Where are we heading?

It’s difficult to answer the questions, even if the foreigners are colleagues. Turks are asking each other the same question; many indeed have an answer in their minds but no one dares give an answer.

Where is Turkey heading? Why is there such a thick cloud of uncertainty over the country? Why are people who were never ever involved in politics, who never ever defended a political idea so scared about what might happen tomorrow?

Similarly, how did it happen that millions of Turks are so frightened that they have started answering their ringing telephones as if someone will send a bullet through the telephone line? Why have people developed the paranoia that something like Big Brother in George Orwell’s famous "1984" novel might be listening whatever they say, watching whatever they do?

Everyone must have confidence in justice, but how does it happen that the main opposition leader of the country is declaring from Parliament’s rostrum that the country is faced with a coup through the judges and prosecutors of the country? As is said, if meat is rotten, you put salt on the meat. But, what are you going to do if the salt is rotten? How can’t Turks or the main opposition party of Turkey have confidence in justice? Is Turkey not a democratic republic adhering to the supremacy of law? But was it not the chief prosecutor of the Court of Appeals who complained recently that judiciary is not independent enough in Turkey? How was that possible if Turkey adheres to the supremacy of law and the principle of equality of all in front of law? Or, is this country is something like Orwell’s "Animal Farm," where all animals are equal but some are more equal than others?


Humiliating Turkey
Where on earth might any judiciary and security forces have the skill to capture tens of geriatrics, several dozen obsolete or discarded hand grenades, some launchers without ammunition, a few rifles, some bullets and boast that a coup was prevented? And in which democracy on earth it is possible to see a propaganda machine indoctrinating the public that there was indeed a gang Ğ a serious threat to democracy, a coup attempt but it was foiled Ğ while at the same time the leader of the last coup was feted in full honors at the presidential palace by the president of the country? Or how can we reconcile summary execution of people detained, and often yet not officially charged by a prosecutor, on the front pages of newspapers with the notion that no one is guilty until sentenced by a court, or put that principle aside, with the notion of justice itself? And, my European colleagues are joking: "Do you think Turkey will become a sultanate or a banana republic in five years’ time?"

Humiliating, is it not? Do we deserve such humiliation?

Still, many people in this country maintain their confidence that these difficult days will come to an end with a victory of the supremacy of justice, universal norms of democracy and, of course, a secular and democratic republic. Even if the humble residence of a 74-year-old lady professor who devoted her life to the education of girls, even if a professor who not only pioneered tissue transplant in Turkey but established as well one of the leading universities of the country, could be detained because of their public criticism of the advance of political Islam in the country at the expense of free thought and a secular and democratic republic, the awareness that there are quite many other intellectuals in this country willing to devote themselves to the fight under all conditions for the preservation of the secular and democratic republic that the founding father Mustafa Kemal Atatürk declared as his greatest achievement, there is no need to have worries or to be bothered with the "Where is Turkey heading" and such humiliating questions. These are difficult times. No problem can last forever. Sooner or later these waves will subside, calm will be restored, and sun will shine once again on the modern Turkish republic.