the prosecutor of Ergenekon case'. This exciting tone made some
    of the analysts think that the case was not intended to do away with
    the deep state, but to take it over from the established forces. Long
    before this, it had been reported that the police forces had gradually
    started to become Fetullah followers. But now it was time for a final
    move to take over the deep state from secular, nation-state de fenders.

    Another argument was that the army and the AKP made a secret agreement
    just before the Ergenekon case when the prime minister and the chief
    general met in Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, and never revealed
    what they talked about. According to some sources, it is a 'cleaning
    operation' for the army and the deep state or a 'recreation project'
    for both the AKP and the deep state.

    'A piece of paper': Questions are forbidden!

    As the prosecutions for the case carried on, even the best analysts
    became mute. First of all the 2,500-page indictment was full of
    recordings of personal telephone calls that have nothing to do with
    the case. All these recordings were leaked to the press long before
    the case officially opened.

    For instance, among these recordings were Ilhan Selcuk's conversations
    about Fashion TV or gossip about his colleagues. It was as if the aim
    was to degrade the dignity of symbolic figures in the Kemalist camp,
    rather than prosecuting them. Those taken by the police were freed
    within a couple of days, but the news about their personal telephone
    conversations kept appearing in pro-AKP newspapers and web-sites--to
    the extent that erotic exchanges between a woman columnist and a party
    leader, or their comments on an episode of 'Sex and The City', were
    read widely. The telephone recordings have become the most important
    issue on co untry's agenda. Recordings of prominent figures in the
    Kemalist elite were put on YouTube or other web-sites. Each and
    every time we heard recordings of a Republican Party (CHP) member,
    a Supreme Court judge or a university dean criticizing the AKP or
    making a joke about the prophet.

    Prominent figures in society one by one told the press that they
    are oppressed by recording-phobia. Their main concern was that these
    recordings were done by the secret police in support of the AKP. When
    the press asked questions about the issue the Minister of Transport
    commented: 'If you don't commit any crimes, why should you worry
    about anyone listening to your telephone calls!' And somehow this
    whole issue became a joke thanks to Turkey's very special habit and
    talent of normalizing anything. Soon we all were joking about the
    ticky tacky sounds we hear during our telephone calls. This outrageous
    revelation was overshadowed by the celebrities taken into custody as
    part of the Ergenekon case.

    Even though there was a serious part of the Ergenekon indictment,
    the not-so-serious, red-carpet part was much more visible for
    sure. A gay singer famous for his 'snake-dance', a very respected
    middle aged actor and a list of celebrities are counted as alleged
    torturers or gang members of the Ergenekon gang. Their names were on
    a piece of paper in one of the retired generals' home like many other
    e vidences that the indictment stands on. But you should be careful
    when saying such things. Since there was a witch-hunt, including the
    trustworthiness of the evidence nothing could be questioned about
    the Ergenekon case. During this ongoing witch-hunt, it is not enough
    to stop criticizing the AKP in fear of being counted as Ergenekon
    defender. You should not ask questions about the Ergenekon case
    either. Questions such as:

    If this case is intended to question the deep state or at least a
    part of this illegal entity, how come the indictment has no relation
    to the Kurdish issue? Since the deep state committed its recent crimes
    against Kurdish politicians, businessmen and intellectuals, there must
    have been something about them in the indictment. So, where are they?

    If this case is against the deep state that organizes coups and if
    the government is so eager to judge coup attempts, why don't they
    start with the visible one done in 1980 rather than running after
    invisible ones?

    If the government is so against anti-democratic interventions and
    eager to judge the generals who have such intentions, why didn't they
    change the 15th amendment of the constitution that gives judicial
    immunity to the 1980s coup generals?

    These are just a couple of examples of possible sinful questions
    about the indictment.

    The indictment was initially supposed to shed light on every political
    assassination committed in Turke y starting from Musa Anter, a
    larger-than-life Kurdish writer; Ugur Mumcu, a journalist who was
    killed with a car-bomb for finding alleged links between the deep
    state and the Kurdish separatist movement; Hrant Dink, the Armenian
    journalist who wrote and spoke in favour of recognition of the Armenian
    community in Turkey, and was killed by an ultra-nationalist teenager
    linked to the police forces. This promising indictment gradually became
    more and more circus-like with the addition of new prosecutions. This
    circus-like trend overlapped with the Supreme Court's decision about
    the case against the AKP, which was in favor of the party. Some argued
    that after the party guaranteed that it wasn't going to be closed,
    the Ergenekon case lost its importance for the government.

    One of the latest prosecutions is against a famous transvestite,
    Sisi, who happened to be doing a documentary called 'The Women of the
    Republic', probably a Kemalist product representing the role models of
    Kemalism in country's early period. The other prosecution is against
    the well-known actress Nurseli Idiz, whose latest work involved
    her disguising herself as Kemal Ataturk. The media follow-up of the
    prosecutions was even more awkward then the people themselves. The
    liberal columnists who are over-rating the case, especially the
    female ones, made fun of these two, commenting on how they looked,
    what they wore, how they loved to be ta ken by the police etc. The
    following week, Sisi was a guest on the TV show of the most famous pop
    star in Turkey, and Idiz was seen on a daytime women's show. Both of
    them talked about the psychological torture that they went through,
    and the only democratic support they got was the 'Oh my god's that
    they received from the TV audience. While Sisi was talking about
    psychological torture, she said it was up to European standards--and
    she was not being ironic at all.

    Most of the people taken into police custody were not accused of
    anything, and were only made to wait for at least three days at
    the police office to be questioned about the alleged gang. But you
    cannot ask if it was necessary to take people into custody to ask
    a couple of questions. The reason is not only the witch-hunt that
    might then catch up with you; there are also serious names among the
    accused. For instance, the police chief who started the operation
    against the alleged Ergenekon gang in the first place. The reason
    for his prosecution was that they found a piece of paper in his home
    showing links between Ergenekon members. His defence was that it was
    normal and that he was the one working on the case. Such contradictory,
    almost silly details of the indictment make it very difficult to
    believe that it is as serious as the deep state itself. And one might
    think that as a threatened writer in Turkey, since I am one of the
    potential targets of such a gang, I have every right to question the
    seriousness of such a case. But no, you cannot.

    Little boxes of mind games!

    Now it is time to remember that name: Mumtazer Turköne. Normally he
    would be a normal character in the story of a Third World country where
    a man makes his inadequate young wife an MP in the governing party and
    himself a columnist in the pro-government media. But no, the story of
    this name tells a lot about the recent history of my country. In the
    70s Turköne was a young academic, known as the up-and-coming ideologue
    of the ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves. The Grey Wolves were used by
    the paramilitary forces against leftist students and often armed
    to kill them. In 80s he was accused of extremist ultra-nationalist
    actions and demands were made for him to be sentenced to 15 years'
    imprisonment. During the 1990s he was the right hand of Prime Minister
    Tansu Ciller, who exacerbated the ultra-nationalist wave created by the
    civil war between Kurdish separatists and the Turkish army. Turköne
    is famous for making Tansu Ciller say: 'The one who shoots a bullet
    or is shot by a bullet for this country is a hero.'

    This motto was created just after the Susurluk accident and was used to
    legitimize the deep state and members of gangs applying illegal state
    violence. During the 90s, at some point, this man for all seasons
    must have seen the trend and understood that it was time to change
    trains. At the moment he is a columnist for Zaman, the newspaper
    founded and directed by Fetullah followers. His former student, now
    wife, Ozlem Turköne, is the youngest AKP MP in the parliament. As one
    of the most hardworking and devoted ideologues of the AKP and moderate
    Islam, Turköne now never mentions his old days when he was very, very
    close to the deep state. Now he is one the 'democrat intellectuals'
    with other neo-liberal writers, most of them converted from Maoism or
    other sects of the former left. As right-wing intellectuals they are
    hoisting the standard of being democrats, and as Islamic conservatives
    they are defending the Ergenekon case against people like me.

    Me?

    A friend from the socialist left stopped me on the street the other
    day. His voice was anxious: "You know what, maybe you should not
    write about Ergenekon for a while". He paused and sulked: "I think the
    way you do on this issue but you know... They made two little boxes:
    a Kemalist box and a liberal one. Even if you don't fit to either of
    the boxes they break your arms or legs and make you fit one of them
    at the end. They don't open a third box for you. This is a dangerous
    political climate and we are all going to be wasted in the end".

    He is right. If you ask questions about the indictment, or even if you
    express your concern about the seriousness of the case, there you go
    into the Kemalist box. If you clap your hands whenever you hear the
    name of the Ergenekon case, then you can be considered a democrat and
    can inhabit the same box as those I mentioned above. In that box the
    concept of democracy is reduced to freedom of faith, and its links
    to social justice or equality have been cut mercilessly. That is why
    in Turkey at the moment, if you are coming from the left, in order
    to be recognized as 'not a fascist' you are obliged to bow your head
    before right-wing perceptions of democracy.

    Even though it was the left that has been the ultimate victim of the
    deep state, they are for the time being the ones accused of being
    the deep state itself. This discourse or political climate has such a
    strong character that even the most intelligent and experienced spin
    doctors on the left have been stammering since last January about
    the Ergenekon case. Meanwhile the right-wing democrats, the liberals,
    are making noise saying that this time the gang was caught before it
    managed to carry out the coup. Thank god, the AKP government at the
    last minute busted them in the very act!

    This reduction of politics to barren dualities didn't actually start
    with the Ergenekon case; on the contrary, it had already been creating
    an in tellectual industry with interesting products since the political
    polarization deepened with the start of the AKP's second term. On
    almost every news channel there are talk-shows featuring a pro-AKP
    liberal democrat and an anti-AKP democrat. Since their controversies
    are the product on sale, these programs are visually exaggerated as
    well. In one of them, before the show begins they show two tigers
    attacking each other and in another program one, side has a black, the
    other a white background. The AKP, beyond its other achievements, gave
    Turkey this amazing present: intellectual and political discussions
    are now made in little boxes between black-and-white tigers!

    The unwanted intervener: the Left!

    This barren intellectual climate is dominated by those figures who very
    much resemble their peers in Georgia, Ukraine and Yugoslavia. Like
    those colour revolutions, stamped with the words 'made in USA', the
    chosen political leader is praised by the New World Order's Wizard
    of Oz, Richard Holbrooke. Like Saakashvili of Georgia, Prime Minister
    Erdogan is a good friend of Holbrooke, and like the Orange Revolution
    of Ukraine, the ideological transformation of the intelligentsia
    towards liberalism is directed by US-approved, freedom-fighter
    NGOs. Those who don't want to be ridden by this wave are classed
    as counter-revolutionaries or just Kemalists, which basically means
    fascist. Even if you have proven your ideological trustwor thiness
    before history, for instance by being tortured or executed by the coup,
    you still might not be saved from being counted as a coup-lover.

    Taraf, the very young newspaper set up just before the Ergenekon case,
    and which became a committed supporter of the case, made its debut by
    branding three very young revolutionaries--Deniz Gezmis, Yusuf Aslan
    and Huseyin Inan, executed in 1972 by an earlier coup--as xenophobic
    and Kemalist.

    The last words of these 20-something people were 'Long live the
    brotherhood of Kurdish and Turkish peoples!', but it was passé to
    defend victims of the former coups. Now it was this new coup that
    we were supposed to concentrate on! The newspaper not only attacked
    respected and beloved figures of the left, but also tried to make
    the whole leftist tradition worthless in a blink of an eye.

    >From what I have read about colour-coded revolutions, this is what
    you go through when they decide to make one in your country. Lots of
    ideological confusion is spread, the concept of democracy is reduced
    to oranges or tulips, and when you try to defend some basic values
    like equality or secularism, you become a scapegoat if not a fascist
    guardian of the old regime. The difference is that this time the
    so-called revolution is taking place not in Europe but in the Middle
    East, and for the Middle East. When the revolution is completed
    probably the old guards of the Kemalist regime and the Cold War
    generals left over from the Cold War will be gone, but Turkey will
    also be a Middle Eastern country more than ever before. When that
    time arrives, the liberal intellectuals probably won't apologize for
    their 'misunderstandings' like their colour revolutionary buddies in
    other countries.

    These are the reasons why the left has felt hesitant to intervene in
    the case as the natural victim of the deep state. Finally Ufuk Uras,
    an independent MP of the socialist left, demanded in parliament
    the establishment of a research commission on the coups and coup
    attempts. His demand is supported by the DTP, a Kurdish party. 'Let
    the coups be judged and the attempted coups be revealed initiative',
    of which I am part, began in the third week of September.

    For the sake of legitimacy, they invited a couple of liberal
    intellectuals and even AKP supporters for the initiative's opening
    press conference.

    And Uras made a declaration, saying that although he sought support
    among AKP members, none of them signed the demand for research
    commission. The left is trying to appear as an intervener in the
    Ergenekon case--albeit with hesitant baby steps. Although they are
    the ones who must be the most vocal, because of the long story told
    above, they just murmur at the moment.

    Because they know, like my friend in Diyarbak?r, that their sacrifices
    are not enough to secure an intervening position in this case. To be
    right, you must be a liberal.

    Me? I am just reading more and more about colour revolutions, which
    make me feel less lonely.

    Ece Temelkuran is the most-read female political columnist in Turkey,
    writing regularly for Milliyet, with a well deserved reputation for
    fearlessness and verve. She also hosts a widely view political show in
    Turkish tv. Her latest book, The Deep Mountain, based on interviews
    with Armenians in Armenia, France and the U.S. and published in
    Istanbul in May 2008, is currently being translated into English. She
    has published widely and won numerous awards for her work, including
    the Pen for Peace Award, and Turkish Journalist of the Year. She
    is the author of several books, including, "What Is There For Me To
    Say!" on the hunger strikes by political prisoners in Turkey, and "We
    are Making A Revolution Here Senorita!" on the politics and every-day
    life in Chavez's Venezuela. She can be reached at [email protected]

    --Boundary_(ID_RtZ3VVUMSA6M/8S xLaCg9w)--
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