The first lesson is about the resilience of non-democratic individuals and institutions, even under the garment of democratic discourse. This is so widespread that one may think of it as a general and inescapable rule of life. A quick look at recent events reminds me of the Sledgehammer officers eluding the law, the leader of the main opposition party Republican People’s Party (CHP) launching a disciplinary action against a CHP-member mayor of a small municipality who openly declared his support for the constitutional amendment and the members of the Felicity Party (SP) asking for a new extraordinary party congress in order to oust the recently re-elected party chairman, Numan Kurtulmuş in favor of the son and daughter of the spiritual leader of the party, Necmettin Erbakan. The list includes the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), which rejects all calls to denounce violent action while demanding democratic self-administration, and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which blames the recognition of the most basic human rights for the Kurds as a reason for the spread of violence.Nothing is unique to Turkey. These flaws of Turkish democracy are mostly imported defects. There is no truly “democratic in essence” country in this world. Many people claim that the UK is the homeland of democracy. Well, this may be true for football, but surely not for democracy. The number of Muslim individuals lost in the UK has reached the thousands. Many claim that they were sent to American detention camps here and there. The US’s report of democracy is good neither at home nor in the world. The latest revelations from Afghanistan and Pakistan suggest that when it comes to the “will to annihilate the adversary,” the American war machine knows no democracy, no human rights, no human dignity at all.
But this does not legitimize our own defects. The fact that the disease is an epidemic does not ease our own pain.
The Sledgehammer indictment was accepted by the court, and the court ordered the detention of 102 soldiers, some retired and some on active duty. The only person who showed up at the police station was a familiar face who knows how to escape arrest. Retired Gen. Çetin Doğan was apprehended at an airport and now is in a hospital room waiting until this wave of arrests is over and a familiar, “one of us” judge takes the helm of the court to release all the detainees.
The fact that all the retired and active duty army officers behave in the same way, not going to the courthouse or to the police station while sending their lawyers to the court, suggests that this behavior is coordinated. Published documents suggest that the coordination was in fact done within the General Staff. And we are speaking of democracy…
The SP is a legitimate player in politics. Its power base is the National View movement, and this movement owes its existence, in great part, to the theory formulated by former Prime Minister Erbakan. The incumbent Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is an offspring of this movement. It seems that the current leadership of the SP will be forced out of office by Erbakan and his children in an extraordinary party congress. It is certain that the new leadership of the party will lead the party to a more anti-democratic position. Kurtulmuş was the voice of wisdom in the party. Once he is gone, the party will certainly move towards a “No” vote in the referendum of Sept. 12.
Similar stories can be told about the BDP and the MHP. The only similarity between the secular fundamentalist, Kurdish ethnic nationalist, ultranationalist and Islamist camps is the fact that all want the status quo to continue. They all want their established positions to be saved.
This is why we need a transformative democracy, a democracy that transforms not only the institutions but also the individuals and their perceptions of what ought to be how.
