On the one hand, with historic moves to eradicate shady networks that include generals and former commanders of the land, air, naval and gendarmerie forces under the Ergenekon investigation, the best examples of how the rule of law applies to everyone are being given. On the other hand, we can produce horrifying Guantanamo-like scenes, hurting the very essence of democracy, with practices against elected pro-Kurdish mayors despite the historic steps taken within the scope of the Kurdish initiative, which is vitally needed for consolidating our fragile democracy. Good and evil, or hope and despair, intermingle.Similarly, on the one hand, organized crime, conspiracies daring to massacre civilians and children and attempted assassinations are being exposed one after the other, which are almost certainly planned by anti-democratic and anti-government forces whose core is formed by the criminal and illegal networks within the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). These scandalous crimes -- which in the past could not be investigated since if one tracked them, s/he would find the influential illegal networks within the army and the state -- and the powerful groups that are perpetrators of these crimes can today be investigated by courageous prosecutors and successfully tried by diligent and fair judges.
However, at the same time, tens of journalists can face thousands of investigations and trials -- in a way never seen in any democracy or in an open regime with the rule of law, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and of the press -- in connection with news stories they courageously wrote just to perform their duties properly, i.e., ensuring that the general public is sufficiently informed about events and developments. And some of these journalists could be sentenced to prison time, while some of them are being repressed and silenced by imposing illegal pressure on them. Or the pro-Kurdish political parties -- which are supposed to be the soundest grounds on which the Kurdish initiative can be built -- can be shut down by supreme court decisions, or the members of these parties are detained en masse. The mayors who are elected to office are handcuffed with plastic bonds as is the general practice implemented against terrorists/resistance fighters and their supporters in Afghanistan or Iraq under occupation. They are lined up in a Guantanamo-like scene. Good and evil, or hope and despair, intermingle once again.
On the one hand, the shadowy forces -- which people feared to approach until very recently -- are today probed in heroic investigations. As seen in a recent example, an army unit, known to the public as the Special Warfare Command, although its official title is the Tactical Mobilization Group, which is suspected of being involved with organized crime and illegal activities against the government and democracy and of overstepping its powers and duties, is being raided by prosecutors for the sake of the rule of law, democracy and security of the nation and the legitimate government. Despite the shield of protection afforded by the General Staff, the investigation is shedding light on the dark labyrinths where illegality rules. On the other hand, certain associations of lawyers, particularly including the İstanbul Bar Association, as well as some members of the top judiciary -- who are supposed to uphold the rule of law -- do not stand idle but shake trust in the rule of law with the decisions they give by twisting legal principles. By hiding in the shadow of the laws that they construe at will, they can take those considerably controversial decisions that deeply damage the collective conscience -- like the Constitutional Court’s decisions on party closures and the Council of State’s coefficient decision. At the expense of shattering trust in the rule of law and hurting true lawyers, some associations of lawyers -- which are supposed to advocate rights of civilians vis-à-vis the despotism of the state -- may demand military intervention in politics and hail every anti-democratic initiative. Thus, good and evil, or hope and despair, intermingle further.
For us, the ordinary citizens living in this beautiful country, where good and bad, hope and despair, mingle with each other, there remains the resentment of having spent one more year with these debates that we should have left behind already.
