It is a common practice in Turkey to falsely label people and use these labels to pursue one's own agenda. It is also normal for members of the highly politicized and staunchly secular Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) to initiate slander campaigns not only against civilians but also against one another.
A typical example of this phenomenon occurred this past week over an article written by Hürriyet Editor-in-Chief Ertuğrul Özkök. The article shared some dialogue from a recent dinner with former Adm. İlhami Erdil, once the head of the Turkish Naval Forces Command.
Erdil, who completed a one-year prison sentence this July over a corruption scandal following which he was stripped of all rank, reportedly shared an anecdote from a few years ago, when retired Gen. Hüseyin Kıvrıkoğlu was chief of general staff.
The Hürriyet editor-in-chief quoted Erdil as saying that retired Gen. Hilmi Özkök, later to serve as chief of general staff after Kıvrıkoğlu, attended a dinner during which he ordered the soft drink Coca-Cola while the other generals were having red wine.
"Kıvrıkoğlu ordered the waiter to bring wine for Gen. Özkök, too, when he noticed that he was going to drink Coca-Cola," Erdil said.
For foreign readers, it may be hard to figure out what was wrong with Gen. Özkök having a soft drink. But in Turkey, where ideological symbols count even to the point of victimizing people, this anecdote from Erdil says a lot.
Erdil was understood to have been taking revenge on Gen. Özkök by attempting to falsely portray him as close to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), known for its Islamic roots, and thus as bowing to the pressures of the government at the expense of his support for secularism.
Erdil's trial and conviction by a military court became possible under Gen. Özkök in 2004.
In response to Erdil's story, Gen. Özkök was quoted by Milliyet last Sunday as reciting a poem from famous Islamic mystic Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi.
"My speechlessness is for my nobility. I have a response for every statement. Yet, I first look into the statement to see its worth and then I look into the man who conveys the statement to see if he is wise," was the quote from Mevlana that Gen. Özkök cited in response to Erdil's polemic.
Erdil responded by quoting a saying from Ziya Paşa, an Ottoman poet and reformist, in an interview with Hürriyet yesterday.
Gen. Özkök, a pragmatic leader who refrained from placing any obstacles in front of the government's historic military reforms in 2003 and 2004 that reduce the military's heavy involvement in politics, is also famed for the courageous steps he took within this armed bureaucracy.
One example of this bravery was the initiation of the trial against Erdil, the first trial against a top commander in the history of the Turkish Republic.
Unlike other commanders, Gen. Özkök did not sweep the dust under the carpet.
But he was not liked by certain senior generals and junior officers or by the staunchly secular elite due to his reformist policies, which opened a new era within the TSK.
Ironically, Kıvrıkoğlu, the one who reportedly ordered red wine for Gen. Özkök, was also the subject of a slander campaign launched by a retired general at the time.
Kıvrıkoğlu's visit to then-İstanbul Mayor Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, currently Turkey's prime minister, in his capacity as the 1st Army commander of İstanbul, was portrayed as a sign of his closeness to Islamic groups. This was simply because he paid a courtesy visit to Erdoğan.
The latest polemic shows once again how the country's armed bureaucracy can be involved in dangerous polarization that leads to the wearing out of the TSK.
Since Turkey needs a military that has as its sole duty the defense of the country's borders, one of the top priorities of the political authorities should be to enable democratic civilian oversight for this armed bureaucracy for the sake of preserving the country's national interests.
