Deep Media 'Versus' Deep State

There have been acrimonious debates about the definition of "deep state" in the Turkish public sphere. As always, the media has been part of the scenario, working very hard to find the Holy Grail, as it were, of Turkish socio-politics.

Even though there has not been any consensus on a definition, everybody seems to agree on one thing: The "deep state" may or may not exist but there are some kind of "true believer" bureaucrats [in the sense of Eric Hoffer's book of the same name] within the state machinery who sometimes engage in illegal and democratically uncontrolled acts to protect the state from what that they arbitrarily define as threats. Some call this "raison d'etat," starting from Ottoman times, and others see this as an out of fashion Turkish Gladio.

In the final analysis, everyone concurs that deep state does not function within the rule of law. And our media are ostensibly furious with that. I say ostensibly as I do not think that the major concern of the some of the media elite is the rule of law. Action speaks louder than words. It seems that the rule of law is only important when they are judged. Yet when they judge, the rule of law could be omitted or law could be applied in the style of "Judge Dredd," a British comic book character who is a law enforcement officer in a future city where judges combine the powers of police, judge, jury and government. Dredd and his fellow judges are empowered to arrest, sentence and even execute criminals, on the spot.

Almost everyone in the media condemns the assassination of Dink, but character assassination is widespread in the Turkish media. Spin doctors are at work who want us to be bogged down in irrelevant and fictitious details, and our media "Gladios" character-assassinate individuals with their sword to smokescreen, consciously or not and see this business as usual. Nothing can show this fact more conspicuously than the Fethullah Gülen case. It is unbelievable how discussions of the Dink assassination could ever be linked to Mr. Gülen. Without bothering trying to prove what they write, these media-Samasts simply mention unproved, repeatedly denied claims about Gülen, although even the most dedicated anti-Gülen crusaders will accept that Gülen has nothing to gain from a chaotic and unstable Turkey.

In the post-February 28 undemocratic Turkey, where prosecutors are free to call politicians vampires and bloodsuckers, an overenthusiastic prosecutor claimed almost everything possible against Gülen, but all he could submit to the court to prove his claims were the fabricated press stories that were never substantiated with evidence. The state's security and intelligence agencies did not have anything to support the prosecutor's unfounded claims. It is simply amazing to see today that the media "Gladios" could simply repeat similar accusations. Knowing that they will never be able to prove what they say, they do not mention Gülen's name but only imply it. These are the very same people who ostensibly opened a fight against the deep state, saying that Judge Dredd style execution is illegal!

These media elite should know that people still read them but just for fun, many no longer take them seriously. Remember, what all major media outlets said in their anti-Erdogan pre-election campaigns and what happened.  When one looks at Turkey, many things make one hopeful, except the media elite. Yet it is inevitable that with the EU process and democratization of Turkey, these media "Gladios" will hopefully vanish.