“When a tree shakes, the leaves on the extremities
of the branches go down first.” --Roman proverb
That old Latin saying makes me dizzy-headed as smoldering discontent erupts into internal warfare in Turkey, which one Turkish commentator compares to a sinking ship taking in water from “port to starboard.”
Kurds have no dog in the fight, but are concerned—to continue the sinking-ship analogy—with what may happen to 20 million Kurds trapped in third class!
The internecine strife pits two powerful antagonists who were once allies: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wielding his rusty scimitar against outcast cleric Fethullah Gulen, brandishing his tattered Quran from the mountains of Pennsylvania.
Patriotic Kurds don’t like either side, but were glad they worked together to defang the Turkish military—which had desolated Kurdistan with impunity and “dropped fire” on the homes of millions of Kurds.
Now, with open warfare between them, Kurds are wary of the outcome.
If the Turkish prime minister loses his head—one Turkish parliamentarian has gone so far as to assign him a spot before the International Criminal Court—many will marvel at the wonder boy who rose from peddling lemons on street corners to walking in the corridors of power all over the world. He had his enablers of course.
One of them was President Barack Obama, who used to call the Turkish leader monthly but apparently hasn’t lately.
President Obama got suckered into promoting the Turkish leader because of his shallow understanding of Islam and his belief that the Turkish prime minister embodied its best aspects.
Mr. Obama, who calls Ezan, the Muslim call of prayer, “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth,” and Mr. Erdogan, who used to refer to him, “my good friend Barack Hussein Obama,” are, in some ways, strangers to one another.
If they ever write their “from the heart” memoirs, President Obama would pen an embarrassing chapter about how he got hoodwinked by the wily Turkish leader into sending American military and financial aid to Al Qaeda-affiliated groups in Syria trying to establish a virulently anti-western state on NATO’s doorsteps.
The Turkish leader’s chapter, by contrast, will be hot-tempered fireworks. One headline could read, “Some books are more dangerous than bombs,” an actual quote of him, which he bellowed out to smear an unpublished manuscript, The Army of the Cleric, about his “old pal” Fethullah Gulen, by Ahmet Sik.
A prosecutor in Turkey hadn’t liked the book and decided to arrest its author to confiscate its content.
But he overlooked one little thing: Modern-technology can work both ways. The police thought they had Mr. Sik’s manuscript when they confiscated his computer, but his friends made it downloadable on the Internet, right after the confiscation, to bypass Turkish censors.
Turks and their friends, ignoring Mr. Erdogan’s frantic calls that they should only read “authorized” books, downloaded 200,000 copies of the “dangerous bomb” in the comfort of their homes.
The next bombshell that exploded in Prime Minister Erdogan’s hip pocket ignited on December 17, 2013. The sons of three ministers were arrested, and newspapers flashed photos of shoeboxes stuffed with millions of dollars, signaling high-level bribery.
When the initial shock was over, a scandal of international proportions sprawled across Mr. Erdogan’s lap. Suddenly, the former lemon-peddler and ex-jailbird had to wonder if he might be measured for new prison denim.
The bribery scandal blast was delivered by Zekeriya Oz, a Turkish prosecutor who was bosom-buddies with Mr. Erdogan when they prosecuted the “invincible” Turkish generals, but has now whirled into his worst nightmare.
Mr. Oz is also the man who prosecuted Mr. Sik.
Here, we need to compartmentalize a little. When England struggled under Hitler’s blitz, Prime Minister Winston Churchill said that if Hitler invaded hell, he would at least “make a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”
So I too want to make a favorable reference to the Turkish prosecutor for taking on Mr. Erdogan, but criticize him for what he did to Mr. Sik.
If Turkish ruling circles were not allergic to justice, Mr. Oz and the bribery scandal he has uncovered would be textbook material in Turkish law schools.
When Mr. Oz prosecuted the Turkish military, the Turkish prime minister provided him with bodyguards and a bulletproof vehicle. But when Mr. Oz hounded him that protection vanished, and he was taken off the case and assigned to another office.
Prime Minister Erdogan rushed before the media and condemned the prosecutor for allegedly taking a lavish $77,500.00 holiday bash to Dubai—on the dime of one of the accused.
Mr. Erdogan even had proof: his buddy, the accused, Ali Agaoglu, vouched for Mr. Erdogan’s flawless character.
But Mr. Oz is bravely fighting back, branding Mr. Erdogan a brazen liar. He says government records will disprove the charges of prime minister—and the real liar should resign.
Mr. Oz has also put liens on pro-government newspapers lest they have some unsavory things in their closets about the bribery scandal and denounced Mr. Erdogan’s agents for sending three undercover policemen, masquerading as journalists, to his news conference.
“If I am killed,” Mr. Oz said at the same press conference, “I will be a martyr on the job.”
If the Turkish ship of state is headed for an iceberg, may God have mercy on 20 million hapless Kurdish passengers trapped in steerage!
Comments
Rudaw moderates all comments submitted on our website. We welcome comments which are relevant to the article and encourage further discussion about the issues that matter to you. We also welcome constructive criticism about Rudaw.
To be approved for publication, however, your comments must meet our community guidelines.
We will not tolerate the following: profanity, threats, personal attacks, vulgarity, abuse (such as sexism, racism, homophobia or xenophobia), or commercial or personal promotion.
Comments that do not meet our guidelines will be rejected. Comments are not edited – they are either approved or rejected.
Post a comment