When looking at the swollen list of people who have had their phones wiretapped, are you not thinking about how confused those listening must be? Perhaps those wiretaps were the reason why tele-preacher Fethullah Gülen switched from praying to cursing. If the Gülen Movement's wiretapping imams presented the conversations of Hakan Fidan and Ertuğrul Özkök alongside one another, the common man would surely be confused.
How is it then possible for "old friends," who for various personal and political reasons have begun to view themselves as White Turks and who express the attitude of "anything but Recep Tayyip Erdoğan," to ignore these scandals? Had they not lost their old minds, they would have scrutinized facts by saying "if only all dictators were like this" and write articles such as "the dictator in the opposition."
What hidden agenda?
This is how it is. It is not easy to predict who will stand where and when. Are the White Turks' laments of "bringing back the Sharia regime is on Erdoğan's agenda" not seeking the liberation of secularism in the Gülen Movement's holdings? Is it not immediately obvious that the true question is not about secularism, but about taking command of political discourse through the dangers of sometimes "sharia" sometimes "communism" and sometimes "separatism?" It has always been like this.
Was Süleyman Demirel in the period after the 1960s not "Lawless Süleyman" or "Morrison Süleyman" to the White Turks? However, because of the leftist-rightist polarization back then, White Turks were divided in two and did they not oppose Bülent Ecevit, who said "use water, tame the soil" by clinging to Demirel?
Organized industrial districts
Until recently, did the White Turks who claim that "longing for Sharia" is on Erdoğan's hidden agenda, and who in the 1970s compared Ecevit to Kerensky, not say "after social democracy comes communism?" The number of White Turks increased parallel to development. Did the wellacquainted White Turks in the first-class section of the Kadıköy Ferry not view farmers, who became wealthy with the introduction of the tractor and modern farming in the 1950s as new money? Then these same individuals entered industry and became members of TUSIAD and similar organizations.
Meanwhile, consciously executed by Turgut Özal, Anatolian Tigers emerged out of the Organized Industrial Districts in the beginning of the 1980s. Craftsmen of Anatolia became merchants and artisans became industrialists.
It is not easy to understand Parvenus of the 1950s became the White Turks of the 1980s and the inflow of second and third wave entrepreneurs from Anatolia were seen as "new money." To get rid of Özal, they pumped up Demirel by calling him the "Father of Hope." Did the same White Turks not also abandon Tansu Çiller because of custom unions and transform into «Feb. 28 White Turks?"
In short, urbanization, modernization, capitalization and democratization affect the colors, positions and attitude of Turks, but it is difficult to understand how Turks known as "Old Friends," who claimed to defend liberalism, the reconciliation process with the Kurds and democracy, are now stuck on "anything but Erdoğan."
Let me finish this column with a poem by Özdemir Asaf.
"All colors were getting dirty at the same pace/they gave the first place to white." The transformation of 'old friends' to 'new white Turks'
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