The "illusion of innocence" via the Olympics

One of the greatest damages done by the organization that, with December 17, entered a new type of coup in the records of the history of the Republic of Turkey has struck civil society institutions, or the idea of civil society. For years, heaps of debate have been held in Turkey on the concept and phenomenon of civil society.

Considerable distance had been covered in the idea that civil society, which was always viewed with suspicion, need not be something against or opposed to the state. That a strong civil society means not a weaker state but, on the contrary, a state that is even stronger in favor of society was also a theme that had been much worked on.

The structure also called the Community (camia) tried to open up a field of legitimacy for itself mostly through these themes. Truly, as long as it stayed within the bounds of civil society, the field it opened would have been entirely its due. Yet the camia was not content to remain within the bounds of civil society. It moved to rule the political field, and moreover to seize that field in a way that stretched its ethical and legitimacy limits as far as possible.

That being so, its activities in the civil sphere, too, were each attached to that para-political body within the logic of a corporatist division of labor. Taking refuge in the legitimacy of the concept of civil society, exploiting that field, it moved to destroy even the political field. This, in turn, reproduced an irreparable suspicion over civil society.

Within this corporatist understanding, the camia, which laid hands on every field, turned all the data of science, too, into a shallow instrument of service that makes eulogies to the camia and its leader. All the data of sociology, all the depth of philosophy, all the sanctity of theology were employed to the hilt to show how civil, how peaceful, how tolerant, how miraculous, even how wondrous the service movement is.

The columnists in the service of the camia who attribute a mufti to the party must themselves account for how all these fields of knowledge were parceled out wholesale for so cheap a price. In the modern world, surely it is not only theologians who perform the office of mufti.

There is no doubt that the corporatist movement is a movement that, in our age, uses propaganda techniques in the most active manner. Every unit is like a separate propaganda machine. A will that can urge people to double their tweets upon a prophet's advice has turned the whole movement into a complete propaganda machine. The movement has, for some time, allocated all the institutions and means it had so far presented as signs of its civility, its servitude and its communitarianism to activities aimed at smearing the government and the prime minister.

As the propaganda dimension is felt, what is done also loses its credibility. That is why these efforts, which until yesterday had some credibility for better or worse, today produce the opposite effects.

This year, because of their role on December 17, the AK Parti municipalities withheld the support they had been in the habit of giving every year to the Turkish Olympiads, which for ten years had turned at this time every year into an unprecedented show across all of Turkey. Because of this, the Olympiads could not be held in Turkey this year. But there is no ban. They could have held it again with their own means. But they themselves have understood that the Olympiads, which until yesterday presented teaching Turkish to the children of 150 countries as an accomplishment, no longer have any value or meaning in the eyes of society.

They also tried to make half-baked dramas out of being unable to hold the Olympiads in Turkey. The disciples, whose coup attempt has failed and who therefore must answer for it, set upon the Olympiads in a different way to give the impression that what has befallen them is not due to the coup attempt, not due to their betrayal of the trust placed in them, but due to these services.

They are trying to produce an illusion of innocence from the Olympiad shows. Shows in which all the technologies of high lighting, sound and spectacle are used most successfully could hardly better demonstrate the success of distorting reality as a whole.

But the fact that this whole capacity for distorting reality has become impossible to exercise within Turkey's borders is in itself a matter to take lesson from. This show can no longer be held in Turkey, because in Turkey it has nothing left to say to anyone other than those who blindly believe in the camia.

That this structure teaches Turkish excites no one anymore. Had it not been for December 17, perhaps it could have continued to excite. In that case everything that was said could have remained valid. But there is a sincerity that determines the meaning, value and truth content of a word.

Even the most important measure of credibility and authenticity in the words of the prophets is that they demand no fee. If a contribution, a donation, a fee is demanded in return for words worth their weight in gold, the value of that word goes only so far.

Even if you have rendered the greatest service in the world, if in return you have demanded the rule of Turkey in the ugliest way, what value of what you have done are you still going to speak of?

How much can you make up for this value lost through Olympiad illusions?