With their only desire being more light, more democracy and more freedom, these people came together on İstanbul's İstiklal Street and sent out the very strong message that they would no longer remain silent in the face of plans for direct or indirect coups. These people took to the streets aware of the obligation to raise their voices beyond the infernal cacophony of the anti-democrats and coup supporters.
We should view this march on İstiklal Street, under the slogan "70 Million Steps Against Coups," as a very bright signal flare; a flare that shows that any sort of army-oriented, anti-democratic intervention, in whatever guise it may take, will no longer go unanswered. It is a flare demonstrating that a victimized but proud nation has awakened.
A statement made by the initiative read: "We have gathered to do something we have been unable to dare for the last 50 years and something we should have done before. Now, on the longest and brightest day of the year, we are breaking our oaths of silence in the middle of the city in favor of democracy, conscience and justice with a deep, roaring sound." The awareness that the crowd represented the silent cries of Turkey's 70 million citizens was palpable. It was a meeting that inspired hope for the future of our democracy.
This meeting is not the only hope-inspiring development in the name of democracy. Civil society organizations, opinion leaders, journalists, academics, writers and politicians who represent different segments of society are joining their democratic forces under the Common Sense Platform. Civil society and the people are waking up. They are beginning to claim their democratic rights. And the military, which has been unable to recuperate from the sickness of "making attempts to run the country," must be appreciating that it will no longer be able to get away with the things it has done before and is continues to do. They must appreciate the reality that they are unable to make direct coup attempts. However, they are not standing by idly.
It is has not escaped our attention that the anti-democratic forces that don't want to understand the democratic lessons people have been sending them repeatedly through the ballot box are having a very difficult time with the people who are now waking up to their democratic conscience. For this reason, even though they are dying to do it, they do not dare stage a direct military coup by suspending democracy and closing down Parliament, as they have done so many times in the past. And it is for this same reason that they are trying to block the democratic process through hurriedly penned midnight memoranda, reducing democracy to silence by means of the high-state bureaucracy that is entirely at their disposal and camouflaging their damned coup plans by using the high judiciary as a weapon.
However, we no longer have a prime minister who will hightail it out of office after reading a memorandum like a divine decree, nor is the military able to successfully implement their perfect methods of psychological war that would give society the desired shape. Every anti-democratic intervention and plan they make against the nation eventually backfires and disgraces them. We are now living in a country and an era in which the military, whose sole concern should be nothing but the nation's security, cannot actualize its plots as easily as it once did.
Best of all is that everything is happening before people's very eyes. People see everything and know very well who is draining this country's energy. It is the people who best appreciate what this nation can achieve with its great dynamism and energy, even if just during the short-lived periods when the military shows a modicum of respect to the public will. Turkey now wants to see all anti-democratic interventions, in whatever form they may take, as embarrassing things of the past and there is strong hope that this will come to pass.
The commanders who have had to suffer a great deal of embarrassment by being unable to directly refute the demonic plans exposed by Taraf daily on Friday should now understand that it is high time they started minding their own business. They should realize how the vision of the army has been gravely blurred by seeking enemies inside the country, rather than outside. They should stop wasting their and their nation's energy.
They should also realize that people now see direct military intervention as the main reason for the country's backwardness in many aspects and the chronic problems it suffers in so many fields. They should immediately save themselves from leaving the impression that the army fights its own nation and the values that nation holds. Turkey has to become a country where people who display the courage to apologize to the nation for the dark conspiracies of the past and the action plans revealed by Taraf are appointed as commanders.
We should not forget that this nation loves its military only when it is in its barracks and along the country's borders. And the thing it probably hates the most is an army plunged up to its neck in daily political discussions and involved in conspiracies each darker than the next. The open answer given by the nation to all anti-democratic interventions and the democratic reflex it shows at every opportunity should be a lesson to all commanders.
