The CHP leader embarrasses the Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey

While Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was being received and hosted in the US with the highest-level state protocol, does CHP Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's receiving a dressing-down from the head of the European Parliament group hosting him show the two faces of the same Turkey? Unfortunately it does, but it is not at all possible to say that these two faces are proportionate to each other. Normally, given the leadership performance the prime minister has reached today, those who carry out the main opposition against his party should at least be able to encounter a close level of interest abroad.

Of course, it is not for the leader of the governing party to think about, protect or do what is required for the reputation of the CHP leader. The one who should worry about this is the main opposition party itself. In return for the attention and favor the prime minister has earned in international arenas, the main opposition party needs to be able to produce alternatives of truly the same quality. In theory, this at least is expected. Presumably it is only by this path that it can receive a corresponding attention and favor. Otherwise, of course, the prime minister is not required personally and exclusively to set aside a place for Kılıçdaroğlu in the sphere of influence he has reached.

Truly, just as in the domestic arena a quality, productive, strong opposition is needed for a higher-quality government, in the international arena too, those who look at Turkey expect to see strong alternatives from opposition parties to a government they already find very successful. Seeing a strong alternative to the government would, rest assured, raise Turkey's reputation even more. But an opposition discourse devoid of any trace of reasonableness, which openly distorts facts merely for the sake of opposition, begins to stand out in all its tragicomedy the moment it leaves Turkey's borders. In this state, Turkey's main opposition in fact embarrasses Turkey's governing party before anyone else.

First of all it must be said that the treatment the leader of Turkey's main opposition party met with in Europe is nothing to be glad about, for whatever reason. In the end, the person who is scolded, put in his place and whose eyes someone tries to open to the truth is a Turkish politician, and moreover the leader of the main opposition party. That a Turkish politician should fall into an attitude that requires him to receive a lesson in political etiquette abroad is of course far more painful.

In a Turkey where the main opposition party leader's perception of reality or opposition language wanders at these levels, the emergence of a leader of the caliber of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan may, looked at from outside, be taken for an exception or coincidence. This pulls down considerably the high brand value that Erdoğan has added to Turkey's generally accepted perception in the world. The image that Turkey, thanks to Erdoğan, has given the world for the last ten years is that Turkey's politicians too are of very high quality, trustworthy, dignified and successful. Kılıçdaroğlu's statements comparing Erdoğan with Assad are diametrically opposed to this image. That is why, in trying to sink Erdoğan, Kılıçdaroğlu with those statements sank not only himself but also the image of Turkey's politicians. Perhaps he sacrificed himself merely so that the prime minister would be harmed.

It is worth recalling the answer that psychiatrist and neurologist Mazhar Osman once gave when someone called him "mad": the one where he replied, "your calling me mad means nothing, but if I call you mad, that is the scientific expression of the fact that you are definitely mad." If we adapt it, the reaction of Hannes Swoboda, chair of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, to Kılıçdaroğlu's words about Erdoğan in a way says this too: "The words you say about Erdoğan are of no value, but what the prime minister of Turkey, who has proven his credibility, says about you is more important."

It is very clear that the CHP leader has a problem with his perception of reality; we hope the attitude they met in their Socialist Group will have an effect that awakens them to reality somewhat. But again we fear that the problem is not only about the perception of reality. More precisely, there is an emotional attitude that forces one to perceive reality otherwise. An emotional attitude that leads one to confuse opposing and being hostile very easily.

The CHP and Kılıçdaroğlu are not opposing, they are being hostile. Because they are being hostile, they do not develop an idea, cannot envisage the country as a whole, and do not try to produce reasonable projects and discourses that will work for all the people of the country at the same time. All their political discourse assumes the country is divided into two or more camps sworn to destroy one another. This outlook, therefore, is not based on a strategic vision to take power by a reasonable route on the path of democracy. On the contrary, it focuses only on expressing hostile feelings. The good side of this is that, as it is, it never has any chance of coming to power. But the bad side is that it keeps feeding an enmity within the country that can never be dispelled.

He has not once condemned Assad, whom the whole world knows to be a killer and who is carrying out massacres against his own people without sparing women or children, for what he has done to date. Even in the face of the terror attack, in which 51 of his own people were savagely killed and which was understood to have been planned by Assad, we heard no word of condemnation or criticism toward Assad, but we did hear hostile statements putting the Prime Minister in the same basket as Assad. These statements mean nothing other than an effort to whitewash all of Assad's murders. The country's prime minister is putting everything he has into rousing the conscience of the whole world, stopping the flowing blood, and a human-worthy effort. In his own country he cannot bring the main opposition party, let alone other matters, even to the common denominator of humanity.

What is there to do, in the face of a main opposition that cannot show a human attitude against a savagery in which fascism, genocide and every kind of villainy are displayed, but be ashamed on behalf of Turkey?