However, I can say that those who come down with it in Turkey cannot recover from it before they completely destroy their self-respect and esteem in the public eye. There are even examples of those who don’t have the will to say farewell to politics, though they are octogenarians and fell from grace long ago.For instance, let’s look at the political adventure of Bülent Ecevit, the hope of the 1970s. He returned to politics, from which he had been expelled in the coup of 1980. After remaining in the opposition for a long time, he first became the smaller partner of a coalition imposed by February 28, and then the prime minister of the minority government established afterward and then once again assumed the prime ministry of the tripartite coalition formed after the 1999 elections. However, this temporary success of Ecevit turned out to be the beginning of his political demise.
The duty he tried to fulfill, sometimes from his sickbed and always by dragging his feet, as the sick and old prime minister of an incompatible coalition led the country into the greatest economic crisis in the history of the Turkish Republic and caused innumerous cases of corruption, finally reducing him to the most abject senility from a legendary leadership of once upon a time. The votes he garnered in the elections held only three years after 1999, where he won, amounted to only 1 percent of the total, but still he couldn’t extricate himself from the disease of politics.
Süleyman Demirel, from Ecevit’s generation, is among those who have succumbed to the same disease. Even though he served as prime minister six times and once as president, who can claim that his eyes are still not riveted on politics? Despite his advancing age, he shows himself whenever the smallest crisis emerges to imply that he is ready to come back, and he makes efforts to come return politics by acting as a “senior brother” in new political formations. Who can doubt that his lust for politics will not continue until he dies?
Mesut Yılmaz, who is making painstaking efforts to be elected as an independent deputy from his hometown of Rize, is from the same “family.” After literally obliterating the Motherland Party (ANAVATAN, then ANAP), which he had taken over from late Turgut Özal at a level where it could arrive in power, he is now seething with the passion of entering Parliament again and becoming the leader of the center right through a movement he will initiate there. This politics disease must be a truly grave illness that tears the sufferers from reality and smothers them in a sea of illusions.
And of course there is the phenomenon of Necmettin Erbakan, who has turned 82. Yes; you guessed correctly; I’m talking about the same Erbakan who arrived in power in 1996 with the help of the social following he somehow managed to assemble with his absurd ideas at the cost of exploiting people’s religious beliefs and values and catering to the hatred and anger amongst the people. He is such an Erbakan that he considers the most humiliating words of insult suitable for his former comrades, who he himself had raised, the essential staff of the AK Party, only because they respect different lifestyles with their great efforts to embrace all segments of society.
His hatred has reached such heights that he doesn’t shy away from charging Erdoğan, Gül and other AK Party politicians with lack of belief, treason and cooperating with the enemy. Thanks to him, the Turkish nation is once again able to see to what extent politics can get ugly and politicians ruthless. The type of politics disease Erbakan has been exposed to must be such a serious one that he has the temerity to deem it perfectly OK for the media companies that delightedly publish and broadcast his insults to be from neo-nationalist and fascist circles, which have no respect at all for his ideas.
What doesn’t he spew about the AK Party in the speeches he is hardly able to make from a chair during the open-air meetings they call “Rallies of the National Independence Movement”… He starts off by saying that the AK Party supports Zionism by implementing IMF policies and continues by saying that they are “heedless and ignorant” people who cooperate with the United States and other tyrants. He describes those who come to his rallies as the “children of sultans,” and those who go to the AK Party’s rallies as “Byzantine children.” He further claims that the July 22 election is a matter of life and death like the Gallipoli wars, and he says this verbatim: “The AK Party was installed by racist-imperialist forces. They have been used for the last five years for the destruction of Turkey.”
But, I should accept that Erbakan is right in one of his statements. Turkey does need a national independence movement. But with one difference: It needs to rid itself of the sedimentation of old politicians who abuse religion for their political interests and who plant the seeds of hatred and enmity amongst the people and blacken the country’s horizon with their political lust.
