Looking at new debates that were on the agenda in Turkey this week, we can easily say now that not just the esteemed patriarch and his congregation but even the prime minister sometimes feels crucified in this country.As you know, while answering journalists’ questions during a television program last Sunday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan explained how his wife, Emine Erdoğan, was prevented by military doctors from visiting a sick patient -- visits that occupy a nearly sacred place in Turkish custom and tradition -- at the Gülhane Military Academy of Medicine (GATA) solely because she wears a headscarf. According to what was said, three years ago Erdoğan had wanted to pay a sick bed visit to theater actor Nejat Uygur at GATA, but Uygur’s wife, pressured by military authorities, helplessly requested that Erdoğan not come to the hospital but that they instead meet outside.
If the prime minister’s wife, or viewed differently, the peak of this country’s political will, is able to fall victim to inhumane and dishonorable discrimination, then imagine the extent to which discrimination can reach in Turkey, a country that we’re struggling to make a better democracy. But know this -- what Emine Erdoğan experienced was not the first, nor the last. Perhaps it would be of benefit here to recall the low-blow discrimination that Abdullah Gül faced after being elected president due to his wife’s headscarf. We all remember the strange and pitiful situations created by generals and other high-level military officers during sendoff ceremonies both in Turkey and abroad with their embarrassing, absurd attempts to run off or hide in order to avoid greeting first lady Hayrünnisa Gül or shaking her hand. Even today, the fact that on all national holidays and other celebrations, receptions and other events hosted by the presidency are held twice just to please the generals is a sign of how high the military-based discrimination has climbed. If there is a need for events and receptions hosted by the president to be held once with no spouses invited to prevent those headscarf-wearing wives of the prime minister, other ministers, deputies and civil society representatives from attending and another time to ensure democratic and diverse civilian participation -- this is a great shame that belongs to none other than the generals who always view themselves as above the rest of society. And this is how they will shamefully enter the history books.
At the International Strategic Research Organization (USAK) meeting the other day, Erdoğan once again felt the need to touch upon the same topic, saying that because he didn’t want to create any tension, he waited three years to bring up the topic of his wife’s denied entrance to GATA. “I’ve experienced many things. I’ve shared them with the necessary entities. But the country can’t yet handle it if I were to talk about everything we’ve been through. Could we not have pursued the issue? We could have, but instead I just had to endure my wife’s tears,” the prime minister said, emphasizing that after he left politics he would be able to write about their experiences. Just think, if even the prime minister and president of a country have fallen and continue to fall victim to extreme discrimination, to what extent do everyday citizens of that country face discrimination?
So what is the source of this horrible discrimination that brings together the patriarch, president, prime minister and millions of citizens living in this country from different religious and ethnic backgrounds over “being a victim”? Why is it that this inhumane and primitive thing cannot be overcome? Why is it that those who sign off on discrimination at the highest levels are always profiting and going unpunished? How much longer are we supposed to tolerate this fascist mentality that belittles and views as despicable the pious, the Alevis, the Kurds, the Romas, the minorities of every religion and ethnicity? For how much longer must the people be patient in the face of this graceless extortion of the shared public spaces by this crooked, twisted mentality in the institutions that owe their existence to the taxes we pay and the manpower we ensure?
Why does this country lack legislation that calls for heavy sanctions against all forms of discrimination and hate crimes, as in all modern democracies? Why are young women who wear headscarves continuing to fall victim to humiliation at university gates, headscarved patients at the doors to some hospitals and headscarf-wearing mothers, sisters and wives of soldiers at the entrance to barracks? Why aren’t Kurds as Kurds, Alevis as Alevis, Armenians with their Armenian identities, minorities with their own beliefs and lifestyles and religious people without having to hide their beliefs accepted as equal and respected individual citizens of this country?
The reason is quite clear. While some can unabashedly accuse a prime minister -- who can’t even protect his own wife from discrimination, who despite having the will and a parliamentary majority can’t implement libertarian reforms that this country needs as much as air and water, who can’t make the slightest change to the despotic Constitution, which is a remnant of the Sept. 12, 1980 military coup -- of staging a “civilian coup” or establishing a civilian “dictatorship,” it is more than clear and obvious where the real “coup d’etat” is, when one looks at the higher judiciary, military, the Constitution and at how this dictatorship, at whose center are military officers, higher bureaucrats and senior judges, was made permanent.
Come, let’s set aside the two-faced, fake democrats and their artificial civilian coup nonsense, and let’s support all together the reforms that will dig up the roots of the actual dictatorial regime.
