What did Ümit Özdağ do?

When I heard that Ümit Özdağ had been taken into custody on charges of insulting the President, frankly I could hardly believe my ears. Here is a man who, through years of provocations, incitements and hate crimes he has committed, has brought the country to the brink of civil war several times; he should have been held to account long before, and far more urgently, for all of this. Was it to be only insulting the President that would bring him before a judge? Insulting the President would at most be the icing on the cake of everything he has done, but what Ümit Özdağ has done up to now amounts to grave offenses falling under many articles of the Turkish Penal Code.

Thank God it was soon announced that this statement was not the grounds for his detention or subsequent arrest, and that the real reason concerned precisely the crimes that should have been addressed, though very belatedly.

Inciting the public to rancor and hatred, setting them against one another, dividing the country, disturbing stability by causing unrest in society, slandering for that purpose, producing and spreading false news, violating people's personal rights, discrediting them, undermining the economy by these means, destroying Türkiye's national and spiritual values, damaging the country's reputation abroad, stoking racist hatred, trying to start a civil war in the country, and so on. Özdağ had made a great many statements and taken a great many actions that fall within all of these offenses. So much so that his aggressiveness had by now come to threaten Türkiye's national security and social peace.

In Altındağ, Ankara, a few years ago, crowds he had stirred up under the pretext of a criminal case attacked the neighborhoods where Syrians lived, causing many homes, workplaces and cars to be set on fire and many Syrians to be subjected to violence. Thank God that in those days the Syrian refugees acted with great common sense; despite all the provocations they were patient and did not retaliate, and the events could be stopped before reaching far more terrible levels.

The archive of tweets he posted to stir up people's racist feelings against Syrians shows by itself what a great provocateur we are dealing with. The archives are there.

The great provocation prepared days in advance in Kayseri was no different from the provocations the PKK carried out on October 6-8, 2014, using Kobani as a pretext. In Kayseri, days beforehand, the workplaces and homes of Syrians were being marked, people were being profiled and singled out as targets, and once again we saw Ümit Özdağ and the ringleaders of his party in the leading roles. With a movement suddenly set off by a wholly fabricated and carefully worked-up provocative report, the homes and workplaces of many Syrians were set on fire within a short time, and people were beaten.

The hospitality Türkiye has shown to Syrian refugees since 2011 is a praiseworthy character in keeping with the faith, customs and traditions of the Muslim Turkish people. Through this, Türkiye distinguished itself and stood out among all countries in the world on humanitarian matters. Though this was not an area Türkiye regarded as an investment, and its approach was entirely humane, it also reaped its very positive political yield once things settled in Syria.

In the reshaped Syria, Türkiye today stands among all the countries of the world with its head held high, as the country with the most say in shaping Syria's future. This is largely a result of this refugee policy, which Türkiye pursued as a national policy. Ümit Özdağ and his followers, on the other hand, were always after sabotage that would undermine this national policy of Türkiye and, on the contrary, keep Türkiye from having a say in the region.

In other words, in every case they acted on behalf of circles that harm Türkiye and are hostile to Türkiye. It is not at all surprising that they did this in the name of Turkism. Like all who have betrayed Türkiye, they took refuge behind a sacred thing, a value, an acceptable identity. Otherwise everyone knows that neither he nor those acting in this way had anything to do with being Turkish. For the British-guided imperialist ideology that split a great empire spread across three continents and squeezed it into Anatolia, Turkism had also been the most suitable apparatus. And through its complementary counterpart, Arabism, they squeezed this noble nation into Anatolia. As for the lands they had us belittle as "Arab deserts," the British, the French, and later the Americans, who were not as clever as we are, went and settled there.

After teaching us this foolishness, they exploited to the hilt all the riches and geopolitical possibilities of the lands where they settled. Of course they were stupid; they had not had, and still have not had, the enlightenment we had beforehand: "What business do we have in the Arab deserts, why should we have our soldiers languish there?" This foolish enlightenment suits us. What are radical racists like Ümit Özdağ for, then? With their hysterical, furious indoctrination they shine the necessary spotlights right into the eyes of those who have not had this enlightenment.

But even a modicum of intelligence immediately sees that this kind of racism harms the Turks first of all in Türkiye, that it diminishes Türkiye and renders it incapable of governing, that it spoils social peace and paralyzes all the senses of the nation.

The claim that, with the reckless and aggressive racism Ümit Özdağ has displayed so far, he represents the feelings and thoughts of a certain segment already present in society, and that if it were not he, someone else would emerge to court those segments, is an empty one. The political stage, like many markets, is a field where every kind of goods and discourse can build a customer base by seducing people through good marketing and advertising. Some ideas, not even ideas but animal feelings, are marketed on the political stage, and placing restrictions on this is the right, and indeed the duty, of every healthy democracy. People may be racist, but their freedom of expression for this racism cannot extend to the point of violating the rights of others.

The racist hate speech that Özdağ markets, if not checked, can seduce people by appealing to animal feelings. Because it is aggressive in essence and stokes hatred, its being left free is a danger to any healthy society. It is the most natural course for Türkiye, as state, nation and society, to try to deal with such dangers through its self-protective reflex. It is unthinkable that no measure be taken against provocateurs who have openly declared their intention to sabotage the delicate path that has been followed for years especially in establishing the country's own internal peace.