Recall that the basic objective of this plan, the preparers of which are still facing trial, was to detonate bombs on islands primarily inhabited by minorities and to make it look like religious people had done it. In this way, they would show the world -- and especially the West -- that Islamization in Turkey had reached dangerous levels. And so the psychological groundwork to say “stop” to this threat through antidemocratic means would be created.
Those who wanted to make it seem that a bloody attack on the Council of State in 2006 and a bomb attack on the Cumhuriyet daily headquarters had been carried out by a growing Islamic movement had envisioned Heybeliada as their new base of operations. But the image at Heybeliada is going to infuriate those who believe this country does not deserve a true democracy.
Graduate and doctorate students from various universities who wear the headscarf walked down the hill on which the Halki seminary -- which has been closed since 1971 -- is located and towards the pier with İstanbul-based Greek Orthodox Patriarchate spokesperson Father Dositheos Anagnostopoulos. They were talking about the Halki seminary problem and exchanging views about sensitive religious issues.
The picture painted by Anagnostopoulos, who was born in Kadıköy, İstanbul, and who acquired his doctorate in Germany, becoming a priest at the age of 61 after working for 35 years, and the women wearing a headscarf about Turkey was completely opposite of the picture that those who planned the Cage action plan and other similar plans wanted to create.
What made this picture possible was the trip organized by Anagnostopoulos, a member of the Intercultural Dialogue Platform (KADİP), which was established within the body of the Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) to facilitate understanding between people of different faiths in Turkey.
This visit by a group of academics, journalists and writers was a de facto response to those who are trying to push the religious segment of society into a trap. Unlike what Ergenekon plans claim, religious people are not a threat to different religious groups living in this country. To the contrary, they are people who try to understand their problems and work to solve them.
We listened to a short but exhilarating explanation about icons, church manners and leaders in Christianity from Father Theodor, who used to be former Foreign Affairs Minister İsmail Cem’s classmate at Robert College and currently serves as a priest at the church inside the Halki seminary, which also functions as a monastery. He explained that just like in mosques, there used to be a separate place for women in orthodox churches as well and that women used to participate in prayers separately until 1955. We listened to how they did not like it when people visited churches wearing revealing and inappropriate clothing.
We had the opportunity to hear firsthand the views on opening the Halki seminary, a subject that has been debated internationally for many years. What caught my attention was that there is no trace of the positive mood that has been quietly spreading around in Ankara about having found a formula to open the Halki seminary. In fact, spokesman Anagnostopoulos said opening the school with a formula that all sides do not agree on would have no benefit and noted that even if the ruling party went along with it, the opposition would take it to the Constitutional Court and make the issue even more complicated. According to the spokesman, a long-term solution cannot be found until amendments are made to the Constitution. Therefore, a provision that permits private religious education in higher education needs to be included in a new constitution to be drafted.
Instead of opening up the school with a sloppy formula, they prefer waiting a couple of years for a solid one. Asked why they have not taken the Halki seminary problem to the European Court of Human Rights, as they had a dispute over an orphanage, they said that following their meeting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Bülent Arınç and Egemen Bağış, they felt more hopeful that they would be able to find a solution inside Turkey. Anagnostopoulos also recalled former Education Minister Hüseyin Çelik’s comment, “If it were up to me, I would open the Halki seminary tomorrow.” What a painful situation that shows the lack of political will and the problem of tutelage over our democracy. Problems that are debated over and over again but never solved either became gangrenous or damage the relationship between the citizens and the state when forcibly solved due to pressure from the European court.
