A time will come, and what things will happen

As the 28 February operations continue, new information and assessments about the "postmodern coup" that took place 15 years ago are also being spilled out into the open. Actually, do not go by my saying "new information"; no piece of information has yet emerged about that process that was unknown to those who kept their eyes and ears open at the time. But alas, this is the strange side of "information": it is not enough for information to be known by some people; it must also hold the rank of "validity." And this is related to a power that will evaluate that information, claim it and raise it up.

Even in those days there were those who wrote that what was done on 28 February was plainly a crime, and a kind of disgrace to humanity that in a normal state of law would be tried and held to account in the severest way. Those who knew that the blacklisting, the headscarf bans, the coefficient practice, and the relations displayed like a norm in those days between the military, the media, the judiciary and the university could never escape being described as "immoral relations" in normal democratic settings knew it, and were begging for it to be heard, yet still only they themselves could hear what they were saying.

Today we are living exactly that normalization, and we are watching the astonishment of those who were spectators to, or even supporters of, what went on and what was done in those days, saying "oh, they did these things too!" The truth of the matter is that this astonishment may indeed be very genuine. The masses exposed to the ideological-seductive effect of the process could not know the facts so clearly then. Many of them truly did not know where they stood, or where the place they stood was taking them. Heedlessness and misguidance are exactly such a thing: the place and the path people hold are made to appear pleasant to them.

That is why, when the truth prevails, it is quite human for people to see some things differently in the light of that truth. As Yunus said, "a moment comes," and a person enters all sorts of states.

A person is also somewhat afflicted by heedlessness and misguidance, and the 28 February operation was an utterly satanic business that made people lose their minds.

That is why a distinction between those who openly and deliberately took part in the 28 February crime and the collaborators who, even if they took part in some part of that crime, were also in some part its afflicted, is a legal one. In conscience, of course, everyone's debt of accounting should be remembered or reminded in the light of the truth that has emerged today and can no longer be ignored. Many of those who these days warn that this should not turn into a witch hunt are in fact simply describing what they themselves did back then. On the other hand, in the justice process that has only just begun today there is actually not the slightest situation or practice resembling what they did. But it is quite normal that, as they probably see and recall what they did today in the mirror of "justice and truth," the just penalty they assess against it in their own minds frightens them. This is a matter of psychology, and the fear of "vengeance" that God has placed within the guilty is a manifestation of divine justice. There is no need at all to say things that will relieve them of a fear of what they did coming back on their own heads, even if that fear is in fact unfounded.

THE INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS OF 28 FEBRUARY

Meanwhile, none of the information spread out regarding the foreign support for 28 February is new either. Even in those days it was known and written that this affair was supported by some lobbies in Israel and the US. The close ties of the 28 February people with Israel, and the fact that Israel did not like the Refahyol government at all, were plain for all to see. However, in the way these relations are brought up these days and in all the assessments about coups, there are at least two problems, as follows:

1. The emphasis on the international connections of coups somewhat reduces Turkey's illustrious native coup-making elements to the position of helpless executors, which, while serving to exonerate them and even to meet them with understanding, implies casting all the blame and role on international actors. Frankly, this also amounts to a violation of the rights of the native-nationalist coup-makers in these processes.

If you will not say "Are you the one to worry about their rights?", let me underline a drawback of this. For one thing, Turkey has a coup-and-intrigue tradition going back to the Committee of Union and Progress, and this tradition, even when it found no international support, never held back from carrying out its own verdict. This has formed a coup culture strong enough in Turkey's own historical and sociological depths, but even this culture, in order to find a coup climate, needed to have cooked the matter sufficiently and prepared the climate sufficiently.

And the only thing stipulated for preparing the climate was never just foreign support. The social legitimacy of the coup to be carried out was always sought, and where there was no legitimacy in society, no international support could ensure that such a coup would be pulled off. "If before 12 September a strong group had marched in Güvenpark shouting 'No to the coup!'," Kenan Evren himself confessed that even that would have kept them from their coup decisions. Likewise, it was Güven Erkaya, one of the mighty pashas of 28 February, who said "if Erbakan had treated us a little adversely, we would not have been able to do most of what we did."

We have said it before: in 27 April's failure to reach fulfillment as a coup, did only the lack of NATO support play a role, or did the government's counter-declaration of 28 April upset all the coup-makers' calibrations? Yet meetings similar to those held in the US after 28 February, which Cengiz Çandar mentioned, had taken place before 27 April too. In the US too, the neo-Cons were in power that day, and the meeting held at the Hudson Institute, close to them, was just one of another series of meetings, and its only agenda item was how the AK Parti would be removed by the hands of the soldiers. Looking from today, assessments of the suitability of the conjuncture can be made of every kind. But to say that the coup did not happen because the US did not want it shows how quickly those days have been forgotten.

2. Pushing our position a little further from here, we can move on to underlining the second point. The more we focus on the role of the US or international powers in coups, the more we reduce to nothing the share of domestic actors who are human beings, limited and responsible, in flesh and bone, and place only the US at the center of all politics. This constitutes a serious political doctrinal problem. While it is one thing to vilify the US or Israel and to exaggerate their power beyond measure, this exaggeration paralyzes our political and action intentions or our belief. Yet whatever happens, it is necessary to say that when we stand firm, there is nothing anyone can do in this country.