Kılıçdaroğlu has a coup grudge left

CHP chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's outburst characterizing the April 27 e-memorandum as a setup by Erdoğan is not the kind of thing that can be brushed aside as simple political polemic. That he believes such a thing, that some people around him can even believe this claim of his, is also a very good indicator of how politics is perceived and lived in that circle. To be able to see such a plot as possible, one must presumably have been in similar plots, have devised similar ones oneself. So, have there been such grand conspiracies in our political history?

To be honest, today, when it is accepted by everyone that the PKK operates as a terrorist organization fighting against the integrity of Turkey, the fact that the same organization nonetheless grows, with actions carried out almost whenever and however the militarist structure in Turkey wants, shows that such a culture of setups is hardly foreign to Turkey. Moreover, it turns out that the PKK received significant logistical support from the same militarist circles for many of its actions projected as "great successes" or extraordinary threats. Yesterday's report by the newspaper Taraf showed once again how great a share of the alarming shows of strength and body that the PKK has put on recently is due not to its own successes but to the grave negligence of the relevant institutions. Certain people are able to present the PKK to us as an extraordinarily powerful enemy and use its actions as they wish in multi-purpose contexts. Thanks to this, perhaps the last 26 years of Turkish politics have been skillfully managed through perceptions of this actor.

The Danıştay murder is in fact a typical model for such setups. Through this incident, an effect was sought in which long-term and multi-wave impacts on all of politics would be managed. It is no secret what one would be capable of thanks to that setup, had it succeeded. Even if many of us sensed and guessed at this setup, since we would not know its concrete perpetrators, we would have been forced to swallow the order that would arise thanks to this setup.

Kılıçdaroğlu's characterization of the April 27 e-memorandum today as a conspiracy does not, in one respect, seem surprising. Today the e-memorandum is being slandered as a multi-layered crime because it is clear at this point that that memorandum did not produce the desired result. But who guarantees that every crime committed will produce the desired result?

All coup attempts, if they succeed, are profitable for the one who makes them; everyone knows this. When they do not succeed, the stakeholders of the coup sit down and eat one another, and then themselves. This is the best-known typological fact about the history of coups.

Thank God, not enough time has passed since the event for everyone to forget it. Even the reading of the e-statement as a memorandum took place not through the TSK's characterization (Büyükanıt insistently says this is not a memorandum but a statement) but through the officiousness of the CHP members. CHP Deputy Chairman Mustafa Özyürek immediately made a statement: "This is a memorandum and the government must do what is required." If this was a memorandum, then although a memorandum is in essence a crime, it was also being expressed, again by the CHP members, that what the government should do in the face of it was not to resist but to pack up and leave. Yet what needed to be done in the face of the memorandum attempt was done, and the TSK was invited to remain within its own limits.

The development that turned an event that should probably be a subject of "self-criticism" for the CHP members today into a subject of "lamentation" was this. The government resisted the memorandum, did not do what the memorandum would normally require, did not resign, and on top of that grew even stronger by defying it, and thus left a coup grudge within the CHP members.

It appears that, as a result of the incompleteness of this coup attempt, the power and charisma growing day by day around the AK Parti, instead of leading the CHP members to the self-criticism of "where did we go wrong?", has caused a paranoia that again, as a mistake, leads them to think about how strong the other side is.

Truly, this paranoia seems to rest on an understanding whose roots go much deeper. That is the assumption that everything that happens in politics proceeds as the result of plans prepared somewhere. This in fact brings with it, on the one hand, perceiving politics itself as a needless and empty pursuit, because what is to be done in politics is either a proper coup or running the business through intrigues of this kind.

That is why the only thing for which the CHP members can today be called to account is, at most, that a coup could not be carried out with relish. The CHP members or Kılıçdaroğlu must be very angry only because of this.