Even if they are a clever fake, the simple fact that the country came to a standstill and debates nothing else as if the outside world no longer exists sheds light on how important these matters are. There is only one solution: Something positive has to come out of all this. Words are no longer enough. Various actors have to make decisions -- bold decisions. The key person in all this is, first and foremost, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. With the powers that are vested in his office, he has to decide whether to take action against the alleged authors of the documents or to remain silent. If both the content and documents are indeed authentic, those responsible for the institutions whose offices they came from have to resign. If they do not resign, the prime minister has to exercise his democratic powers and ask them to do nothing but. Turkey is a democracy where the democratically elected government is in charge of running the country together with the democratically elected president of the nation. The Turkish political opposition would be well advised to form a national consensus platform with the current government; what has happened to one party and movement today could happen to their party and foundations tomorrow. If the Republican People's Party (CHP) came to power again and some military circles disapproved of their hopefully, in the near-future, readjusted pro-European Union policies, they would blacklist that political party and its supporters, too.
In the debate I outlined above lies an opportunity that is not to be missed: the chance to rid the country of anti-democratic elements. The boundaries of who can act on behalf of the people have to be redrawn in line with international law. The hierarchy of who can tell whom what to do on behalf of the state has to be readjusted according to democratic nation-state principles. Turkey is a modern, pro-Western country. From its early years more than 80 years ago to the current government, it traveled on the correct, pro-democracy road. Unfortunately, in between and for many decades, Turkey lost sight of this pro-democracy path and became a safe place for coup plotters -- not anymore. But this “not anymore” only holds if both the people and their elected representatives stand together. Remaining silent is no longer an option. The future constitution must reflect this. The current government has a clear mandate for change and must roll up its sleeves immediately.
There is a wider dimension to all this: It is not true that only a handful of active or retired military personnel aim at overthrowing the government (by the way, I am absolutely sure that the vast majority of Turkish soldiers and servicemen are peace-loving, honest citizens on duty, who simply wish to do the best for their country.) What I want to say is that over time a certain segment of society adopted a position which regarded Turkey as their own property. How many? Less than 10 percent of the total population, I suppose, but in terms of disposable income very rich, very influential and very authoritarian, knowing that once the other 90 percent speak up, most of their privileges would be taken away.
Last week, while doing research away from Ankara for a civil society undertaking, I heard some very disturbing comments indeed. One person nearly went as far as saying that military interventions are a good thing, repeating the unfortunate stance that all Kurdish people are second-class citizens and that political involvement from the left is to be disregarded, that Turkey should not become an EU member state and that the EU itself would never allow Turkey to join, as only criminal elements would migrate to the EU once full mobility were granted. Referring to this conversation, I was told that there are those who are “educated” versus most others, who are “the people.” Opinion givers like these are still out there, but Turkish democracy can absorb them. Many claim to represent the viewpoint of the founder of the modern Turkish nation without even knowing what Mustafa Kemal Atatürk stood for: peace at home and abroad, modernization and Westernization. Many of them have further hijacked his good name and misused his legacy. Why? To convince themselves that they have a just cause and act as the real Turks, fooling themselves and unfortunately a sizeable portion of the less-privileged groups of society. Not for much longer I hope. Turkey is a wonderful country with wonderful people. Now is the time to add the top and final floor to the house called the Republic of Turkey: everlasting democracy, implemented by those who amateur and professional coup plotters are so afraid of -- the Turkish people.
