Kurds & Journalists, Real & Symbolic

There may seem at first glance to be little in common between the recent court cases against journalists Şamil Tayyar and Mehmet Baransu and the dispute over whether Democratic Society Party (DTP) members of Parliament have parliamentary immunity and whether they can be questioned by the police.

The underlying problem is, however, the same and goes to the root of the very definition of the state in Turkey and its relation with democratic rights, civic and free society and constitutionalism.

The journalists wrote about the deep-state organization Ergenekon, for which they were imprisoned and subsequently released. The original Ergenekon is a story, a myth, a symbol, a heroic epic about the history of the Turks as an ethnic group, not as a modern, democratic, multiethnic nation. Currently, some Turkish citizens value the myth of Ergenekon without necessarily approving of the actions of those who have apparently assumed its name or rejecting modern lifestyles including democracy. Some dispute the very existence of Ergenekon, while acknowledging that a number of individuals may have done wrong. Few people deny that something is afoot or that there is a “deep state.” Coup after coup in Turkey has shown this to be more than likely. So the action of the judiciary, its jailing of two journalists for daring to discuss an organization which, according to some, may or may not be real and then freeing them on condition that they do not commit the same or similar offense within five years, is like suspending Damocles' sword over their heads with an extra frisson: If the Ergenekon terror organization is real, then surely it must be dealt with in some way. If not, why jail people for talking about it?

The dispute here is clearly about the meaning of symbols and whose myth of the nation will prevail. Some will use all means at their disposal: the media, the military and the judiciary. Some, it seems, may not use words of the media without fearing a symbolic sword and a very concrete prison cell.

DTP members of Parliament too are in trouble over their relation to the national myth of Turkey. As they know, in some people's view, Kurdish people, their language and culture present a symbolic challenge to that part of the Turkish myth that insists on the homogeneity of the nation, that myth that denies multiethnicity and indeed, many kinds of diversity. All other considerations concerning the current issue are minor. The irony is that this time it is the right not to speak that is being denied, but the existence of DTP members of Parliament, like their refusal to speak to the police, is both symbolic and very real.

For onlookers without much previous knowledge of Turkey, it is difficult to distinguish the various groupings in these disputes. Organizations, whether armies, governments, political parties or media groups, are not monolithic entities but often loose groupings of participants with different priorities. Stances shift and turn. It is easy to look on and convict the whole nation. But the prime minister of Turkey himself was once in prison for reciting a poem, the symbolism of which could be read in many ways, so it seems unlikely that he is fundamentally opposed to freedom of speech. But the symbolism of his imprisonment is also read in different ways by different groups, a persecuted hero or a villain.

Other public figures have also fallen foul of those who claim to protect the nation and its myths and symbols and indeed of the whole process of making and interpreting them. Fethullah Gülen had a similar verdict imposed on him: “Not guilty, but don't do it again.”

We clearly see now in Turkey that an exclusive group in the state bureaucracy has managed to impose their interpretation of information and events on the public for many years and is seeking to continue this imposition. Their understanding of politics and power was established by the constitutions of the many military coups we have suffered. Many anti-democratic organizations have their origins in those coups. In society, different groups will attempt to promulgate values and explanations for activity that preserve their narrow interests. These explanations become the dominant patterns of shared meanings or collective frames of reference, setting the limits of what others may do, shaping the criteria by which they decide and assigning authority within those constraints. The acts of these journalists and members of Parliament are a symbolic threat to the interests that have dominated Turkish society for decades, challenge their legitimacy and so are met with real force.

But as evidenced by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's current premiership and the elections of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and President Abdullah Gül, the triumph of the deep state is not inevitable. People brought them to power against all opposition presented by the deep state. The control of national symbols has already slipped from the grasp of the vested interests in the deep state, but this may only make them more irrational and dangerous. Symbolic challenge has real results.