In one such encounter, I was talking to a Greek taxi driver in Athens. What shocked me was his rather elaborate analysis of how the political system works in Ankara. He was able to differentiate the Turkish state from the Turkish government. He also had quite a good concept of the Turkish deep state. As a Turkish citizen who believes in the value of democracy, it was worrying, but it was a fact. I have met newly appointed ambassadors to Turkey who were familiar with the deep state concept. This is typical because the issue is everywhere, from international reports on Turkey to quality books describing Turkish politics. Besides, Turkey has been talking about the same issue for decades while hardly doing anything.
Because of this, talking too much, doing too little has became one of our unfortunate characteristics. This is relevant to the current debate about the deep state, though I like to believe that this time some concrete steps may be taken and we can save the next generation’s time and energy.
Nowadays, it is fashionable for politicians and pundits to talk about and write on the issue. This time it was Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who started the discussion by saying that the deep state had existed since the Ottoman times and “it should be minimized or eradicated if possible” during a TV interview.
Later, he continued on the same topic by giving his own definition of the deep state: “We can describe it as gangs inside a state organization, and this kind of structure does exist. Our state and our nation have paid a high price because we have not been able to crack down on such networks.” Erdoğan added that the government had limited capacity to cope with the phenomenon and said the joint efforts of the government, judiciary and legislative bodies of the state had to work together to deal with the problem.
It is an unending habit for Turkish politicians to talk about the deep state whenever Turkey witnesses a tragic murder similar to Hrant Dink’s one.
Before Erdoğan, it was former President Süleyman Demirel who expressed his own understanding of thedeep state. For him, “The deep state is the military. They are not a separate state, but when they intervene they became the deep state. Turkey’s need for the deep state emerges as a result of our inability to rule the country.”
Before Demirel, it was the leader of the 1982 coup and former President Kenan Evren who said that “If the state fails, the deep state intervenes. It happened. No one told us not to intervene; in fact, they invited our intervention.”
We can go back to the 1970s when then-Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit was complaining about the deep state. He had referred to the deep state as a Gladio-type counter-guerilla structure having ties to international organizations like NATO.
Everyone is talking, from the heads of states to humble people in the corners of cafes. If I were an element of the deep state, I would have listened to all these debates with joy because I would know that after some time everything would be forgotten and life would until a new tragedy arose. But are we doing anything concrete? What is our attitude toward those rare examples of brave men who took initiative to unearth the deep state?
In that context, I would like to leave Dink’s case aside and to ask about the fate of Semdinli prosecutor Ferhat Sarıkaya. Where is the man who prepared an indictment on the Nov. 9 bombing of a bookstore in Semdinli in the southeastern city of Hakkari? Where is the man who tried to find the high-level links between Gendarmerie Sergeants Ali Kaya, Ozcan Ildeniz and Veysel Ates, a former member of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) turned-informer? It was not in the distant past; it was last year.As a result of obvious pressures, he was kicked out of his post. He lost his job by almost unanimous decision by the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors in the Ministry of Justice. The matter was not handled secretly; it happened in front of politicians and columnists who are now busy with the discussion of the deep state. This happened in spite of the fact that the government, the opposition, the then-chief of staff and almost all the media said in the beginning that it should be investigated all the way to the top. This happened despite keen international concern on the case.
Under this circumstances, is it wrong to expect more action rather than philosophical discourse?
