17 March 2010 / BERAT ÖZİPEK STAR,
In a country where the Constitutional Court assumes the authority of Parliament, where the Council of State determines bus fares and where the prime minister holds a “summit” with a chief of General Staff who is under his command, the main problem of those who complain about a “civilian dictatorship” must be that they lack a conscience, not knowledge.
While there is no known treatment for those who lack a conscience, ignorance can be cured. Those who prattle on about a dictatorship by looking at the prime minister’s influence on his party and by extension on the Turkish Parliament are not only clearly ignoring the fact that the executive branch in Turkey is under bureaucratic control and that prime ministers can’t even exercise their constitutional authority but also appear to be completely unaware of the changes in the democratic world. And so they look for democracy in the wrong places because they don’t understand that politics (thankfully) not only comprises whatever it is that politicians do and that what makes democracy available is beyond this. I would say, “Maybe they are just pretending like they don’t understand,” but I think they really don’t.
