One prominent pattern is that no sooner do the protectionist, laicist, militarist elites and their militant cohorts that together form the status quo perceive any amendment to the Constitution as a threat to their tutelage and vested interest and therefore as “subversive” than the plots and killings begin, and interestingly enough terror attacks repeatedly forestall the amendments. So there is nothing new this time, either.There have been attacks on a Kurdish deputy and then an AK Party (Justice and Development Party) minister, and, allegedly in response to this, separatist terrorist organization the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has increased its number of attacks on military personnel and outposts while the constitutional amendment package is being debated and voted on in Parliament.
In such terrorist attacks Turkey goes on losing its soldiers, officers and all kinds of resources, from material wealth to collective morale. But at such times what does a citizen expect from the authorities, especially from the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), which claim to be the only protector of the state, regime and nation? What can we expect the General Staff to do to protect us from such events?
Last Sunday Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ and his classmates from military school including retired Gen. Hurşit Tolon, who is a suspect in the Ergenekon case, visited Atatürk’s mausoleum. Başbuğ, his classmates and their families, all in civilian attire, were smiling and apparently enjoying their outing on a sunny day, especially knowing that they were afforded the best possible protection by the military and civil security forces in the center of Ankara.
Some non-Turkish readers might not see the significance of the group’s visit to the mausoleum, although the group members have made this visit almost a dozen times this year. People and organizations are organized to come as a group to the gates, then they walk solemnly into the closed area, the burial place of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the republic. The walkway is lined on both sides with 12 pairs of lions carved in the ancient Hittite style. The lions represent Anatolia, which symbolizes both power and peace. A five-centimeter gap separates each of the paving stones on the Road of Lions to ensure that visitors walk calmly and respectfully on their way toward Atatürk’s tomb. The tomb is situated right under the symbolic 40-ton sarcophagus on the ground floor.
The status quo uses this venue as a political message or warning to their opponents. They go and complain to Ataturk about the enemies of the state, the regime and his principles. They ask his spiritual presence for support to combat the threats to the state and regime. Başbuğ must have overlooked the meaning of the five-centimeter gaps on the Road of Lions since the furious polemic with which he replied to media criticism was anything but sedate.
Prior to the recent attacks, the Turkish media had warned people about imminent attacks from terrorists. Their warnings were based on tip-offs and observations of the increasing movement of hundreds of terrorists in the locations where the latest PKK attacks took place. Since attacks did indeed take place in spite of the TSK having been forewarned by journalists, the media criticized the General Staff for ineptness and inaction and pointed to flaws and breaches in security in the military as contributing to attacks that killed our soldiers. Başbuğ denounced the authors of the media coverage as “treacherous betrayers, traitors and biased.” He likened the critics to the press that collaborated with the enemy during World War I and asserted that even they “were not this treacherous and this biased.”
The AK Party under a looming cloud of threats from the military and judicial bureaucracy has been trying to pass constitutional amendments by itself without any help from the opposition parties in Parliament; Kurdish activists and deputies are not cooperating in any sense to prevent the closure of their own party or to acquire cultural rights; the Republican People’s Party (CHP) fails to take its rightful place in Parliament to represent its constituents but keeps all its deputies away lest any of them support the amendments; Turkish soldiers are slaughtered in the cold and foggy provinces when military help “cannot reach them,” yet civilian medical staff managed to arrive.
Meanwhile, the General Staff protected by the military is busy making plots against civilians, protecting their own notion of the state and conducting key rituals. Yet their core task, the actual physical safeguarding of the nation, its people and indeed its own junior personnel, is forgotten, and even raising the topic is declared treason. Yes, everything is normal in Turkey.
