It was the Taraf newspaper that made the revelations only last Friday about a purported department of dirty tricks within the military. It was this department, which used misinformation to battle what it identified as rampant religious reactionaryism which, according to Taraf, ended up fighting with democracy instead.It was a courageous step for the paper, one taken in good faith, but which puts its entire reputation on the line. It has already kindled accusations that the document it reported so confidently is itself a piece of misinformation. This will not be the first time Taraf has made startling revelations about the relationship of the civilian government to the military, and at the very least it has earned an accumulation of credibility with which to gamble. This is in stark contrast to a mainstream but polarized press which almost never proves its independence by standing by a story that contradicts the main ideological tenure of its editorial staff and proprietor. Indeed, the way the rest of the press has lined up to endorse or refute the Taraf story has been all too predictable. Political convictions sometimes boil down to formula of whose lie you chose to believe.
It has been a remarkable few days not just in Turkey but beyond the country's eastern frontier. Iran has witnessed scenes of mass discontent unprecedented since the 1979 revolution. People came out onto the street to register their anger towards a government they accuse of treating their democratic vote with contempt. There have been counter demonstrations by supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who trust in the official tally. However, to outside observers as well as to the supporters of the president's opponent Hossein Mousavi, the counting of the votes was a travesty. The results were tallied far too quickly and show Mr. Mousavi trailing in parts of the country where he was known to have strong support… In this case it is not just a brave and lonely newspaper sounding the whistle, but an even less structured form of mass communication. It was thumbs twittering on countless mobile phones, Internet savvy supporters hacking their way round the bans on social networking sites which was responsible for breaking the government's monopoly over the flow of information.
The Iranian authorities are uncertain how to respond to the protests. There is nothing they can do which will satisfy the Mousavi camp. How far Mr. Mousavi's supporters are prepared to challenge the official order still remains to be seen. Apart from the wave of arrests and intimidation against the anti-Ahmadinejad protesters, the authorities have also imposed a draconian ban on foreign journalists -- allowing them to report on events as long as they do not leave their offices to attend the illegal demonstrations. The response by the Turkish military courts to prevent the reporting of the contents of the reputedly leaked document is a more temperate version of this same mentality.
Indeed, it might be tempting to portray the Iran struggle as a more extreme version of the struggle in Turkey to instill a respect for democracy among those who have become overused to exercising power on the people's behalf. However, the curious fact is that those in the Turkish media who have joined the Taraf bandwagon in order to defend the government seem strangely oblivious to the much larger story in Iran. The Turkish prime minister and president, eager to defend democracy at home, were among the first to congratulate Mr. Ahmadinejad. It may be a coincidence but on the two days following the demonstration, not Taraf itself but publications like Yeni Şafak and our sister paper Zaman have kept the news of the demonstrations in Tehran off the front page.
