Once these measures were taken, they turned into dogmatic watchdogs of the regime -- they became unchangeable, unchallengeable and unquestionable. Any attempt to criticize them was turned into an additional justifying “you see,” tautologically nurturing their raison d'être and vitality at the same time.
The dogmatization of these self-fulfilling “problem prophecies” is not the only problem. Since the original threat perceptions -- or pseudo-purposes -- do not have external existences, they cannot be undone either. These are like schizophrenic fears about nonexistent factors formed in the minds of a former generation and are inherited by the following one. Since the factors do not exist externally, they cannot be eliminated. As the fears are inherited fears, the schizophrenia does not belong to the patient we have in front of us. Penetrating into their subconscious will not work. The root cause is not there. The problem is a kind of memory created in different minds without any external observation and delivered to other minds.
Let me explain.
The dress code imposed upon the female students and public officials of this country was apparently designed as a measure to guard the secular lifestyles of unveiled women. The fear that the veiled would impose a particular lifestyle on the unveiled is baseless, as has been proved in recent public surveys over and over again. But the fear existed, and it has been inherited. In fact, it underwent a mutation when it was passed on to the next generation. The early republican anti-veil movement was basically about “freeing the women”; the late republican secularists care only about their freedoms, and as the veiled women chose not to be free of religious obligations, they are deprived of their other rights and freedoms -- the freedom of appearing in the public sphere being the first. Well, several governments tried to solve this problem and all failed. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) was almost closed down because of its willingness to solve this problem.
The military's guardianship of the regime is yet another anomaly created through inherited baseless fears. A “regime” is not something that has an external existence. An army can guard, protect and destroy only things that have an external existence. “Thoughts and ideologies cannot be destroyed by cannons and rifles,” said Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The only external representations of the regime are the guardian institutions of the regime. “The army guarding the army,” is the ironic Turkish tautology gifted to the history of absurdities.
The Constitution and the criminal code are full of articles about “the indivisible unity of the Turkish nation and the Turkish motherland.” At times, the fear of “division and separatism” reached such levels that political opposition was equated with separatism. Many thought that if Turkey had a Kurdish television station broadcasting, the next step would be separation. We have one today, and it can only be held responsible for the further integration of Kurds into general society. Many still think that calling a settlement by a Kurdish name will open a Pandora's box leading to the complete Kurdification of that area. President Abdullah Gül called Güroymak by its original Kurdish name, Norşin. No Norşinian is planning to declare independence today!
The measures taken to contain these rootless fears are more resilient than the fears themselves. We still have constitutional laws -- laws that are not in the Constitution, but are guarded by the Constitution and are unchangeable -- with no applicability. The law on Turkish men wearing a hat is still valid. Less than one in a thousand wears a hat today. The fear that instituted that law is no longer inherited by the younger generations, but the measure is. De jure restrictions survive even after the de facto restrictions are lifted.
That is going to turn into a pattern. It is most probable that Parliament will not be able to pass a law restoring the original Kurdish, Armenian, Arabic or Greek names of villages and cities, but Norşin will be called Norşin, even on official documents, and others will follow suit. The ban on the headscarf will probably remain on paper even after all universities decide to ignore the ban.
This is not a call for illegal action, but it seems that the government has no other way but to resort to de facto solutions on human rights issues.
