Terror's New Year mask of a thousand and one faces

Turkey was subjected to many terror attacks in 2016. Most of these attacks were carried out by the PKK, some by DEAŞ, and some by FETÖ. In fact, we have reached a level at which it makes very little difference, in terms of the style, type and outcome of the incident, who carried out which attack.

Since all the attacks in the end served the same purpose, the points at which all the terrorist organizations converge become far more important than the points at which they diverge.

That is why we can unite them all under the identity of "terror" without distinguishing the identity of the terrorist organization.

Terror has taken the form of an integral subject, a perpetrator, behind all these forms of action that have emerged.

Terror has turned into a person, the "usual suspect" behind all that is happening.

For Turkey the outcome does not change at all, because

whoever claims the act, and whoever appears to be behind it, the outcome for Turkey is the same. What is targeted is Turkey's being dragged into instability, its perception in the world being damaged, people's trust in one another and in their surroundings being lost, fear being made to prevail in the environment, and so on. Thank God, so far the opposite of whatever they targeted in this respect has come to pass. Because the mind planning the job does not calculate the chemistry of the people of Turkey well enough, and with every action it does nothing but tighten the circle around itself.

One of the most striking things is that these actions no longer have any connection with the ideological discourse, the cause, or the sociology of their visible perpetrators (the organizations).

Today none of the actions the PKK has recently taken on in the big cities or the eastern cities has any connection with the Kurdish question, the cause it claims to pursue. None of the actions it carries out, for the PKK for example, is of the kind that brings it closer to its declared aim. Indeed, every action tears the organization further away from the sociology it rests on. It destroys that sociology.

The same holds for DEAŞ. Every action they carry out harms only Muslims, kills only Muslims, drags only Muslim countries into instability, and from this instability in the end only the enemies of Muslims benefit.

Whatever understanding of Islam they may have, with no understanding of Islam can DEAŞ explain to any Muslim to whose benefit the actions it carries out in Turkey, in France or in Syria are for Muslims.

That is why, when the actions of DEAŞ too have been left without a sociology, all that remains is to question the "terror" subject, which has no meaning left other than to question for whom and for what purpose it works. Who is this "terror of a thousand and one faces," and what is it trying to do?

Who is terror really, which confronts us now with the face of the PKK, now with the face of DEAŞ, now with the face of FETÖ, and what does it target?

When it assassinated the Russian ambassador, it was noteworthy that this terror tried to appear before us with the face of al-Nusra. Evidently a profile convincing enough as Nusra could not be found, and they wanted to carry out this action in haste by putting Nusra make-up on a FETÖ member. When the make-up came off, FETÖ was underneath, but we now know that FETÖ is not the final subject either.

Because FETÖ's actions too are not very commensurate with its own known goals. It is quite obvious that there is a structure that sends it to run to these actions and employs it.

Let us admit that in changing guises and slipping from face to face FETÖ has surpassed all the records known so far.

Its skill in putting one mask over another and giving the desired image to the desired action evidently makes it very useful. That is why it confronts us in many actions. But we now also know that, beyond a point, FETÖ too is a make-up, and who emerges from underneath when that make-up is scraped off.

This time terror struck on New Year's night, at Reina, and took 39 lives.

The person or persons who carried out the action, unlike so far, carried out their action and fled without showing either themselves or their masks. Perhaps they relied on the perception that would arise from the time, the place and the people targeted, chosen as the mask. They relied on these elements providing the action with the necessary mask sufficiently.

Whatever they rely on, sooner or later they will also learn that they cannot get the result they want from these actions on this nation.

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Let no one expect that terror, which failed to reach its goal in the action against the Russian ambassador as an Islamist terrorist, in Kayseri as a Kurdish activist, and in the action against the prosecutor by disguising itself as an Alevi, will reach its goal with the face it has assumed at Reina.

LADY MERAL, CALM DOWN! THE WORKING OF JUSTICE EASES SOCIETY, IT IS THAT SIMPLE

In the days when PKK terror was carrying out its vile actions in Kayseri and Beşiktaş, in an interview I gave to Rudaw TV, which broadcasts in Kurdish in northern Iraq, in my answer to the question of what effect the arrest of the HDP deputies had on society, I said that these deputies were arrested by the courts that are trying them not because of the politics they conducted, but because of the open support they gave to terror, which carries out suicide attacks and takes lives.

Indeed, there was a strong conviction in society that they were openly supporting terror. By attending the funeral of a suicide-attacker terrorist, they were encouraging and confirming these actions, which caused serious outrage among the public. The lifting of their immunities came about through parliament as a response to intense demand from the people. The people, rightly, cannot tolerate the presence in parliament of those who openly support, in word and deed, the acts of terror that hurt them every day.

That is why their coming before the judiciary was a procedure that eased the public conscience somewhat. Had this not been done, serious tensions would have been unavoidable in this environment of terror attacks.

Above all, this is a sociological finding. When the justice system does not intervene as needed against the aggressor, the murderer, the terrorist and does not impose the necessary punishment, the sense of justice is shaken, the conscience of society is wounded, and there is outrage in society.

Since when has stating this been regarded as interference in the judiciary, like complaining to justice about someone who has committed rape but somehow slipped through the hands of the judiciary yet been caught by the public conscience?

HDP deputy Meral Danış Beştaş should stop her propaganda and her pointing of targets like a bad-tempered militant, and learn a little law and a little sociology.

I cannot teach her; it is beyond me.