Today, we cannot say we are in a position that we really deserve. Given our people, our potential, our own dynamics, this is not the position we really deserve. Did we deserve to be a nation that is going through the ordeal of promoting democracy or that is trying to make progress despite the inhuman and unethical shackles affixed to our feet by the official ideology? Did we deserve to be a society which an outdated guardianship system and its powerful, authoritarian and thickheaded men are trying to shape?
Now, what has happened that has made us remove our shackles, break way from the stereotype of the official ideology, withstand the psychological warfare and walk with determination on a road that leads to democracy, human rights, freedom and the rule of law in a never-to-return quest?
Every era, every ideology and every ideology has a lifespan, a period of validity. The Kemalist ideology of ours, too, has a lifespan. As freedoms expand and as society grows more conscious, the guardianship system contracts and exhausts itself. It withdraws into its own world and it manufactures tensions for Turkey. This is what the resistance of the military and the judicial bureaucracy to democratization implies. What other explanation can be offered for the efforts to engage in politics at the highest level and to set a judicial trap for every democratic move and try to close down a ruling party that is democratically elected on the one hand and to pretend to hold democracy in high esteem on the other hand?
So, what has changed to make us tread on a never-to-return road with determination?
It is because the official ideology, i.e. the status quo, has lost the war. The most important factor in this is that the media that tends to act as the manipulative tool, triggerman and bully for the guardianship system has weakened. In no other country are media organizations as corrupt as they are in our country. Yes, the media organizations were dominated and deprived of diversity by fascist regimes, but there were no media organizations like ours which would claim to promote the freedom of the press or the professional principles of journalism, while at the same time attacking all freedoms in the name of state policies and protection of the status quo. I don't want to list their undignified, unprincipled, shameful stances during the Feb. 28 process. Now, these media organizations are no longer the most powerful weapons of psychological warfare. Now, there are alternative media organizations, which they accuse of being “pro-government” out of rage. But we should ask: to whom have they been supporting all these years? While you were intimidating the people, suppressing and destroying your rivals, manipulating governments, threatening ministers with your headlines, dropping or establishing governments, who were you supporting? Your good old days will never come back.
So, what has changed now that we are treading on a never-to-return road with determination?
The Ergenekon file was opened. All the dirt, the nasty structures, the bloody murders, the unresolved inexplicable murders, the plots and the provocations were revealed. They are now so manifest that it is no longer possible to sweep them under the rug as was done in Susurluk. Concealing them is no longer possible. No magician can perform some hocus pocus and send those Light Anti-tank Weapons (LAWs), those assassin's guns, the hundreds of thousands of bullets, hand grenades and explosives out of existence. That game is over, too. There is no turning back from it either.
So, what has changed now that we are treading on a never-to-return road with determination?
There is now a will in the general population that cannot be daunted by the threats of the pro-guardianship people. There is a prime minister that promises to earn the trust the nation has in him and who says "life is full of risks." There is a society that is getting more and more conscious. There is the deep Turkey that seeks the unity of hearts.
This Turkey does not want to see conflicts. It seeks respect for democracy and its values. The people in this country who demand democracy, rule of law, welfare and freedom are not seeking revenge. We just want to have what we should already have. Stop trying to cast this society into your molds because these lands are no longer suitable for this and because the world is no longer suitable for it.
