Some political scientists never count truthfulness among the political virtues because lies have often been regarded as justifiable tools in political dealings. Witnessing events of recent decades, we see how vulnerable the facts on which we build and maintain our daily life are. Community life and personal aspirations are at risk of being perforated by a single lie or torn to shreds by the concerted efforts of lying groups or classes. No one can be blamed for susceptibility to error due to injuries, illusion, distortions or failings of sensory and mental apparatus. However, deliberate denial of factual truth, or less euphemistically, the ability to lie or the capacity to distort facts, is a moral outrage; it is usually done with actual malice and therefore is defamatory and should not be protected under the Constitution.A few examples may help to shed a more light on this discussion. When one member of the Ergenekon terror organization, the lawyer Alparslan Arslan, raided the Council of State and murdered a judge and wounded four others, former Council of State Chief Prosecutor Tansel Çölaşan claimed that the attack was intended as a punishment for the ruling on the headscarf and added that Arslan fired after shouting “God is great!” and “We are God’s ambassadors!” This claim was later denied by other judges and court members who were around during the commission of the crime, which was intended to foment clashes between secularists and religiously observant people so as to prepare conditions for a military coup. Needless to say, the false claim led to a further witch hunt of headscarved Muslim women by coup-loving secularists. Çölaşan denied and distorted the facts and covered up reams of falsehoods. Deception was so very easy up to a point, but as a prosecutor she should have known that facts need to be established by testimony from trustworthy witnesses. Thus, her simple self-delusion fell into oblivion.
When the police detained two high-ranking officers of the Special Forces Command on suspicion of planning to kill Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, Deniz Baykal, the head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), denied such an attempt outright and came up with implausible explanations for the event, even accusing Arınç and the government of a plot before the chief of general staff emerged with a proper explanation. This was not the first time that Baykal acted as the defender and advocate of alleged assassins, plotters and coup-makers. It has now become obvious that Baykal’s explanation was not merely political discretion but an act of deception in line with his past performances, which do not tell a story of immaculate virtue and sterling truthfulness. Alas for Baykal, although he prepares his story carefully in advance for public consumption, the public is nevertheless surprised at how little attention he pays to his defense and advocacy of the tradition of leftist philosophical and political thought and at his ability to deny in thought and word whatever happens to be the case.
The proliferation of lying throughout all military ranks can be understood in a context in which easily tempted subordinates know their performance will be evaluated by reference to their contribution to the aims of the junta within the military. However, when the deliberately false statements come from the highest rank, from the chief of general staff, for instance, the lower ranking officers owe their continued prosperity to the same source, the propensity for pursuing a politics of lying. History is replete with examples, from Stalin to Blair, of systematic policies of deception and lying. The General Staff should be aware that politics and the military are not made of the same stuff and that deliberate falsehood carries no crumbs of truth within itself.
Reality is more appealing to reason than falsehood. Democracy cannot survive in an environment where politicians and civil and military bureaucracy are allowed to lie about big issues with abandon. Systems based on expropriation lead down the road to totalitarianism. The public does not and will not allow its delegates and servants to get away with it. Citizens are not unable to judge, weigh and consider the consequences of this or that falsehood. They do not tolerate bald lies from the military and judiciary lightly. The politicians’ and bureaucrats’ delusion that they can lie to us and get away with it is humiliating. The assumption that there is no downside to lying is insulting and such deceit should be devoid of all constitutional protection.
