28 February is over, the New Turkey was founded, Hasan Celal Güzel has returned to his Lord

Hasan Celal Güzel, having completed the 73 years of life that Almighty God had allotted him just as he had lived it, has reached the Mercy of the Most Merciful. His funeral prayer was performed yesterday and he was sent off on his eternal journey. At the funeral bier, at the graveside, and in every medium where his death was announced, people bore witness with great assurance that he was a good man.

A great deal was said about him. All the details of his life were remembered and recalled one by one. Those who remembered also saw the last thirty years of Turkey pass before their eyes like a film. They bore witness both to his struggle, his stance, his valor, his manliness and his resolve, and to the unjust, the enemies of democracy, and those who betrayed the nation's trust, against whom he struggled.

For those who remember Hasan Celal Güzel do not merely remember his person; they cannot help remembering also the adversaries who brought him into being. With one difference, though. His adversaries have left no trace. There is no one left who could remember them and speak of them kindly. Just as none of those who hanged Adnan Menderes and his friends has left any trace today.

Indeed, how could one forget Hasan Celal Güzel?

He was engraved in memories, in the days of the most intense disdain a person can be seized by, in the gloomy atmosphere of February 28, when hopes in people were about to vanish, when a pharaonic arrogance, allotting a thousand years of life to its own tyranny, virtually challenged God, with his stance that gave hope, his attitude that dared the challenge, and his faith that marched against the coup like a tank.

Frankly, in those days this stance of his dispelled the winds of despair among the circles subjected to the tyranny of February 28, and made them see the truth that what was happening was transient.

The late Necmettin Erbakan, before the masses whose morale had been shattered by the closure of the Welfare Party, had reminded them of a spiritual truth with these words: "The closure of our party corresponds to a very brief moment within our cause of thousands of years. Our cause is a cause far beyond these mortal times."

How those words revived, in people who had fallen into despair at what was happening, the awareness that these days are days that God rotates among people.

That awareness found a quite different counterpart in the stance of Hasan Celal Güzel, which kept the line of patience and perseverance firmly standing.

Hasan Celal Güzel was an upright man; in his bureaucratic life he showed this uprightness through an extraordinary work performance. While rising to undersecretary at a young age, he added a beauty to this work as well, standing out with his creative projects, his ideas and his way of acting. This difference said that his later path would continue in politics. In politics too he was a different voice, a breath of fresh air. He set a living example that politics can be done not for personal interests but for values. Knowing full well that his name would later be made out to be that of a "sucker," seeing it coming, he continued this line of politics with great happiness. Of course, his story in the Motherland Party formed, in itself, a quite separate cautionary tale about the course, order, and comings and goings of politics.

After this cautionary tale, with the stance that led to his being hosted for a time in Ayaş Prison during the February 28 process, he gave a new dimension to his whole political identity and personality. He received the title "Tank Hasan" then. Ayaş prison had turned into a place of visits for those who supported his stance against the coup and for those who wanted to find support in his stance. I too was among those visitors.

Hasan Celal Güzel's political life, which continued with the New Turkey Party, addressed a longing and expectation for a New Turkey, and declared that it was ready to meet that expectation. But in terms of becoming a mass movement and realizing these goals itself, this political movement did not turn out so brilliant. Perhaps realizing the vision of New Turkey that he outlined was to fall, in a short time, to the AK Party under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

In return, Hasan Celal Güzel's New Turkey stood out not so much as a political party but through the publications he made, the conferences, and his contributions to our political thought like a think tank. At that time another "auspicious" side of Hasan Celal Güzel revealed itself on this occasion: I am speaking of his editorial performance at the New Turkey Journal, which, as far as I can remember, reached issue 99 at the end, each issue in huge volumes.

It was a performance fully worthy of Hasan Celal Güzel's name, style and effectiveness. To the academic environment of our country, accustomed in the end to academic journals of at most a hundred to a hundred and fifty pages, he gave an encyclopedia-like journal, each issue of 600-700 pages, with special dossier topics.

In each issue he personally made contact with nearly a hundred names. If you were caught on Hasan Celal Güzel's phone in the middle of the night, you had no remedy left but to write the article he wanted. I do not remember how many times I was caught, but whenever I was caught I was virtually compelled to write the piece. I can say that in the production of thought in our academic life in recent years, this persistence of his alone has played a role all of its own. Thanks to this, he brought to Turkish intellectual life such huge works as the priceless 5-volume The Republic in Its 75th Year, the 12+5-volume The Ottomans, the 21-volume The Turks, most recently the 4-volume The Islamic World, and of course, alongside these, the 99-volume New Turkey, each of encyclopedic scale.

Though it was thought at first that he could not keep it going for long, the journal publishing that began in the days of February 28 continued until the last moments of his life. Against February 28, New Turkey would of course be more durable and more lasting.

February 28 ended long ago. New Turkey, on the other hand, has been built. In the mortar of this, Hasan Celal Güzel's undisputed share is witnessed by his own New Turkey itself. We too are witnesses; may his abode be paradise. I pray to God for mercy and forgiveness.