But there are large swathes of Turkish public opinion who are taking a not so discreet pleasure at the sight of men in uniform squirming uneasily in their seats. Everyone knows that opinion surveys cite the armed forces as the country’s most respected institution, but it doesn’t follow that people are not secretly pleased when someone puts a drawing pin on teacher’s seat.In this case, it is more than a simple pinprick that is causing the pain. Every day there are new revelations and even arrests in the Ergenekon trial, a criminal conspiracy trial so horrendously complicated that it is a full-time job following its twists and turns. Ergenekon for idiots goes a bit like this: “The Turkish military has been vigilant in the defense of the nation and even more vigilant in protecting the nation from its own government. It has come as a surprise for many, along with a network of supporters in other walks of life, to learn that even planning how to overthrow the elected Parliament is against the law, especially if the modus operandi involves bombs and bullets and all sorts of provocations. Now that they know better, the assumption is that they will promise to behave.”
Alas, it’s more complicated than this. The metaphysical question Turkey is asking is whether Ergenekon is not really a conspiracy to seize control of the radio station but a plot by the civilian administration to dismantle the power of the military. And, of course, this is where the chief of General Staff has finally stepped in to declare enough is enough. If you try to weaken the army, you destroy its morale, and a nation really does need a fighting force that will snap to attention should the need arise, the head of the armed forces, Gen. İlker Başbuğ, bitterly complained. To some minds, the gasket has blown, and he is blowing off steam. To others he is calling the Ergenekon prosecutors’ bluff.
The Turkish military could justifiably claim to be maligned if they hadn’t staged three coups already and maneuvered to see off another coalition government in 1997. Whether the Ergenekon trials will result in convictions is one thing, but there is a weight of evidence to suggest there is a case to be answered. But leave that question, for the moment, to the side. Instead, let us hypothetically conjure up the Turkish military’s worst nightmare: The officer class resigns their commissions and decides to go home. The enlisted men remove their camouflage uniforms for beads and flower shirts, and signs proclaiming “The best soldiers are Turkish soldiers” are replaced with banners advising people to “Make love, not war.”
Would Turkey become an isle of democracy the very next day?
The problem is in part the military’s interference in democracy, but it is also the virtual dependence which politics has developed on authoritarianism embedded deep in a political culture and in the institutions of the state. The military may have bequeathed the nation the 1982 Constitution with all its restrictions on individual rights, but it is not, to the best of my knowledge, the military which is standing in the way of rewriting that document or replacing it with a better one altogether. What is very wrong is when forces try to create that dependence -- either the military or those who believe they have a little colonel on their shoulder whispering in their ear or who otherwise feel they possess a self-appointed mandate to interpret the national will. If the Ergenekon trials interrupt that particular cycle, it will be to the good. However, until there is an equilibrium between the courts and politics, between government and opposition, and until the administration believes in transparency and holds itself accountable, there will always be room for one more conspiracy.
