When we have no consensus even against coups

Whether retired Chief of the General Staff İlker Başbuğ should be tried under arrest or not, before the Supreme Tribunal or an ordinary court, is being debated. But no one is any longer debating whether someone who rose to the level of chief of the general staff can be tried for the crimes attributed to him. This can be regarded as a sign that we have drawn ever closer to the ideal of the rule of law and equality, and that this has become sufficiently familiar to everyone.

Still, I would say let us not let our guard down.

Even though there are sacks full of documents, when people are asked their opinions about any case, we have a public that, without bothering to look at either the documents or the content of the case, rattles off its "positive" or "negative" opinion in one breath.

Beyond a certain point the content and seriousness of the cases may not matter. What is called "public opinion" looks at many events not with reason, documents, patience, conscience or care, but entirely with a state of mind, superficially, by hearsay, in haste and with prejudice. That is why, in order to influence the reality called public opinion, many people put forward rumor instead of documents, consider it enough to look or to show from afar rather than close up, and thus manage to draw eyes away from the details and to present the facts as they wish through a sleight of hand.

It is possible to act as though all those coups had not been carried out, as though no coup tradition had formed with so many successful attempts, as though there were no "crazy Turks" who might even now attempt one, as though we had never lived through the 28 Februaries, the 27 Aprils, the Council of State murder, the bombing of the Cumhuriyet newspaper, the killing of Hrant Dink, Dağlıca, Aktütün, Anafartalar, and to treat all these trials as a joke. All of them simply lean back in a comfortable armchair, twist their mouths to one side as if making a simple film review, and set about saying, and being able to say, "oh come on, these cases are political!" Against that indifference no evidence and no argument can be persuasive. And do they not also speak on behalf of the whole "public"? One would think the entire public were as well-versed in every detail of the cases as a judge.

Yet this indifference, which captures positions so easily in the face of these trials, shows how serious the ongoing cases are. It shows that a common sensibility, a consensus against coups, has still not formed in society. It is evident that hundreds of people, whichever way you look at it, worked in the organization of a Council of State murder, in the destruction of evidence, in steering the psychological atmosphere after the murder.

This is incredible. Hundreds of people in Turkey can take part in an intrigue with such hostile feelings toward a segment of the people, one moreover that cost innocent people their lives, and today we have not been able to obtain from anyone either an apology, or a confrontation, or a confession about all this action.

All the facts about the incident are being brought to light by assessing the material evidence, of which only remnants remain, despite systematic attempts to cover it up, and despite having to split hairs. No one involved in the incident turns a hair, and this does not make some members of the pen-wielding fraternity think at all, yet they can still say with ease that the Ergenekon case has dragged on too long and that the case is increasingly turning into a political settling of scores.

Well, what is to be done about this organized job carried out with the participation of these hundreds of people? Since no repentance has yet been shown for such deeds, it means that such deeds can continue to be done. If in a country one can organize such deeds and then continue to exist without letting a hair be touched, how can one speak of living there in safety?

How many people in this case should be arrested is an entirely separate matter. Indeed, both from the standpoint of the management of perception and emotion, and of course also in terms of "justice", it has increasingly become unavoidable to take up this matter urgently.

In fact, in a case that has had to touch so many people, taking the matter beyond a certain point to a "reconciliation" (helalleşme) could even be considered. For what must be observed is certainly not to be revenge or a rematch. But even to be able to consider this, those who have become accustomed to the coup, who regard the coup as normal, who have deemed certain cruelties fit for certain people and may do so in the future, need to change their understanding so that what has been done so far will not be done again. Yet there is still no common sensibility against the coup and against all the preparatory operations related to it. There are still those who ignore an organized job like the Council of State murder, and still those who see the trial of coup-makers as cruelty to innocent people.

That Başbuğ will be tried in this or that court is a very secondary problem, but evidently the Supreme Tribunal route is also being thought of, in part, as a way out for all of the Ergenekon, Sledgehammer (Balyoz) and other cases. For various reasons, of course.