Being thankful for 28 February

If people who have gone through great ordeals and been subjected to oppression, injustice, or certain calamities have not lost their minds because of this, they are likely to live the rest of their lives with greater maturity. Undoubtedly, every experience lived contributes to human development. A single calamity is better than a thousand pieces of advice. If a calamity has not knocked a person down, it has the potential to make them even stronger.

A murder or a massacre may have many positive consequences that later manifest not perhaps directly on the victim, but on the relatives of that victim. In many life stories, there are figures whose paths were cleared and who lived their lives like heroes because a relative fell victim to murder.

All of these are true, but none of them requires desiring calamities, nor does it legitimize the murders or massacres committed. A murder is a murder.

The segments subjected to the February 28 attack drew important lessons for themselves from the results of these attacks and entered the new era by developing a new political style. This style may or may not be liked, but the positive nature of the point reached today from this or that angle does not in any way change the legal, ethical, and qualitative nature of the February 28 process.

Perhaps if February 28 had not occurred, Tayyip Erdoğan would not have become prime minister. Perhaps Erbakan, after his initial successful actions, would have fallen victim to power fatigue and handed over power to others in the next period, never to return. Perhaps in that case, a political movement led by Tayyip Erdoğan would never have achieved this success and come to power alone.

No matter what beneficial results it may have led to, the quality of February 28 as a massacre of law, a character assassination, a moral and political corruption, and an irresponsible waste where many of Turkey's assets were squandered remains unchanged.

Praising a crime just because it had positive results is to be complicit in it. Sanctifying a crime by looking at its consequences can only be evaluated as a perverted pattern of behavior, just as in this example of ours.

My words are of course not aimed at Ertuğrul Özkök, who is renewing his support these days by referring to results he actually never desired. Since he was openly complicit in this process, there is nothing strange about him renewing it, and Fehmi Koru is already reiterating the necessary answer in the best way.

Frankly, as this is a view occasionally voiced among the segments subjected to the February 28 process as well, it deserves a couple of words.

What was targeted in the February 28 process was by no means to create a more reasonable political movement than Erbakan's. What was targeted was to completely deprive a broad social segment of political representation. Looking at every positive image of Tayyip Erdoğan today and turning back to thank February 28 is, at the very least, a disrespect toward the victims of February 28.

It started from a prophecy: If precautions were not taken, this political movement would come to power in the early 2000s. The simple reality of sociology manifested itself. Actions produced exact opposite results, not the intended ones. The prophecy fulfilled itself. This political movement reached the support to come to power alone, perhaps even earlier than feared, precisely because of the precautions taken.

Of course, these are the beneficial results of the February 28 intervention that it never desired. There are also extremely unbeneficial results that we as a nation still suffer from. Two societies that hate each other were created through this process. Applying unwritten law arbitrarily in place of written law was turned into an "untouchable" "custom".

Gürüz university administration, Alemdaroğlu rectorship, Savaş jurisprudence, Özkan journalism, and Sezer presidency were made to fit into the country's mind as something possible. The coarsest behaviors toward women and impolite interventions in people's private lives and attire found a place in our "culture" as a mode of behavior.

Admittedly, the process matured Erdoğan and his community greatly, but it had no positive results for the party that was truly guilty and still powerful. In fact, the community subjected to the process merely learned how to cope with this irrationality, this lack of understanding, and this rudeness. It made concessions and withdrew from many areas at the expense of making the other side consider itself justified.

It chose the path of not provoking this ill-tempered group that had broken off from the chain of reason, and "managing" it as much as possible. Was this also one of the definitions of politics?