History will make your genuine headline

Listen brother, let go of this demagogy.

Because no one likes it.

Yes, that day I had said, “411 hands on air for chaos.”

(The front page headline of Hürriyet on Feb. 10, 2008 about Parliament’s votes on lifting the headscarf ban in the universities, an issue that was referred to by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s weekly Parliamentary address yesterday.)

Today I still think the same way.

If I were heading a newspaper today, I would have put this headline for the very quickly approved bill in Parliament in the early hours of the morning, the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) bill:

“These many hands rose to suspend the Constitution”

In world democracy, there is nothing like “Everything the elected Parliaments does is good.”

Look brother, even if today I was unable to put that headline out there, be sure history will write the headline for the hands that went up in the air that early morning; you will feel the pain in your bones.
That headline will probably be about that bill that is trampling the most basic principle of the Constitution, which sends the independent justice to captivity between the two lips of one prime minister and the justice minister he has appointed: “Civilian coup…”

Just like the certain civilian coup that started the biggest tragedy of the 20th century.
Your name will be put on the same line…

Note this… If not today, it will happen tomorrow… If not your children, your grandchildren will call you to account.

You came to power saying you would bring “advanced democracy” to this country; you took off from the train at the dictatorship stop.

Let go of that demagogy.

Do not get carried away just because a few people applaud you. Your reputation in the world has now passed the line of authoritarianism and is on the border with dictatorship.

The lies you are telling while looking directly in the eyes of people, by shaking your finger at the conscience of the people, have now become nauseating.

The smell of the shoe boxes has exceeded the borders of Turkey… You cannot correct this image through pressure, through “Hello Fatih” calls, with lies, monkey business, slander, mud…

The breaks are failing; the tires are flat… The car is sliding down the slope fast…

Now, even if you receive 50 percent of the votes, you will not be able to perform as before, you will not be agonizing people.

This distress, this noisy clamor… This monkey business, this slander, this mud, this demagogy… All of it is because of this distress…

The police were not legendary at all

As you know, we are all so stupid that they think it is so easy to fool us…

Look at the stories told on the headlines of the pro-government papers of yesterday.

Because they were totally disgraced in the eyes of the world during the Gezi incident, now they are trying to save face:

They claim the masked riot police who sprayed tear gas at the Lady in Red at Gezi Park was not from the riot police. That’s why he has never been able to be identified.

They claim those police officers brought from neighboring provinces were made to sleep on cement on purpose and no tents were provided for them, so that it was wished that they would be under psychological pressure and treat the demonstrators tougher.

They claim the police chiefs ordered “fire without targeting” on İstiklal Street during the incidents intentionally.

Well then, who made this vicious plan? Wasn’t it the prime minister who was patting in the back of the police saying they had done an “epic” job?

Wasn’t it the same prime minister who told the police “You are the assurance of this regime” and reinstated Article 35 for them, the one which he removed from the army?

Wasn’t it him, again, who decorated those policemen and rewarded them with one salary bonus?
It seems some people have setup the prime minister, don’t you see that?

Well, what else do you expect from a paper that considers both the nation and its readers all stupid?

Ertuğrul Özkök is a columnist for daily Hürriyet in which this piece was published on Feb 19. It was translated into English by the Daily News staff.