Çeviriler

A real possibility has finally arisen of reaching some kind of consensus over changing the system so as to get rid of military tutelage. At the very least, there are some indications in that regard. As for those who think they are in some kind of “theatre,” it wouldn’t be too bad if they too were to come down from their imaginary “stage,” and to leave their pride behind in joining the people.

In brief, as against democratically elected leaders or governments that at the same time happen to be religious or who have religious sensitivities, these Western actors prefer to throw in their support behind all kinds of military coups and dictatorships on condition that they are modern and secularist. Compared with the faithful trying their hand at democracy, they see the protection and imposition of a Western lifestyle by military dictatorships as the lesser evil. They deem Muslims intrinsically unfit for democracy, and they outsource the mission of training and educating them to modern, secularist military juntas or dictators.

Trump has never borne the responsibility of elected office. Erdoğan, on the other hand, was first elected to office in the early 1990s, and has continually held public office since 2003, winning election after election by massive margins. Just this one point, with all its underlying corollaries (extending to a purely negative, reactive versus a positive appeal, or to a one-man populism versus a well-organized party, or the question of sustained, demonstrable public trust), is enough to illustrate that Tayyip Erdoğan and Donald Trump are categorically different.

If Mr. Cohen were to pause and consider the implications of his observation that“Turks do not want to go backward,” he might feel misgivings about the rest of his column. After all, it is exactly those same Turks who have repeatedly elected President Erdoğan and the AKP, by large and growing margins, over the past fifteen years. Again, it was exactly those same Turks who turned out en masse on 15th and 16th July to oppose the coup. As they stood against the tanks, were they going backward, do you think, or forward?

Hours after the Turkish government declared a state of emergency, the German Foreign Ministry took the astonishing step of criticizing the Turkish government for the action. Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s comments revealed how ignorant he is about Turkish affairs. Germany’s neighbor France has been under a state of emergency since November 2015, and has just extended that state of emergency for another six months. The German Foreign Ministry has not said anything about that. Then two days later, in a case of grotesque and horrific irony, Germany itself had to declare a state of emergency when an assailant in Munich killed a number of civilians.