Gangs and voluntary self-deceptions

Evaluating the Ergenekon investigation as a revenge move against the AK Party closure case might, at first glance, be met as a thesis to be laughed off by attributing it to a simple "loss of chronological order." Indeed, how could the Ergenekon investigation, which began nine months ago, be considered a response or retaliation to a lawsuit filed just two weeks ago?

When this absurdity, striking at first glance, finds so many supporters, one cannot help but realize that the matter has far more grave dimensions. It is becoming clear that the Ergenekon gang, whose horrific details and proportions are uncovered with each passing day, has far more accomplices and harborers than anticipated.

Everywhere in the world, the media takes a keen interest in information regarding such networks of dirty relations, presses their state or governments to expose these relations, and follows up on the matter. Yet in our country, a significant portion of the media seems to have chosen the path of belittling and dismissing the organization named Ergenekon as "nonsense."

Under normal conditions, one would expect the opposition to follow up on these matters, and governments to show more weakness in pursuing them. Yet, there is a total role confusion in this regard as well: the main opposition party condemned the operation regarding the Ergenekon structure—which the government side risked taking on despite numerous hazards—as a trivial investigation right from the outset.

Is not every unsolved murder, every gang structure left unpursued, one of the most vital opposition topics for a main opposition party? If the main opposition will not pressure the government to pursue any gang structure that has infiltrated society, on what topic will it do any work? Far from feeling even an ounce of curiosity about gangs, Deniz Baykal actually opposes the government's fight against gangs.

"A main opposition party happy to live with gangs, uncomfortable with gangs being pursued." Stop for a moment at this title and think about it… What will you feel?

If we are looking for a topic of consensus, here is a topic of consensus that under normal circumstances in a society would not even be open to debate: Fighting against gangs. Especially when gangs have penetrated as far as state institutions in a society, they represent an actual danger that renders the legal process inoperable, while simultaneously creating an "illusion of law" to ensure their own continuity.

Because gangs usually do not expose themselves easily, fighting them is naturally not easy. But what if they have given major slips, if their murders, their crimes aimed at affecting the fate of the country, and their coup attempts have come to light by chance—would not a main opposition party demand that these allegations be thoroughly pursued?

About two years ago, in a raid on the Council of State, a chamber member was killed. For some reason, nobody expected the government to shed light on the incident; almost everyone perceived the event as an invitation to a protest rally against the government and rushed to protest. According to the information emerging today, the planned impacts and intrigue of the event were actually a far greater crime than the murder itself. Through this murder, the public and the judges were also sought to be deceived. A social segment within the country was sought to be filled with feelings of hatred, malice, enmity, and anger against another social segment. The entire society was taken for a fool.

This "deception" aspect of the event has now been exposed, yet those whose emotions were inflamed to fill the squares because of this incident show not the slightest sign of discomfort. Since it is unthinkable that such a large crowd would knowingly collude with the deceivers, should one assume they enjoyed being deceived?

Why is the Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals so willing, in the indictment he wrote about the AK Party, to be duped by the statements made by Alparslan Arslan in court—statements delivered as if tricking a child—when Arslan's motives for committing the murder were blatantly obvious? The prosecutor's voluntary self-deception—treating the court statement of a killer whose chief characteristic was misleading the public through bombs thrown at Cumhuriyet newspaper, the Council of State murder, and other undertakings as evidence against the AK Party—is truly way too much.

Even more is that the will to pursue gangs cannot become a topic of social consensus in Turkey. Since we cannot agree on such a fundamental issue, we must never refrain from asking what deceptive intention lies behind calls for consensus.