Just watching the democracy train go by (on the Internal Security Law)

For several days now, discussions have been taking place in the TBMM on the Internal Security Reform Package. Frankly, it is not quite right to use the word "discussion" for the process continuing in the Assembly. For the performance that the opposition parties in the Assembly are displaying in order to sabotage the deliberation stage presents quite different scenes.

The stance that the CHP would take toward the Reform Package could be more or less predicted after the irresponsible speech that CHP Chairman Kılıçdaroğlu made at the group meeting he held last week. To recall, Kılıçdaroğlu had called on the people to "resist" this legal regulation that the Assembly would enact. How this resistance will take shape is, of course, a matter of curiosity. Would the fuel for the fires to be unleashed onto the streets with Molotov cocktails come from Pennsylvania?

It could not be imagined that the HDP, which feels that it owes its political and social existence to violence, would be pleased with this reform package either. They demand that this violence remain excusable, acceptable and legitimate only as long as it originates from themselves. They want the Molotov cocktail to be accepted as a normal way of expressing themselves. No matter how many people's lives it costs, or how many workplaces it destroys. After all, the Internal Security law contains regulations demanded not by the state but by the people who have been exposed to this violence.

It is a law that protects the rights of ordinary citizens whose lives are darkened because some people want to express themselves. The HDP's distress over this law simply shows its bad faith. While the resolution process is ongoing, it shows what kind of bad faith it is investing in the other side's good faith, even in the middle of this process. That the CHP has made a gift of its existence to the existence of the HDP in this process may seem surprising at first glance, but it is in fact only the outcome of this affair. The CHP's real gift is that it is trying to make a gift of itself to the nonexistence of the AK Parti.

Still, leaving both aside, the stance that the MHP has displayed during the Assembly's debate of the Internal Security Reform Package is a situation beyond strange. Is a politics always full of oddities and contradictions the MHP's fate? What kind of psychology is it the result of that the MHP has also tagged along behind the statements of the CHP and the HDP, whose aim is to prepare the ground for replacing the government by undemocratic means by repeating the Gezi vandalism and the October 6-7 events? This politics cannot be explained without resorting to psychology. For let anyone come forward who can find a gram of reason in it, who can find the slightest consistency and continuity with the MHP's political line.

The Internal Security Reform Package, which cannot be debated in a healthy manner because of the opposition parties' uncompromising and irresponsible stance, is in fact a legislative initiative aimed at ensuring the security of citizens and expanding fundamental rights and freedoms.

The Internal Security Reform Bill, which basically envisages amendments in 5 laws, 21 laws in total, was a need that emerged especially in recent times from the acts of violence organized under the name of meetings and demonstration marches: the threatening of citizens' fundamental rights and freedoms, the endangering of their lives and property, the damaging and burning of buildings, vehicles and goods belonging to the state and to tradesmen, and even these acts sometimes turning into attempts at looting. In addition, regulations concerning synthetic drugs like bonzai, which endanger public safety, were added to the bill in question. In fact, this need is one that has been frequently expressed lately by the people themselves. Leaving the HDP aside, if the other two parties had a gram of political reason, they would listen to the voice of the people this time. But apparently expecting this is, for now, again too much of a luxury.

The atmosphere the opposition is trying to create over this package reflects reality in no way. All of the regulations envisaged by the bill comply with the EU acquis. To say that this regulation is an initiative leading to a police state or causing authoritarianism is an open insult to this country's democracy and democratic past. Because the regulations proposed by this bill are looser than those of many Western countries that call themselves advanced democracies.

Unfortunately, the opposition's objections are not directed at any article or wording of the law. With the uproar being raised, they are trying to seize the title of a democratic resistance against the restriction of freedoms, but meanwhile the loser is society's security and peace.

Moreover, because of this uproar, one of the most important headings in the content of the bill, one that could actually be regarded as a revolution in Turkey's democratization process, is the attachment of the Gendarmerie to the Ministry of Interior. In fact this revolution is a subject over which those who bear even a speck of concern for democratization should be racing one another to claim the honor, and without doubt this is the most important article of the bill.

In its Progress Reports, the EU had been proposing since 1998 that certain legal regulations be made regarding the Gendarmerie and Coast Guard Laws. In addition, the Assembly's Coup and Memorandum Research Commission, established at the proposal of four political parties, had also recommended that the Gendarmerie be attached to the Ministry of Interior in all respects.

Once again a democracy train is passing, and all three parties, who never stop talking about democracy, just stand there staring at that train.