This is no exaggeration, believe me. The young and courageous Taraf newspaper, which has exhaustively questioned every taboo in Turkey since the start of its publication, has fearlessly moved forward to discuss even the most unspoken matters, and it unfortunately represents a unique specimen of its kind in the history of Turkish media. How I wish this wasn’t the case, but there is no other example. Of course, our colleagues at Taraf do not go in person and take those shocking documents, coup plans or treacherous conspiracies they recently disclosed from the cosmic rooms or the safe boxes of the General Staff or other well-protected containers. It appears that some honorable military officers who are apparently democrats and who apparently hold the rule of law in high esteem and who are apparently considerably courageous and who strive for the good of this nation’s democracy, welfare and peace -- unlike the pro-coup generals’ quest for personal power and strength and whose number is not apparently small, and who believe that Turkey should get rid of certain ill-minded generals and military officers who are obsessed with devising coups against the nation and of this primitive mentality that has poisoned our glorious army -- are helping Taraf and, via Taraf, Turkish democracy. If we can still harbor unshakable hope that our democracy will be perfect one day, we are indebted for this not only to Taraf, but also to a handful of media organizations that lend support to Taraf in their publications and mostly to these unknown military officers who certainly deserve to be depicted as heroes.
As you know, the Taraf newspaper ran another shocking news story on Wednesday. This time, the name of the general is Çetin Doğan and the name of the plan of treason is Sledgehammer. What does this coup plan from 2003 contain? Bombing the Fatih Mosque, one of the most popular and crowded mosques in İstanbul, when thousands of people are performing the Friday prayer, manipulating the raging mosque attendants to walk toward the military museum so as to give the impression that they are revolting against the state, arranging that a Turkish warplane is destroyed or crash lands in the Aegean so as to trigger a war against Greece and ensuring that the army overthrows the government under the pretext of the resulting chaos. We must admit that the success of the plan is guaranteed since an almost similar plan had been implemented before Sept. 12, 1980, and proved successful. So what would happen next? Illegal acts, massacres and collective arrests which can only be expected under the fascist or Nazi administrations of the 1940s.
Declaring their purposes “eliminating once and for all the factors that prevent the functioning of the secular order,” the Doğan junta, it seems, has labeled every individual who does not share the same ideas as they an “enemy of secularism.” As they are aware of the fact that the people who do not think like themselves are in the majority, they planned to destroy or arrest hundreds of thousands of people. According to the Sledgehammer plan, the main stadiums of İstanbul would have been transformed into concentration camps. The subversive plot painstakingly took into consideration the finest details, including the most sensitive state organs and the most delicate stage.
Like Blond Girl (Sarıkız), Sea Sparkle (Yakamoz), the Glove (Eldiven) or other plots penned by certain ill-minded generals, the Sledgehammer plan does not solely employ military troops, of course. The civilians -- if they can still be called civilians, but perhaps they should be called the militia -- who will be employed in the coup were identified to the finest detail. The names of 843 people who are affiliated with the army and who would have been employed in only İstanbul are listed in the plan. These people are supposed to dig out the weapons and ammunitions -- which were recently unearthed by the police -- and use them against civilians who resist. The subversive plot also aims to appoint an active general as the head of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and reintroduce the practice of chanting the calls to prayers (adhan) in Turkish as well as seize complete control of state positions and purge unwanted elements and eventually bring back the “strength the state had in 1923.” Actually, it would be nonsense to expect a better plan from these morbid mentalities, who are still stuck with the weak Turkey of 1923 with a mere population of 13 million.
Of course, for me, the most interesting category of the civilians who were assumed to collaborate with the army during a coup is that of media professionals. Before studying the list of 137 such people published by Taraf, I tried to predict who might be included on this list. I am not sure whether I should be happy or sad, but I was not surprised to see that my predictions coincided exactly with the list. This also applies to my predictions concerning the subversive generals’ list of unfavorable journalists who might resist the coup. Although the number of these unwanted journalists is only 36, we know that the plan in question was prepared in 2003 and if certain lunatics draw similar plots today, this list will be much longer. I am not sure, but I think we should be glad to know that the number of journalists who might be arrested or killed in a potential coup is much bigger today.
Still there is one point that I cannot quite make sense of. As you know, the Sledgehammer plan makes mention of journalists who are open to collaboration during a coup. I don’t understand what more these generals obsessed with coups expect these journalists to do. These 137 esteemed colleagues of ours have already done their best to fabricate false news stories in order to press some unfounded dangers against the regime on the people and undertake all sorts of nonsense in order to discredit the Ergenekon investigation, which is the biggest process of purification in the history of the republic, and defend every military intervention against civil society, the nation or the civilian government and lend unconditional support to every military junta. What more should they do?
For many years, you ordered them to publish false stories about threats against secularism or the advent of reactionaryism, and they have complied dutifully. They transformed the country into a republic of fear with the pretext of assassinations, bombings and acts of terror, all of which we suspect you were involved in. They organized a series of campaigns, perhaps with a single command from you: “Turkey is becoming like Iran,” “Reactionaryism comes to Turkey,” “Are you aware of the danger?” and “Turkey is becoming like Malaysia.” Unsatisfied with these campaigns, and in order to be nice toward you, they conducted so-called scientific studies and proved that “Turkey is growing conservative under neighborhood pressures.”
Realizing that Turkey is not becoming like Iran or Malaysia, as they argue, and that there is no threat to secularism, as they claim, and that they are losing their credibility, they immediately gave up their 70-year-old claims about threats to secularism or risks of reactionaryism. I don’t know whether they did so because they realized it themselves or you told them so, but it was high time they did so. Now, it sounds interesting to me that, as if a button was pressed, all of them have started to chant about a “civilian” coup. According these guys, the military tutelage is being lifted and replaced with a civilian one. What they mean by civilian tutelage, I really don’t know.
So what I say is: Dear generals, what more should these 137 respected journalists and aides influenced by them do? Obviously, you tell them to do whatever you want; and they do it to the letter. What more can they do? I just want to tell you one thing, Mr. Pasha. Please be assured that these distinguished journalists are already doing their task. As they wait in anticipation of your orders, they do not stand idly by, but they dutifully perform whatever it is that is required to ensure your tutelage.
