These three developments are the European Union membership process, the Ergenekon case and the Kurdish initiative. We have entered a road from which there is no turning back. As we head down this road, we will go beyond the ordinary. In fact we have already started to do that. On this road, those who cannot understand the new Turkey properly will be shaken off, and those who were once polished up, shined and presented as heroes will become like weak candles unable to provide light to their own immediate surroundings.
Once the makeup comes off, no one will recognize them.
In the arts, politics and the media, a new period is going to start. In this period people are not going to be discharged, but are quietly and calmly going to leave the stage on their own. The new Turkey will not look for them or remember them ever again. The new Turkey is going to move forward with real men that have broad horizons and a good understanding of the age we are living in.
Whether you think the genie is out of the bottle or the status-quo vase has cracked, our tomorrows are going to be much different than our todays and yesterdays. What will make them different?
Those who do not have trust in people will leave, and those who have confidence in the nation will come. Those who only criticize, incite fear and think it is a talent to snitch on Turkey to the outside world will go, and those who create alternatives, offer solutions and are infatuated with the Grand Turkey will come.
Those who are desperate and traumatized and those who are not at peace with themselves and wear glasses that show everything crooked will fall behind and grovel, while those who spread hope, sing summertime songs, are at peace with everyone and who believe it is a virtue to make others happy will climb the mountains and slopes that we encounter on this road.
Those who look down upon the public and call them “men who scratch their bellies” and “jerrycan-headed people,” who claim to be “authentic” and become surprised when they see the real children of this nation and ask, “Where in the world did you come from?” will become quiet, and those who have a sense of shame will not have the courage to even step outside of their homes.
Those who looked shallow minded when actually they had great knowledge, who were among the people, who said, “Everyone is the wheat, and I am the straw,” who were always ready to submit, who recalled humanity and God and who were paragons of good manners will shed light on this road.
Those who thought they were the state, who believed they had the authority to decide how religion would be practiced and how the call to prayer would be recited, who forced people to love not Adam but Darwin, those who attached great importance to themselves, who were despotic and ignorant yet thought they were very wise and those who had the mentality that everyone must ask them before doing anything will lose.
Those who say “the state exists for the people,” who say people are free to believe or not to believe and that people who believe have the right to practice their religion freely and those who defended the mentality that the state must act equally toward everyone regardless of their beliefs will win.
Those who ramble on that: “This is Turkey. Everyone that lives here must be a Turk. Turkey is for Turks only. Everyone must know their place. Besides, there is no such thing as a Kurd. Turkish mountaineers were called Kurds because when they stepped on the snow it would make a crushing sound that sounded like Kurd” will disappear.
It will be the end of the era for this mentality, and men who have been using this nonsense to cause great pain for our aggrieved nation since the Committee of Union and Progress, who tried to conceal 17,000 unsolved murder cases and who set up despotic illegal foundations.
It will be the start of the era for those who say: “We are all humans. No one is greater than anyone else. We are all equal citizens of the Republic of Turkey. Turkey is all of ours. Our differences are not a reason for hostility but a source of our diversity.”
Those who think they are untouchable and who think they cannot be called to account for their actions will see that they are wrong.
No longer will anyone be able to make defending nationalism, Kemalism or the status quo an excuse to provide special treatment to someone. No longer will anyone appear to look civilian but act more militaristic than an officer in uniform.
Problematic individuals will go, and those who can solve problems will come.
