Disinformation, Bureaucratic Manipulation and 'New Forces'?

Events before and after the 2007 parliamentary and presidential elections in Turkey, as well as the recent leaks related to another smear campaign launched by some commanders in the General Staff, have made it obvious that there are still centers and interest groups aspiring to affect the public's thinking. So what should we learn from these events?

In today's "information age" inequality in society is not just a result of lack of access to or control of economic resources. Inequality arises from individuals and groups having less access to information or being less able to convey information to others. Accessing and controlling information gives individuals and groups power, social position and influence. The information we give and receive builds our "reality." In the "information game" there is dependence and manipulation. These make the effects of communication unpredictable and often unjust, deeply affecting politics and social life. Many people have no power to influence or organize the flow of information according to their needs. They are exploited as they are unable to describe or name their situation, experiences and needs.

Recent events will remind the public of the period between 1995 and 2001, when the protectionist elite and sections of the media in Turkey functioned as an integrated team. A group of corrupt businessmen, media outlets, politicians and bureaucrats transformed public and political life into a field of tension and crisis. In May 2006, media and bank owner Dinç Bilgin confessed how his media group had become instrumental in smear campaigns against certain people, how they had received military memos and commands from certain generals in the General Staff and how a media cartel had become influential in the fall of the government and interference in tender bids.

After the coup of Feb. 28, 1997, Turkey came to know the centers and people who decide on the information to be organized and broadcast. There were centers controlling language and related information technology; and there were financial decision-making centers that moved enormous economic resources through the production and manipulation of information. Some civilian and military bureaucracies took advantage of the situation. Journalism gave way to ideological blindness. In smear campaigns some journalists alleged their colleagues had provided support for a terrorist organization in exchange for money. We recall the attempts to purge state institutions of thousands of civil servants. The masterminds of the coup won senior positions at companies that were later charged with embezzlement and corruption.

Those media outlets that were engaged in gross improprieties doctored and broadcast some recordings of Fethullah Gülen. These were not broadcast for any intrinsic news value, but according to the hidden priorities of interest groups. The media outlets exploited the trust of the people and attempted to shape the attitudes of third parties that looked favorably on Gülen (and the Gülen movement). The deeper intention was to divert public attention onto a prominent figure and thereby keep the masses preoccupied while embezzlement, graft and apportioning of state-owned economic enterprises, lands, banks, resources and wealth were rampant. Ergun Babahan's articles about the events subsequently detailed how the media had become embroiled in corruption schemes and attacks on faith communities at the request of certain military staff driving the Feb. 28 process. All these were new forms of domination.

Taraf’s disclosures, the Ergenekon case and our new knowledge of the exact relations between the Republican People's Party (CHP) and former Kanaltürk owners and management show that today the same old attempts to manipulate information, the same smear campaigns, the same attempts to control the thoughts and feelings of the people are continuing.

Yet, there is evidence of change in society. Today the independent media and new civic initiatives have a growing tendency to set their own preconditions for communication and action. Access to the flow of information that shapes reality is becoming more equal. Every day the independent media are revealing more about the ideologically motivated schemes of military or bureaucratic personnel ambitious for power and wealth. The public sees clearly the limits and narcissism of the schemers' worldview and their contempt for the rules.

It is profoundly anti-democratic to play the institutional game while simultaneously denying it. The rules of the game are necessary to hold a complex modern society together. They may be discussed and redefined as we go along, but they must be respected; otherwise violence, in a subtle or less subtle form, becomes the rule. It is useful here to remember the state conservatism of those who masterminded the Feb. 28 coup and their reckless use of images and communication. Call to mind the cases of Mehmet A. Birand, Akin Birdal and Meral Akşener, the use of verbal violence and schemes to kill, and it becomes very clear that some in the protectionist elite have an underlying conviction that there are no rules with which one necessarily needs to comply.