The obedience culture in Turkey

The mighty Selahattin Demirtaş…

One of the few wise politicians this country has ever seen…

On Sunday, he gathered the few wise journalists of this country.

Then, he conveyed messages from İmralı Island.

Oh my God, everything was there…

Israeli lobbies, Armenian lobbies, powers in America, interest rate lords, this and that…

Theories that would compete with the craziest conspiracy theoreticians of the world…

Our wise colleagues were also polite and well-mannered people…

They even expressed their objections in a polite way, but they nevertheless listened to it till the end.

I swear if it were me, I would have started mocking, making fun of them; or I would have said, “Brother, you may be able to fool with these insane theories those who obey you absolutely. You may fool them but not me. What right do you have to ruin my Sunday with this nonsense?” I would have left the place, gone to the bar one floor above, ordered myself a glass of wine and tried to calm down.
For God’s sake, For Mohammed’s sake…

For the sake of wisdom, logic, intelligence…

Look at the place we have arrived at in the 21st century…

A portion of the conservative segment is all ears listening to Ankara; they are listening to the prime minister’s conspiracy theories, his coup stories that make a fool of all of us.

And they believe them; in turn, they start telling the same stories themselves.

Why? How come?

Because, there is obedience. There is a strong belief. Wisdom is disabled. Paranoia has replaced wisdom.

A portion of the conservative segment is all ears listening to Pennsylvania… Whatever is said over there, they are in an absolute obedience ecstasy. They do not question; they do not ask themselves. While they cannot even ask themselves, they cannot ask the leader either.

The strong belief, the sharp obedience have sent away eyes, ears, conscience, wisdom, intelligence, logic…

I am looking at the Kurdish citizens of this country… A portion of them are all ears listening to İmralı Island… Over there, if you ask me, there is nothing left of wisdom or intelligence. Also no logic, no chemistry, no physics… And in place of all these, a deep opportunism has taken control of the situation. When İmralı speaks, the iron rule of “obedience” rules…

Tell me for God’ sake…

Does the entire Republic of Turkey have to be crushed and squeezed between the two lips of three conspiracy masters who have lost their wisdom, intelligence, conscience and belief?

Whatever nonsense comes out of these three lips, do we have to prostrate before them?
Don’t we have a wisdom alternative, a conscience option?

How did the entire republic become the follower of the “cult of the strong believers” of the first half of the 20th century?

We are leaving a revengeful generation as heritage to the future, one that has obeyed this or that, that absolutely listens to what comes out of those three lips.

Boo to you and boo to us.

Boo to all of us.

You will be recorded in history as sheiks of nonsense, of political superstition and of conspiracy theories that only fools would believe…

Also, we will be recorded in history as naïve and stupid followers who believe in this nonsense, these superstitions and these conspiracy theories…

It was 90 years ago, a nation had woken up.

Now, we are back to sleep again.

Ertuğrul Özkök is a columnist for daily Hürriyet in which this piece was published on Jan. 15. It was translated into English by the Daily News staff.