Turkey Needs More Freedom of Speech

Image via WikipediaEvery society consists of sub-communities, where these communities feel and identify themselves different from each other. These communities, by nature, demand respect for their existence and their way of life, and want to implement their common values in the society.

A democratic society tries to build a harmony between these communities by means of hearing, understanding, and respecting. It tries to create a free space for everybody not only in communal level but also in individual level. However, it is never possible to fulfill every demand of every community, and therefore building a harmony requires these communities to understand the fact that there has to be a limit to their demands.

Looking at Turkish Republic from this point of view, it is pretty much clear that she needs to improve her democratic skills. Even though Turkish Republic has never claimed that she is not democratic since she is founded, the real life experiences has shown us that the democracy in Turkey is rather fragile and does not function as effective as she is supposed to. Unfortunately it is true that the Republic has been reluctant to hear some of her citizens in order to create an ideal society of her own.

It is indeed very true that Turkish Republic needs to be more democratic, but however, one needs to be very careful while transpassing from theories to realities; because improving the weak points of a system does not and should not mean that an alternative system should be brought to life, which is pretty much we are experiencing in Turkish Republic nowadays. Showing respect to every community is one thing, giving away the domination of the entire society to one of the communities for the sake of democracy is another.

And in fact this should be what we are discussing. Therefore I believe that Mr. Babacan's speech in front of a group of European politicians with the title of Turkish Foreign Affairs Minister has an historical importance. When he was asked about the civil rights of the minorities in Turkey, Mr. Babacan explicitly said that even the civil rights for Muslim majority in Turkey is suppressed.

Mr. Ali Babacan is a member of a government and the AK Party. AK Party has been ruling the country for the last almost 6 years. While AK Party claims that they are trying to bring a real democracy for Turkey, incidents such as Mr. Babacan's speech and some others I am about the mention indicates that the vision of AK Party for the future of Turkish Republic differs from the republic itself.

Understanding the background of the political Islam in Turkey is a crucial element in this issue. If you were a complete stranger for Turkish Republic and suddenly felt like you should know about her, and therefore googled Turkey, you would most probably have this image that Turkish Republic has a dictatorial regime and suppresses everyone in the country, and the AK Party with undeniable Islamic roots are trying to close the gap between the Turkish Regime and a real democracy.

However, the outstanding PR campaign for the political Islam in Turkey is not going to explain you how come this party has been the government for the last six years and still complaining about the regime they are supposed to be ruling. The answer is: while it is true that Turkish Republic needs to improve her democracy, political Islam in Turkey uses this exact deficit to empower political Islam which actually has no intention to show any democratic tolerance to other possible fractions.

Looking at the popular media who claim to be the democracy champions, all you can see is how right Mr. Babacan is about his comment. Instead of arguing the position of a Foreign Minister against his own country, this popular media tries to impose you that there is indeed no freedom for the Muslims in Turkey. And when you ask evidence for such a claim, you realize that these so called liberals suggest you a society model completely based on Islamic rules.

If you can find a chance to look at what is actually going on within the Islamic intellectuals, you will see that they use the words "atrocity" and such too often for every kind limit to the Islamic practises. But just don't be confused. We are not talking about the fundamental rights here, such as Namaz, or Oruc. The rights which are limited are actually not a part of a belief system but a political system, where it gets harder to differentiate what is religion and what is politics. The harmony I mentioned at the beginning of this article is not a very popular notion among Islamic intellectuals because they simply do not accept the fact that there needs to be boundaries for each community to create harmony.

Of course it should be granted for everyone to express the social model they want to live in, and this is indeed the problem with the Turkish Republic, but it is also another problem if you claim that the only truth is your interpretation of life, and anything which does not fall in your set definitions is atrocity. However, that is the exact reason why Mr. Babacan complains about his own country which he is supposed to be governing, because there are things which he cannot change (yet) and therefore feels uncomfortable.

Ms. Canan Bezirgan and Ms. Kevser Çakır created a turmoil with their declarations recently in a TV show. While trying to defend their rights to enter universities with their headscarves, these two obviously very confused girls said that they don't love Ataturk, but they love Humeini, and they would prefer to live under British yoke instead of an independent Turkish Republic. In fact, these two girls were the clear examples of why there should be more freedom of speech in Turkey. Because as long as people cannot express what they think explicitly, then it is very hard to estimate the level of nonsense people can come up with.

But however, these girls are now trialed because of a law which prohibits humiliating Ataturk. Nobody has to love nobody, so therefore the girls were quickly publicized as the new victims of the cruel Turkish Republic. However, I believe it is very important how the so called liberal media reacted to these girls.

Defending people's right to express themselves is a different notion than defending what people say. So therefore, I really think there should be more freedom of speech and these girls along with anybody else should feel completely free to say whatever they want to say. But, clearly enough there is no way I can defend what these girls have said. Actually it is even a harder job to put their words in a sensible context. Willing to become a British colony instead of an independent country is not something to say if you know what being colonized means.

The so called liberal media failed to see this notion. I agree that it is important to defend these girls' rights to express themselves, but it becomes extremely wrong if you do it in a way as if you agree with these girls. In fact, there were three general kind of reactions to these girls. The so called liberal media fiercely supported the girls. They did not only supported their rights to express themselves, but also claimed that they had a point. On the other hand, the religious media was more careful about what they were saying. They did not defend the words of these girls, but instead, they claimed that they are two confused girls who cannot be considered as the representatives of the Islamic world. In fact, this is a typical reaction of the Islamic media. Whenever something which is hard to defend occurs, that something just happens to be an isolated incident. But in fact, if there were more freedom of speech in Turkey, we would see that these girls are indeed the representatives of the Islamic world, because they represent exactly the same kind of mindset with the political Islam in Turkey.

And the third kind of reaction came from the secular media who are fiercely blamed to be non democratic by the same PR campaign which praises AK Party all the time. However, this secular media was the most mature one, because almost everybody was saying the same thing that nobody has to love Ataturk, and shouldn't be trialed for that, but this doesn't change the fact that these girls spoke only crap.

Yes, it is very important to let people speak what ever they want to speak, s0 that we can have a better understanding of who is in favor of real democracy and who is just a pretender.

The words of Mr. Mehmet Mir Dengir Fırat as the vice chairman of AK Party during an interview with Ms. Sabrina Tavernise from NY Times also has historical importance. The article says:

“Turkish society has been traumatized,” said Dengir Firat, vice chairman of A. K. “Overnight they were told to change their dress, their language. Their religious ways were dismantled.”

“Societies without that trauma could not care less how people dress,” said Mr. Firat, whose offense in the indictment was to have told a journalist that people who were nervous about head scarves should see psychiatrists.

Even though "trauma" would not be my first choice of words for the direct impact of a revolution, it is indeed true that the foundation of Turkish Republic created a shock effect in the society. However, Mr. Fırat's overall speech along with his other speeches while he thought he was trying to defend himself clearly puts out that Mr. Fırat sees the whole case from a negative point of view. For example, he says "By abolishing Arabic alphabet and accepting Latin alphabet, the ratio of people who can read dropped down to zero, just overnight." But he doesn't mention that the ratio was like 5% or so, because the Ottoman Empire did not consider teaching everyone how to read as a priority, as opposed to Turkish Republic with a ratio of currently 90%. He mentions about the dress code, but does not mention about the right to vote for women.

Of course, nobody has to see the revolution as a positive impact. And nobody should be restircted to say whatever they want to say. How can we otherwise see who is talking about the truths and who is just talking nonsense?