However, the heat of the latest national and international events has led to politicians making hasty and populist remarks and a failure to implement long-awaited solutions; this renders our situation more complicated, but still not irremediable.Commenting on the ignorance of some would-be healers who imagine themselves competent, English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon once said, “Cure the disease, kill the patient.” While killing the patient may be the easiest, cheapest and most pragmatic way to get rid of the disease, it is hardly the best outcome.
This astute comment also applies to the various remedies politicians, military personnel and the judiciary have suggested for the ills paralyzing Turkish society.
For example, the recent general reporting of attacks and killings by the outlawed terrorist organization the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the media coverage of funerals of fallen soldiers and their families’ sorrow and distress, as well as the reporting of views of partisan groups that exploit the events for their ideological interests -- all this in no way serves the resolution of the conflict. It provokes the masses that come to pay their respects to those who have fallen while serving to protect them into chanting the aggressive slogans of partisan groups, and fuels ethnic hostility and division within Turkish society.
The administrative and military officers who organize and take part in these funerals ought not to help provoke further hostility with their arrangements. How is it that when Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) officers break the news of a fallen son to a family in a small room, members of the media are allowed to be present and show the parents crying, fainting and uttering emotional remarks during such tragic moments? It is as if there is no ethics of media coverage on such occasions. The visual exploitation of people’s very real grief to prove political points is not honorable, sympathetic or wise.
Another instance of “cure the disease, kill the patient” is manifested among some of the high judiciary, courts and bar associations in Turkey. One does not have to go back far to find examples. Events just last week are enough to prove this point: the acceptance of the Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) petition to the Constitutional Court to annul the latest constitutional reforms passed by Parliament; the unlawful interference in the case, hearing and release of Prosecutor İlhan Cihaner, who still stands accused of membership in a terrorist organization; the falsification of documents and abuse of power in a high specially assigned court; the discussion by Constitutional Court member Fulya Kantarcıoğlu of a case just before it was due to come before her, her clear bias about the case and about the possibility of the court issuing a stay of execution on the amendment package; the unlawful, unconstitutional interventions in serious cases by some bar associations, the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), the Judges and Prosecutors Association (YARSAV) and their associates, individually and collectively, which are in clear contradiction of the principles of justice, the rule of law and the separation of powers; the release of the main suspects in the Sledgehammer, Cage and Ergenekon coup plots on the laughable grounds of good behavior during the course of the probe and that they have fixed addresses and no possibility of fleeing or changing the evidence presented against them. These and similar cases prove that some ideologically motivated members of the judiciary in Turkey are in the process of killing the law and the Constitution to cure or release their own cohorts.
The last example can be drawn from the actions of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). It is not comprehensible why the ruling party and the government are so slow to process some of the amendments necessary for EU accession and why the Interior Ministry is so slow in implementing the cultural and democratic rights commonly called the “Kurdish opening.” Why is it that practical solutions that can also be facilitated and enhanced by nongovernmental and civil society organizations are removed from the agenda or shelved indefinitely?
All these losses and failings are serious, and the general public is grief-stricken and justifiably aggrieved. Political decision makers, the judiciary and the military must avoid hasty populist remarks and actions that can destroy the fabric of our multicultural society. They should not fuel ongoing problems but strive to diminish nationalistic, partisan reactions and antagonism. These all serve the heinous objectives of terrorists and groups with vested interests against a stable, powerful and peaceful Turkey. Simple, short-term, populist and partisan cures can only kill Turkish society; they cannot eliminate its ongoing ills.
