A "light test" for democratic sensitivity

The outrage caused by the Twitter message, containing the phrase "The lights are on," that Constitutional Court member Engin Yıldırım posted last Tuesday night is, in my view, a very important data point for the level of democratic consciousness in Turkey.

What the message means and whether the person who sent it meant it that way is a debate that needs to be addressed separately, which everyone in any case chose to focus on in this affair. That almost no one had any hesitation about what a two-word expression "implied" revealed one of those rare cases in which a metaphor exceeds its metaphorical nature and rises to the level of ordinary language. Yet the person who sent the message, that is, the owner of the text, said he had no such meaning or intention. Evidently, in Turkey, only the person who uses a language that everyone agrees on, knows and uses remains a stranger to it.

Yet what causes an ambiguity in the semantic content of the phrase "The lights are on," what makes it function as a metaphor, that is, carry it to a meaning other than its literal one, is none other than the identity of the person using the expression.

The Constitutional Court is one of the strongest institutions of tutelage in our democratic history, established after the 27 May coup in order to make the tutelage of the coup-makers permanent.

On the lips of a member of this institution, in this context, this phrase absolutely ceases to be a statement simply indicating, in any setting or context, that the lights are really on.

In this case, it does not save the sender of the message to resort to the literal meaning of the words. If he does not know the metaphorical implication of the words, he is telling us that he is very far from Turkey's years of democratic history, experience and context regarding it, which is possible. In that case we would have to dwell on the gravity of someone at such a distance serving in Turkey's highest constitutional institution.

Anyway. In my view, the outrage the society showed at this statement has made it possible to evaluate this incident as a test of democratic sensitivity. On 15 July, the Turkish people gave the necessary answer to the real coup attempt they were subjected to, successfully repelled the coup, and showed friend and foe their democratic health and vigor.

In the time that has passed, on this occasion the opportunity has arisen to see and show that this sensitivity has not diminished at all.

We now find the debate over whether a coup can happen in Turkey or not unnecessary. For there have been countless coup attempts at the times we thought it least likely. All the analyses that there is no suitable environment for a coup are valid for people who are sound of mind, free of conscience, and in possession of their reason.

It must not be forgotten that the minds of coup-makers work differently. Their minds are not in the right place. They look at the world from another place, with another conscience, with another eye.

A normal person does not bring an elephant into a china shop, but coup-makers have no care to consider and distinguish whether the place they are entering is a china shop or the top of a mountain. They do not think, "What will others say? Will the world accept this?" At the very least, they have a world different from the one you take into consideration.

That is why, against coups, one must not trust the mind, conscience and sense of realism of the coup-makers, nor the untouchable orderliness of the world we live in. Whatever motivates criminals to their crimes, their minds are locked on that.

The only thing we can trust against them is nothing other than the broad collective sensitivity that people will display against this crime of coup.

What will decide whether there will be a coup in Turkey is not whether the USA, NATO or the EU has a wish or a permission in this matter, whether the coup-makers are realistic, or whether the coup-makers have the capacity to bear the economic burden of this business.

The only thing that will protect society against a coup is the society's possessing this sensitivity sufficiently and having the strength to repel coups when the time comes.

The test that took place on the occasion of the Constitutional Court member's "the lights are on" statement has shown that whoever touches the democracy of the Turkish people will get burned.