Solidifying the Paradigms

"In these days mind-boggling events have been taking place in Turkey. Those who target the stability of the country don't even hesitate to exploit children.

The day before yesterday, a 13-year-old boy threw Molotov cocktails at the Cumhuriyet daily in Istanbul." (Tercüman), "A Molotov provocation against Cumhuriyet" (Yeniçag), "Children were exploited to attack Cumhuriyet" (Zaman), "Children were sent to death" (Yeni Safak). The quoted headlines about the Cumhuriyet attack appeared in Monday's dailies. As is seen here, on both sides of the aisle, the ulusalci (neo-nationalist) newspapers Tercuman and Yenicag; and Zaman and Yeni Şafak, newspapers known to be close to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), share similar views. That is, the incidents like the Cumhuriyet attack are a part of black operation campaign conducted by "dark forces."

The difference between the two political views lies in the perception of whom or what constitute the "dark forces." The ulusalcis believe that the dark forces are made up of the Fehtullah Gülen movement and AK Party supporters, who are the agents of the United States and the European Union. However the reality tells us otherwise. The Gülen movement is at best known to be a peaceful movement. Neither the members of Fethullah Gülen movement nor the AK Party supporters has ever been involved in any violent attacks. Thus it is unlikely for them to be the agent of the US and the EU for such dark operations. The liberals and those who are close to the AK Party, on the other hand, believe that the deep state and its agents – Ergenekon gang members – are responsible for these provocations to destabilize county to remove the ruling party from governance. The deep state's past clandestine operations have created a reasonable enough doubt to believe that the Ergenekon gang in fact could be the prime force for provocative attacks such as the recent Cumhuriyet attack.

It appears that the parties will never find a middle ground to agree who is behind the dark operations targeting the stability of the country. The greater the disagreement the deeper the polarization is at the social level. The political implications of such dividedness need to be examined. The very first implication of such dividedness solidifies political paradigms along both sides of the aisle that further produces keenly divided political lines. In such a society, room for political discussions is limited. Instead, symbols became the discourse of political activism. When political discourses are reduced to political symbols, democratic pluralism is also reduced to political polarization. Unfortunately, the current trends indicate such polarization, which would bring a total chaos, further polarizing Turkey along political lines.

If Operation Ergenekon produces convincing results that the dark operations are organized by the deep state's elements, further polarization may become a political gain for the ruling AK Party. While if in fact Operation Ergenekon does not produce a convincing argument about alleged accusations, polarization is deepening; however, it benefits the AK Party politically more than it benefits the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). The reason is simple. The conservative segments of society have already bought the argument that the provocations are part of clandestine operations conducted by deep state forces to diminish the AK Party's ability to govern the county. The AK Party supporters have already solidified their positions based on this perception.

For CHP supporters, however, the political mobilization machine works differently. Yes, they expect that Operation Ergenekon will not produce any tangible results. If in fact their expectations became a reality, "the reality" would not bring additional votes to the CHP. It would solidify the ulusalci paradigm that the CHP is not the true representation of this paradigm. It would have two impacts on the CHP. Either Deniz Baykal, the leader of the CHP, is replaced by an ulusalci figure, or an ulusalci party would be formed.

We are at a critical stage of history, and politics will never be the same from now on.

Emre Uslu is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Utah's Middle East Center. Önder Aytaç is an associate professor at Gazi University's department of communication and works with the Security Studies Institute in Ankara.