In the name of Turkey, humanity and sociology

We said Enlightenment, we said scientificity, we said progress, we said modern, that was not enough, so we said postmodern; that the point we have come to, in the name of humanity, after going round and round, has advanced not a barleycorn's length beyond the level of thinking of the most primitive human must be the great tragedy of humanity.

When you look at the reactions people have shown to various events recently, and the performances of thought they display in the name of those reactions, you cannot help getting this impression. Professors who shout slogans at one another can be only a little better than politicians hurling insults.

That people, under the name of political-social analysis, pour out only their simplest feelings, their hatreds or excessive loves, switching to automatic pilot and without sparing even the expressions that show on their faces, is a scene that exhausts hope both for the country and for the future. Thank God, hope in God is never cut off; at the very moment when hope is about to run out, He shows us even these scenes like a separate verse, to make us experience the illuminating difference of truth.

With whatever authority to speak on behalf of the Turkish Medical Association he has been granted, a physician can say, with great ease and without thinking of the consequences, based on no evidence whatsoever and only to express his hatred, that the TSK used chemical weapons. The so-called artist who picks up his emotional words carries the prosecution Fincancı faced for this slander and crime of hatred over to another platform, saying "arrested only for saying peace."

The real addressee and target of these words, which have nothing to do with medicine, peace-loving or art, is clear. Would anyone believe such ravings? Unfortunately, some do. When there are many more who want to believe than who do believe, what we call raving becomes a premeditated, ill-intentioned step of an operation. Facing Türkiye, which is waging the most rightful and most successful fight against terror, are not only armed militants acting with purely ideological motivation. Behind those militants stand, in the full sense of the word, the seven powers, and those powers have no business with truth, rightfulness, right or justice. They are in a war, and they are ready to buy, at a high price and with high esteem, every kind of slander that can be produced about Türkiye, every kind of rumor that would make it lose ground and rightfulness in this war.

Do they not know that no one in Türkiye is arrested merely for saying peace, that no one is subjected to even the slightest prosecution merely for voicing an opinion, that Türkiye is not such a country? They know perfectly well. But the issue is not knowing. What matters is what use this knowledge is in their dirty war against Türkiye, is it not?

Shortly after 17-25 December, at a dinner given for the representatives of the European Union, we too had been invited as the parliamentarians of that period. A journalist attending on behalf of FETÖ said, without any shame and in the English manner, "the moment you post a tweet criticizing Erdoğan in this country, you find yourself in prison." I asked this person, whom I knew and whom I knew to have left no word unsaid against Erdoğan from morning till night, "Excuse me, but what are you doing here right now?" When he reacted with "What do you mean?", I completed my words: "As far as I know, by your own claim I know of no one who has criticized Erdoğan more than you, yet you are not in prison, you are here, how can that be?" But as far as I could see, the European politicians gathered there were hungry enough to pay a high price even for the lie of a "dictatorial Erdoğan" story.

That is how these things are. Sometimes you have expectations such that you could even take off your coat and hand it over for a lie, and in that case, when you see the lie, you do not turn around and look at the truth.

That ordinary politicians should fall for such lies, slogans and superficialities, as they indeed already do more than enough, is one thing; but that someone we know as a professor of sociology should resort to slogans and ready-made clichés even when he is conducting a political debate is a separate cause of shame for the country.

When Prof. Dr. Emre Kongar talks about how those in power polarize people, you would think he is going to make a substantial analysis with his sociological acquis, and, if the government has really created a polarization, show a way to overcome it. Where is it?!

He quotes ready-made sayings that have got stuck on the tongues of political hooligans and become vile rumors on social media, and attributes them to the government. One of the sayings he attributes is among those ascribed to me. Supposedly I said, "Öcalan reads the future of the world very well." Whether I really said it, where I said it, how I said it, in what context I said it, has no importance at all. He feeds very well the feelings in his head, and the comfort of mind and emotion he has built with those feelings. I must have said it, surely. On that social media garbage heap, those garbage words are constantly being rummaged through by troll-hooligans who have no idea what the head they carry on their shoulders is for. Should not Kongar have been somewhat different from these?

Yet I have already told the essence of the story many times before: during the resolution process, the PKK was expected to lay down arms and to leave the country's territory. Öcalan, to bring this about, had made a quite exceptional call, that is, one not expected of him, to the PKK to lay down arms at last, to stop being a tool of Türkiye's enemies, to give up serving them. We only affirmed this call of his. We said that this was a good reading; we never supported either his worldview, or his terror, or his struggle. I can of course say nothing to the troll-hooligans who cut off what came before and after our words and take only this 6-word sentence and put it into circulation. They are hopeless cases. But, I won't lie, a sadness filled me at seeing a sociologist, who has swallowed so much methodological knowledge about information, news and data sources, sink to the point of taking his cues from these troll-hooligans. On behalf of Türkiye, on behalf of humanity, on behalf of sociology.