What is even graver than corruption

Let us begin by repeating what we have said before. This is an ongoing case, it has moved to the judicial stage, and although there seems to be enough evidence, and tons of accusations, to have convinced nearly everyone many times over before the judicial stage, the way must not be closed for the accused to clear themselves. Because acquittal is presumed and the principle of innocence is fundamental.

That is fine, but even before the matter moved to the judicial stage there were actions, confessions and evidence exposed almost at the level of flagrante delicto, and in today's world, whether we like it or not, the judiciary operates openly to public participation. Moreover, even before the judicial stage there were strange actions, relationships and offenses that had been rumored or turned into news. In the name of the presumption of innocence, the public's reaction to these cannot be blocked either.

Even at this level, what we have learned, the relationships and dealings laid out before our eyes, are enough to show that a very serious network of corruption is at issue. Not one or two instances of corruption; it is as if an entire network of relationships had been set up to organize a corrupt sharing with no legal basis whatsoever. Moreover, this network of relationships and corruption was not uncovered by very fine intelligence, snooping or suffocating audits. It burst out by itself, perhaps from overloading, perhaps from a fight over the shares, or perhaps from a revolt of the virtuous within it. Besides, everyone knows and says this. Media figures close to the CHP say it at every opportunity. That is, all that falls to the judiciary is not to turn a blind eye to the reports made. It is that kind of corruption case.

In fact, the objection and revolt from within the CHP against these corruption cases should be welcomed with great appreciation. It shows that within the CHP too there is serious discomfort with corruption having corrupted an entire network of relationships on this scale, that not everything is lost in the name of morality, and that right, law and justice are being heeded. But what is grave for the CHP is that, with the revolt begun by these names, the party's mainstream, which should have turned toward the axis of fairness and justice, instead proceeds with great ambition in a direction that owns the corruption and launders it by blaming the government for the operation.

For whose cause are the masses, who gathered first for days in Saraçhane Square and then at the Maltepe rally, to support a mayor investigated over grave corruption charges backed by evidence at the level of flagrante delicto, fighting, or being made to fight? We hear from none of them a statement that the charges against the Mayor or his associates are baseless or fabricated. At best these charges are brushed aside wholesale as "fabricated," and then the judiciary that goes after them is lambasted as "the government's club." Let us set that aside. The real viewpoint is confessed by everyone in all the interviews in this way: "So what? Doesn't the government steal too?" or "Is it only these people who stole?" or "Let the government first account for the 128 billion dollars."

These statements are the most frequent defenses that the masses gathered in the squares to defend İmamoğlu, in solidarity with him, can cling to. That is, those who rushed to the square, or were rushed there, have in fact already accepted the charge of theft. But they say that it should now be accepted as normal, and that what they had heard earlier about others should give rise to a right for themselves as well.

What could be worse than this for a country? This is a very grave result concerning how the CHP's opposition, conducted for years on corruption allegations and rhetoric, has educated its own base. While opposing corruption, instead of instilling in its own base the virtue of opposing corruption in essence, it appears to have promised it as an economic and sharing norm. That is, it creates an expectation that when it itself comes to power it will do far more than all the corruption it claims the current government has done. Yet of course the most legitimate, even dutiful, form of opposition is oversight and holding to account against corruption. But when corruption rhetoric extends to slander, exaggeration and fabrication, we see very clearly today that it has the result of morally preparing its own base for corruption. And what is graver than corruption itself, of course, is the adoption of this corruption as a norm.

This is where an opposition rhetoric that fails to see all the services rendered, the revolutionary development drives, the massive investments and services in transportation, health, education, housing, urbanization, the defense industry and technology, and focuses only on corruption allegations, will bring its own base. Imagining power to consist of the opportunity for corruption, and displaying a mind-boggling performance of corruption in even the smallest unit of power it has captured. Moreover, mobilizing its entire base and gathering them in the squares against the operations carried out against this, as if an attack had been made on its most natural right.

Do the masses the CHP gathers in the square ever turn around and ask what the CHP has secured and achieved with these rallies today, and what it is promising for Turkey? What kind of mass have they created for themselves? A mass that sees corruption as a norm and regards it as a right for themselves too. With this mindset, what does it promise to compete over with an AK Party that has for years made the country leap ages in the level of development? Is this moral level, this politics, fitting for Turkey?

See the divine decree: on the very day they rushed into the streets to defend their so-called presidential candidate, arrested for corruption, in France Marine Le Pen, the strongest candidate for the Presidency in the 2017 election as well, was found guilty by the judiciary of embezzling public funds, sentenced to a heavy penalty, and knocked out of the race with a single file, a single move. The accusation against Le Pen is so simple that it cannot be compared to the corruption at the IBB: using a fund received from the EU to pay the salary of an assistant she employed herself.

And no one poured into the streets in solidarity with Le Pen, who received a sentence for corruption. No one accused Macron of sidelining his rival by using the judiciary. Moreover, this contradiction was slapped like a slap in the face against those European circles that criticized Erdoğan over this event. Would this slap, one wonders, caress the cheeks of our own?