Turkish Forum

Category: Edgar Sar

  • Not taking the Oath is already taking an Oath

    Not taking the Oath is already taking an Oath

    The Turkish Grand National Assembly (the TBMM) with its new members opened with novel crisis in the Turkish political history. Unfortunately the crisis, in brief, reflects the weakness of Turkish democracy due to which unelected deputies can proudly take the oath as “legal representatives (?)”, whereas popularly elected real deputies are even not allowed to have the freedom to come to the TBMM. So consequently, we see two major opposition parties declining to take the oath as a reaction to these anti-democratic occurrences.

    Of course the situations of both opposition parties are different from one another in terms of both the problem they have been confronted by and the way to react against it. However, it’s undoubted that they are right in their attitudes towards the anti-democratic attacks against their members. What seems to be much more anti-democratic is that instead of resolving ones, provoking and heating steps have been made by the majority-party or the AKP. The deputies-chairman of the AKP have brought up every probable precaution that would prevent these opposition parties from continuing their democratic struggles.

    One should never forget the fact that in this sense the attitudes of these opposition parties not to take the oath are already taking an oath, which is made for the sake of real democracy and “national-popular will” as opposed to the general belief associating the loyalty to the will of nation with a formal “oath”.

    I never want that my support for the attitudes of opposition parties is taken to contain partisan biases or anarchic feelings by my readers especially my dear colleagues believing that this attitude could reduce the power of the opposition parties in the parliament. That’s why I preferred to explain my support. First of all one should accept that democratic societies are to recognize the “supremacy of law” which highlights that no public or private activity can be against legal provisions. So I, since I identify myself as a “real democrat”, am also not against any judicial investigation, as far as it’s in line with the universal human rights. However, here we see all the accused are the AKP-opponents who have been imprisoned by highly politicized judicial activities such as the insist on imprisoning despite the inexistence of evidences, inhuman duration of detention, usage of unreal and irrationally “made” evidences, etc.   So these lawless implementations are leading us to have no doubt that this is a politically prejudicial operation conducted by the AKP rather than a rightful judicial investigation conducted by independent judiciary. Simply in order to react this, some of the accused people were proposed as candidates and they were elected. So nobody can take their inalienable right of being popularly elected.
    Another group of commentators and even some of the CHP-electorate claimed that the best way of struggling against this would be the parliamentary struggle. I think this is a simple parliamentary-conservative point of view. Why then? Because everyone knows that the parliamentary struggle provides a single way which I believe is definitely a vicious circle: initiating bills which have always been tried by the opposition parties and rejected by the ruling parties.

    So I believe Turkey, if it demands more democracy, should react anti-democratic activities in non-conservative and a bit more radical ways, because democracy is the only thing ensuring people’s freedom. So in order to manage this reaction process, one should first gain consciousness enabling to see the realities. I think, the Republican People’s Party (the CHP) acted in line with this, which I hope will contribute future change in peoples mind [towards consciousness]. For this, the CHP ought to express its view to the people in the right way. In this process, the consistency is also of a great significance. If you took the oath of democracy, you should be consistent in your belief in democracy, even if no one tends to support you. “Do what you think is right, do it not for the sake of someone but for the sake of the right”


    Edgar ŞAR

    [email protected]

  • Turkish President to infract Neutrality…

    Turkish President to infract Neutrality…

    cumhurbaskani abdullah gul1As you all know, in parliamentary systems of government, the Presidents, as Head of State, stand for the state, which charges them the obligation to reflect neutrality, no matter whether they are from a political party out of the parliament. In Turkey, additionally, the President is supposed to stand for the republic and, thus, the “people of Turkey”, which enforces him to be neutral as an ethical and moral task.

    The mentioned neutrality that should supposedly be considered by Presidents is of a greater importance especially in times of elections. Although the neutrality in state issues could not be properly observed throughout his presidency which is evident in the activities that he has carried out in his office so far: The immediate and absolute ratification of the government decrees and draft bills, the way of appointing university rectors, the expressions absolutely in line with those of government etc., one expected a clear attitude of neutrality from the President at least in the course of the general elections. This he pretended to show by declaring that he would not make official state visits within Turkey until the end of the elections. This can be taken to be an appreciable attitude; however, in his official visit in Poland, he transgressed the rule of neutrality more than once.

    When he was asked about the questions concerning the “freedom of thought” and “freedom of press” in Turkey by referring to the journalists and authors under arrest, he reacted just like a judge saying: “those people were not arrested due to their writings, but due to what they have done as the members of illegal terrorist organizations”. It is a pity that Turkish President could clearly explain his prejudices about uncompleted case in which nobody is either guilty or innocent yet, as the universal rule of “presumption of innocence” envisages. This saying conspicuously showed the prejudices in background coated by the pretensions of so-called neutrality.
    A second infraction of neutrality was in the course of the interview with the journalists, in which President Gul claimed to know that some MPs were threatened by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) not to participate in elections of President in the parliament in 2007. Although the ones, claimed to do that denied the allegations, the agenda-setting mechanism of the power functions very well. It is another pity that Turkish politics
    was thought to need to be interfered at the level of President, when we are five days away from the general elections.     I think the subjects of the story are consoling themselves by saying “anything goes in politics”.

    While saying these all, President Gul should have considered the peace and the safety of the election-process in Turkey which is psychologically a necessity with the sense of duty. Therefore I wish for President Gul to be more neutral, to reflect the will of the whole people regardless of any social cleavage and division. It is an ethical responsibility while standing for the “people”.

    I expect the elections will bring people more hope and not more despair… I hope people will decide in its own favour…
    Edgar ŞAR

    [email protected]

  • Wikileaks Story: The Legitimization of the Status-quo

    Wikileaks Story: The Legitimization of the Status-quo

    The 29 September 2010 will be remembered as a day on which the status-quo in the world politics became upside down. Wikileaks, as an international organization which identifies its duty as “opening governments”, published documents of varying “secrecy degrees” from US-Embassies. From that day on the content of the documents has strictly been discussed; some were verified, some were refused. So what has Wikileaks done? What will happen now? These questions are not to be easily answered.

    Before answering these questions, it’s beneficial to clarify certain points: First of all, Wikileaks identifies itself as an “international non-profit media” organization and has herewith an “ethical duty” in the international politics. This is more clearly to be understood out of its slogan: “We open governments”. In the light of this duty, they never declassify their sources and do not publish the documents before being completely sure about its verification.

    For an organization that has such a big mission, the existence of 3 guarantees is indispensible:

    1. Legal Guarantee: This they have from the Swedish laws. The Swedish Constitution is giving all kind of information providers total legal protection. Moreover, it’s forbidden according to Swedish law for any administrative authority to make inquiries about the sources of any type of information.
    2. Economic Guarantee: Wikileaks, which is claimed to have no revenues except donates has almost 800 volunteers around the world. These claims create an economic-dilemma for an organization which is claimed to have yearly €200.000 expenses. However, undoubtedly the amount of its donators should be worthy to the greatness of the duty it accomplishes.
    3.  Institutional Structure: Wikileaks is hosted by a Swedish company called PQR. Actually the power it obtains is based on this powerful institutional structure. In this manner, Wikileaks is able to use a military-grade encryption and such a high-qualified protection.

     From these classifications only one can conclude that the power Wikileaks acquires is very substantial. That’s why, before going into details about the content of the documents, one should recognize an important fact which I tried to explain in the following part of this writing:

    For days, many have identified the USA as cornered and the USA, through its deeds, didn’t really reject it. Meanwhile, the representatives of the Turkish Government from varying degrees have not reacted strictly towards the USA and even said that such a normal event could never taint the relations between the USA and Turkey. At this point we should question what would happen if this was done by any opponent of the government inside Turkey. The Prime Minister, himself, reflected the answer of this question by accusing the opposition parties once again, as if all these claims and documents were published by themselves. Moreover, he has threatened the opponents by reminding them the ones under arrest who had accused him in a similar way. The Ankara US-Ambassador is, nevertheless, still in his place without getting any official warning from either Turkey or the USA. Because an important reality is missed: According to the international law, the ambassadors are the most authoritative representatives in the countries where they are working. Therefore what they say, as an ambassador, is both politically and legally binding for the countries they represent. If Mrs. Clinton is unaware of this normative code, while saying: “Politics is done in Washington”, then she, as the foreign secretary of the US, should have recalled all the US-Ambassadors, since the USA doesn’t need them.

    Actually the picture is not that limited. Because neither Wikileaks is so fool that it corners the USA nor the USA is that much cornered. One should consider that only ‰3 of the 251,287 documents have been published and that the documents of the highest secrecy were either not published or censored with (***). Why hasn’t Wikileaks published the rest and actually the most-expected part of the documents? Is what had been published so far enough to corner the USA? These questions actually reflect what is aimed by Wikileaks or the so-called “9/11 of the Diplomacy”. Actually what we saw in the cables can be divided into two parts:

    1. The personal opinions of US-Ambassadors about important people
    2. The general opinions of the USA about certain issues.

    If we look at the situation from Turkish perspective, we will see that the first part of the cables is the part which is supposed to corner the USA but actaully is not anything more than sugar-coating. For everybody knows that the long-lasting Turkey-US relations can’t be easily shaped by such an event. This is simply because of the fact that Turkey can’t easily give the USA the cold shoulder. Therefore the USA can easily get out from all the claims in the first part by apologizing one time, which it has already done. This is very obviously evident for us, when we look at the current situation: Mr. Davutoğlu was said to be “exceptional dangerous and crazy”. However, he doesn’t really seem to be angry with the USA.

    The second part of the content includes the general opinions of the USA about certain issues which have created internal and international political crises. The most important characteristic of this part is that only three countries weren’t negatively influenced by it: The USA, Israel and England (The real allies). This is simply because the US-foreign policy doesn’t need to warn its allies in such a way. This is very obviously evident for us through the help of a number of examples from the current situation: The polemics between the opposition and the PM in Turkey and the comfortable situation of Israel and England after the publication of the cables. Therefore the second part of the cables, the real content, created controversies in countries and didn’t really taint the US-foreign policy.

    To conclude, I can say that Wikileaks, as opposed to the popular belief, tainted the countries other than the USA, Israel and England, delivered the messages of the USA to the counties and, in this manner, consolidated and legitimized the current US-foreign policy, namely the status-quo. The Wikileaks issue, unfortunately, was not sufficient for us to believe that the long-lasting US-foreign could be opened and democratized in one night.

    Edgar ŞAR

    [email protected]