Who is afraid of criticism, of opposition?

The issue of jailed journalists has, whichever way one looks at it, become a matter worse than rumor. Claims that could be refuted with a very brief and easy inquiry are readily put into circulation, treated as established fact. We have said before how, in Western circles, an orientalist approach has turned into a lustful buyer of this peddler-grade information about Turkey and the AK Parti. Undoubtedly even more decisive is that the native orientalists who feel this lust, in a thoroughly opportunistic spirit, supply the service that will inflame it further and cater to that lust. The result is a rumor we do not know where to take hold of in order to correct it.

The real claim these rumors try to produce or feed is that the AK Parti and the prime minister have been afflicted with a dictator's disease of fearing criticism. So much so that, because the government fears criticism, it immediately has every critical journalist arrested, or else fired from his job, and, because there is so much criticism, shuts down social media tools such as Twitter and YouTube.

In our last column, with a simple inquiry, we laid out the truth of the list of jailed journalists on which Freedom House, too, in its latest report, pounced like a lustful man who has found a bargain. Setting aside that 15 of the names on the list had long since been released, for none of the rest is the reason for detention an article or an idea they wrote. Besides, those who arrested, tried or convicted them are not the AK Parti but none other than the judiciary that they are extolling to the skies these days. Even then, as a list of charges there is a bulky list of crimes, from murder to rape, from theft to robbery, bombing and armed actions of every kind. In this list of crimes there is not a single instance of journalism or ideas, and yet, however they manage it, those who made the list are able to form a "jailed journalists" list out of those who committed all these crimes.

On the other hand, looking at the AK Parti's 13-year history, we have to say that the last accusation that could stick to it is "fearing criticism."

First, if the criticism is constructive, the AK Parti has known how to benefit from it most productively.

Otherwise, we can say with ease that even critiques with destructive intent have played an extremely functional role in the AK Parti's success to date. More plainly, since the day it was founded the AK Parti has never had the support of the mainstream media, and therefore has never owed its success to media support. On the contrary, from the start the mainstream media has not held back from displaying opposition to it of every kind.

In fact, from the standpoint of this media and its criticisms, the reality of Turkey and the AK Parti has always been misread. Take a look, if you like, at this media's predictions and calculations on the eve of each of the last ten elections in retrospect. That a media which has flopped so often in so many cases can still be mainstream is a great puzzle, though undoubtedly this too has its own political-economic dynamics. If one had looked only at Twitter, one could even have inferred that in the last elections the AK Parti would probably fall below thirty percent.

In a way, if the AK Parti owes this media a debt, we acknowledge the contribution made by their incredible attacks and criticisms. They are so far from the reality of Turkey and its people that their attacks bring the people closer to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AK Parti.

Consequently, even if there were no principled reason (and of course there is), from this angle alone it is possible for the AK Parti to see criticisms as a guarantee of the continuation of its own rule.

There is reason and there is sense. Why would Erdoğan think of silencing the opposition? The more they attack, the more both he and his party gain. This has by now become a very clear fact. That some people still have not managed to open their eyes to this situation, which would not escape the attention of anyone who knows the alphabet of Turkey's reality, is a separate reality.

Perhaps this is why they may suppose that Erdoğan and his party fear criticism. Yet there are also those who know the situation and distort the reality openly and knowingly. They can portray even an environment in which they can freely make every kind of criticism of the prime minister and his government, up to the level of insult, in every medium of theirs, as an "environment of pressure on freedom of thought."

Speaking of pressure on thought, the Gülen community, which has been raising this issue so much these days, ought to be the one giving an account.

Taking what has been identified so far into account, around 1500 journalists, academics and politicians are having to testify, over the opinions they have expressed, in exorbitant compensation and criminal cases brought by Gülen.

How these cases will end is unknown, but it is also obvious that this tendency to file so many cases leaves no need for another example of "pressure on freedom of thought and expression." Yet Gülen has a quite powerful and wide media network; he can answer criticisms there as he wishes, his disciples can answer, and they do. But he is not content with that answer, he never neglects to file suits, he has sworn to burn whoever touches him.

As my dear brother Hakan Albayrak, one of the Gülen defendants, has also asked: Gülen, who tolerates no criticism even while at the head of a civil movement, what would he not do, God forbid, if he were also in power?

Now, who is it that fears criticism and opposition?