The "Dispirited Turks" syndrome

“Truth always needs two witnesses. The first is me. Be the second… Or else they will call me mad.”

We previously characterized the lawsuit filed against the AK Party as a "suicide attack by the Crazy Turks." It is truly a sad state of affairs that a certain ultranationalist ideology cannot attribute a better virtue to the people of the 85-year-old Republic to describe them. But what is sadder than this is the fact that this virtue has increasingly turned into a dangerous model behavior motivating a specific segment. Still, this is not the only model of behavior we are suffering from today.

The title of Bülent Akyürek's latest book, which he signed and gave to me at Vadi Bookstore in Ankara, names the state of mind, rhetoric, recommendations, and attitude-behavior model that enveloped the atmosphere right after the closure case in the best possible way: “The Discouraged Turks.”

No, Akyürek's book is of course not about the attempt to close the AK Party or the reactions shown against it. But these days, it could easily serve as a name for a syndrome that certain circles have been experiencing following the closure lawsuit.

Is the greatest source of courage for those who brazenly and unprincipledly adopt madness as the style of a strategy to grab power through faits accomplis anything other than the despondency that will form in the target audiences?

However, what actually caused these mad sorties—which risk defying reason and every problem of legitimacy—is nothing other than sheer helplessness. The truth is that the legitimate political space for those who cannot stomach the current political situation under any circumstances has narrowed immensely. They possess no legitimate, easily tolerable instruments that they can use within the political process. The judiciary is an arena in a country that should never even be thought of as a tool in political fights in favor of one party. When this is resorted to, the very chemistry that makes a nation a nation has been tampered with.

How right is Şükrü Karaca when he states, in his interview reflecting on his closely witnessed experiences of February 28 (Milliyet, March 31, 2008), that it is impossible to reason or take measures against coups by looking at constitutions. Does a coup plotter recognize a constitution?

In fact, the very idea of a coup is not something that would enter the mind of a healthy person. A coup is a form of perversion, and like other crimes, it has a psychiatric aspect. Ambition, greed, covetousness, setting eyes on what one does not deserve, jealousy, but sometimes also futile melancholic struggles to escape from helplessness… There you have the psychology of coup-mongering and madness. How many healthy people are there who attempt a coup?

It is clear that constitutional texts are no cure against crazy coup plotters, but considering compromise with coup plotters is also a simple intimidation tactic, and this does nothing but whet the appetite of the coup plotters even further. For let us not forget, a coup is a disease, and its nourishment is the despondency of the government or the people subjected to the coup.

Viewing a coup as if it were the most natural right and blaming the AK Party for failing to appeal sufficiently to the desires of those exercising this right is unfair to reason and conscience. Yet what is contrary to reason is being presented these days increasingly as if it were normal logic. They want to push the AK Party into a complete “Discouraged Turks syndrome.” However, this despondency syndrome is the sole guarantee of crazy coup plotters.

Politics offers an unlimited domain of possibilities only to those who know how to practice it. These possibilities are primarily related to style and healthy emotional attitudes. The AK Party, especially in the person of its leader, has so far successfully captured this horizon of politics that inspires solutions in every situation, and has seized opportunities for breakthroughs through its unique style from the most dead-end points. Ultimately, if this despondency is the only recourse for the helpless madmen who risk using the judiciary as an instrument, the breakthroughs that will make them give up are not far away—they lie within this style and this heart.

Bülent Akyürek is one of Turkey's most important underground writers and critics.

He is not among those who try to make readers pay for his fine literature by imposing unbearable political sermons upon them..

He avoids surrendering to despondency just as he avoids giving credit to madness, doing so by applying a very sweet sense of irony.

Irony is a powerful medicine against the syndromes of madness and despondency. Take it too. It will do you good.