If a genealogy is to be sought for FETÖ

Six years have passed since the July 15 coup attempt. It is plain as day that the incident, in which 252 of our citizens were martyred and more than two thousand of our citizens were wounded, was an exceptional event in Türkiye's history with many causes and consequences from every angle.

A process that had begun fifty years ago, had it not been for a small mishap, would have dragged Türkiye into an entirely different course; today we would perhaps be in an entirely different Türkiye and, in fact, in an entirely different world. Perhaps some of us would not be breathing the air of that world today, or the roles would have been distributed entirely differently.

Had there not been a small mishap, from some people's point of view, on July 15, had the plans gone as they wished, today not only Türkiye but the world too would have been very different. The Türkiye that disturbs them in the Islamic world they manage and design as they wish, and that still keeps a hope alive among peoples, would have been taken out of the picture. Because the children of certain people in Türkiye would have taken over the affairs, things would have been going smoothly. But a mishap that was not in the calculations turned all the plans upside down.

Have not many events in history that had great effects and consequences, that changed the course of history so to speak, been like this? Looked at with human eyes it is impossible not to see it this way, but for those who believe that above every calculation there is a calculation and above fate another fate, nothing can be explained simply by coincidences. Under the magnificent calculation that governs every particle of the cosmos, not a leaf stirs outside of reason and precaution.

THE ORGANIZATION THAT TOOK ALL THE PARTIES INTO ITS "SERVICE" FOR 50 YEARS

The control that the mind directing the fifty-year process had reached in all of Türkiye's politics, commerce, police, judiciary, army, media and civil society organizations had also awakened in them the delusion that they could carry out whatever operation they wanted whenever they wanted.

Their self-confidence was approaching a kind of claim to divinity, its arrogance and disdain. A Nimrodian arrogance that imagined it could kill whomever it wanted, disgrace whomever it wanted, and resurrect and make respectable whomever it wanted for its plans. They had no need of a touchstone, a book, with which to question the legitimacy or rightness of what they did; the movement they called hizmet (the service) had already become the measure of right and wrong. Everything that benefited the hizmet was right and its appropriateness could not be questioned.

What those who draw a parallel between this movement and the AK Party do not want to remember is that this movement, with the infiltrations it carried out over time from the start or with its system of drawing close, had taken all political parties and movements into its "service."

FETÖ'S OTHER HAS BEEN MİLLÎ GÖRÜŞ FROM THE START

If a genealogy is to be sought for this movement, we can recall that the only movement it made everyone feel it would never in essence ally with was the Millî Görüş movement. Perhaps because of the founding tensions or disagreements of their early days, perhaps because of personal incompatibilities between them, the other of this movement was Millî Görüş. In the political climate of the seventies, FETÖ had openly aggressive criticisms of Erbakan, and never gave support to his political movement. On the contrary, it supported his opponents, the center-right or left parties.

On February 28, it did not even refrain from taking its place alongside the coup alliance against the Refahyol government, even though that government was in power. The facts about what role it played in the manipulation at many stages of that coup came to light later. It is also now known that those who played the leading roles in the police and media legs of the famous Ali Kalkancı, Müslüm Gündüz and Fadime Şahin incidents were among those later arrested and convicted for FETÖ.

Despite this, the movement's appearing together with the AK Party for a while was also largely a result of FETÖ's fifty-year inclination to draw close to those in power. A team from within the Millî Görüş movement, which it saw as its other, had come to power though it never wanted this; after a cautious approach at first, its putting into effect a plan of total takeover was a manifestation of the strategic mind it had followed from the start. Its drawing close to the AK Party in the early period was entirely because it had been left without options in the political situation. The AK Party stayed in power alone with a success unparalleled in history, and it did not seem possible to overthrow it quickly by political means or intrigues. Yet FETÖ had business that needed to be conducted with the government and was dependent on the AK Party, but, as always, it would look for ways to turn this dependence into the highest gain.

THOSE WHO FELL INTO THE TRAP THEY SET THEMSELVES ASK, WHO SET THE TRAP?

However, it was inevitable that insincerity, ulterior motives, hidden agendas and calculations would soon lead to conflict. In fact the first open tensions began with Davos and then the Mavi Marmara incident. Later, the games played after the 2010 referendum began to give signs about the intentions of the structure. From the hour on February 7 when the MİT Undersecretary was summoned to testify, the President began to voice the thesis that would strike the structure at its most sensitive spot: the matter of the dershanes (prep schools).

This issue in fact also showed that the analysis of the structure as a whole had been done in the best way. Because the dershanes were the structure's source of both money and manpower, and this pointed to a 50-year institutionalized accumulation. Erdoğan, for the first time, had the courage to touch a structure that no political party had dared to touch until now, and which, had any touched it, would not have had the political lifespan to survive. Thanks to that brave heart, Türkiye entered the path of being cleansed of a structure that had wrapped itself around the country like a gangrene for fifty years.

Getting rid of a structure that had metastasized naturally was not at all easy, it was very painful, but the insolent and arrogant reactions that FETÖ itself gave made the job relatively easier.

The coup attempt it launched on July 15, and which was stopped by the grace of God and the noble stand of this nation's brave heart, also paved the way for a more lasting reckoning.

Thus, over those who set traps, those who met the predestined trap of our exalted Lord were bewildered at what had befallen them and saw the things they themselves had done and that tangled around their feet as a trap set for them.

Yet whatever happened was nothing other than what they had done to themselves.