Unfortunately, when one looks at the half empty glass in times of despair and pessimism, one sees nothing but İstanbul's jungle of traffic full of unprincipled, crafty and selfish drivers of all spheres of life. It strikes and hurts me most when I see people self-declaredly religious and even pious but acting like pupils of the devil. I can understand to a certain extent that when the police are not in close proximity, our animal instincts may cause many people to deviate from the legal path, but it is astonishing to see practicing believers partaking in sinful ways regularly. Humans -- of course -- can sin, but for a religious person to engage in public sins is implausible for me. In such a country, it becomes futile to expect the public authorities, the state, the judiciary and the politicians to act properly, democratically, legally and legitimately.In this postmodern jungle of a country, when behind the wheel, principled becomes unprincipled, honest becomes flimflamming, law-abiding becomes con man, sane becomes insane and God-fearing becomes devil-worshipping. If caught breaking the rules, it is usually not because the police are enthusiastic about enforcing the law, but because they are in need of “soup money,” as they call it in Turkey to present a bribe as an innocent act, employed as a so-called last resort by traffic police compelled by, again, so-called starvation. As if we are not feeding them enough with our taxes every month anyway.
When challenged, I will unfortunately not be able to prove what I have written above. But I assure you that there is not a single adult in this country who will not agree with me. Just ask them off the record. I would not be able to write this in Turkish as it would fall within the ambit of the infamous Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which dictates a prison sentence for insulting the state and its institutions. The establishment generally does not care about what is written in other languages, though I am not sure. But to simultaneously play safe and be fair to the majority of law-abiding officers, let me emphasize that I am writing about the rotten apples. But, oh God, I feel sometimes that there is an innumerable number of them, enough to keep the dictate of the devil's law in force in İstanbul's traffic.
As Islam's prophet unequivocally stated 14 centuries ago, people are ruled as they deserve. If many of us turn into something that we are normally not when behind the wheel in traffic, it is plausible to expect that when behind other wheels in other areas of our lives -- when in positions of power -- our chemistry will change and we will be inclined to abuse our power. Examples? Are they really needed?
Look at our politicians. Yesterday they supported the military's intervention in daily politics because the military was opposing their opponents. But today they cry in unison just because the military supports the decisions of the ruling politicians -- a legal requirement in normal democratic countries (!).
Look at the judiciary. Almost all of their verdicts have been found faulty by the European Court of Human Rights, but they do not budge. They adamantly keep protecting the state against the individual even at the cost of breaking the law. Can you believe that a journalist -- Şamil Tayyar -- was sentenced to conditional imprisonment just because he published a few excerpts from the Ergenekon terrorist organization indictment, which was publicly announced by the Ministry of Justice and which is accessible to everyone as it is on the Internet? What is more, every newspaper in the country has steadily published excerpts from the indictment without facing any punishment as it is not normally a punishable offence. It is obvious that some judges have applied a law -- that does not exist -- only to Mr. Tayyar. Welcome to the Dark Ages. To prevent Mr. Tayyar from appealing and thereby seeking justice, the very same court did not disclose its legal reasoning of the verdict.
No one can convince me that the functioning, fundamentals and mentality of our judiciary are in any way better than İstanbul's traffic. Ah. Of course, I am talking about “a few” rotten apples.
Benzer Haberler 
