[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
I have friends who frequent the chic bars of Nişantaşı and Bebek – Istanbul’s most upscale neighborhoods. Many are your typical “secularist Turks,” disgusted by the sight of a headscarf. Last weekend, I came across to one of them, and asked, “Hey, where do you think the country is heading to?”
“To darkness,” he said, with despair and fear in his eyes. “With these Islamists infiltrating everywhere, we are doomed. They will wipe us out.”
Sounds familiar, right? Perhaps even to some pieces you read in these pages, which make the very same argument, albeit a bit more elegantly.
The rule of distrust
But wait a minute. I have other friends that I have not told you about yet. These are the ones who have never been to those chic bars, for they never ever drink, or even go to places where people do. They are deeply religious and unshakably pious. When I ask them “Hey, where do you think the country is heading to,” they sound more optimistic than my secular friends, but they express a similar fear: they believe that the “deep state” can strike back any time, and wipe them out.
Both of these camps, in other words, are driven by fear, more than anything else. They both worry that the country will be dominated by the other side, and their own camp will be somehow victimized. When you ask what their ideal is, most seem to be content with a live-and-let-live Turkey, in which all live according to their own ways. They just don’t believe that the opposing camp will be tolerant enough to accept that consensus.
Things are made worse by our national addiction to conspiracy theories: Both camps are equally suspicious of grand plots, only with very different actors and objectives. Secularists believe that the “Islamists” have infiltrated all state institutions, mastering all politics behind the scenes, with the support of the EU, the United States, and some unidentified “global powers.”
On the other side, there is a similarly sweeping conspiracy theory about the Ergenekon network and its unlimited powers to master almost all evil in recent history. (I, too, believe that “deep state” and Ergenekon exist, but in more limited and modest forms.) This conspiracy theory, too, is supplemented with the idea of foreign support. Many in the Islamic camp believe that the U.S., (or, at least, the neo-cons) Israel, and, again, some unidentified “global powers” are behind the “deep state.” (The EU gets less heat this time.)
Now, if you listen to only one of these totally opposite yet somewhat similar narratives, you can perhaps be convinced by it. If you listen to both, you can first get confused. But if you listen long enough, you may start to realize that what you see is a cultural and political war between two camps that are similarly distrustful of each other.
A similar pattern can be seen in the other major fault line in Turkey: the gap between the Turkish majority and the Kurdish minority, to use the term in a cultural sense. Interestingly, this is a new dichotomy, for we have denied even the very existence of Kurds for a long time. But now there is an intense dialogue and friction between the two sides, and distrust is again the rule of the game: many Turks fear that the right that Kurds want to achieve will create a slippery slope towards the division of Turkey and the creation of an independent Kurdish state. Most Kurds, on the other hand, fear that the Turks will make them settle for less than what they deserve.
Where from now?
Looking at all this, it is easy to become pessimistic about Turkey’s future. Such a deeply divided society, you can say, will never find peace of mind.
Yet I am more optimistic, for good reasons. First, none of the political camps I mentioned are homogenous. In each of them, there are more moderate figures who can engage in a constructive dialogue with people from the other side, and criticize the mistakes of their own.
Moreover, some of the fears in these camps tend to calm down over time. The secularist paranoia about the Justice and Development Party, or AKP’s, supposed plans for an Islamist revolution is still alive, but a bit less stiff than it was three or four years ago. The AKP has been in power for eight years, after all, and has done nothing more ambitious than try to set the headscarf free in universities and speak a little more loudly against Israel’s war crimes than previous governments.
On the other hand, the conservative fear that the ultra-secular generals are always cooking up some coup scheme will also tone down, as nothing really big has happened. There is already self-criticism on this in the conservative side. Most recently President Gül, a conservative by persuasion, took an important step, by criticizing longtime arrests and “courts with special powers.” His principled stance received praise from many in the secular camp.
So, I have the hope that we will become a less fear-stricken country in the years to come. We will also not merely move from “one authoritarian system to another,” i.e., from Kemalism to Islamism, as some commentators have claimed.
A decade from now, probably, people will rather say, “the country moved from an authoritarian system to democracy, with some hassles and excesses on the way.” And they will enjoy the privilege of living with less fear in their minds.
I share your wishes in the last two paragraphes Mustafa.
Probably it is best we separate fear from paranoia or delusion.
Fear is surrounded by a real percieved threat. It is natural and it is a survival mechanism.
Delusion/Paranoia is fixed, fanciful, false belief that derived from deception. Another words, you just feel or want to think that the threat is real.
This is considered as illness or immaturity in medical world.
Kemalist camp is both immature and ill. They can not get a grip on democracy. Because democracy contradicts to everything they “pumped to believe” for generations.
Feel sorry for them.
Haydar Eren,
You seem to miss the gist of the article. Read it again. There are and may be others who think that you are delusional for believing in something that is not even real, such as a God of some kind (and I am not referring to Kemalists for there are pious Kemalists I know for sure)
Fear is not necessarily “surrounded by a real perceived threat” either. I fear that I am going to burn in hell if I commit a sin. Where in the hell is this hell? Is it real? just because someone told you so? or I fear that I will become a bad person if I act in some way. What does that mean?
Your interest in semantics seem to obscure your reasoning…
To get a grip on democracy is not that easy. I fear that I am going to burn in hell if I commit a sin.It is natural and it is a survival mechanism.
Assumptions… assumptions!
Cingoz,
I am an atheist.
Now, read my comment again and write up another “genius” assumptious comment.
Haydar Eren,
Assumptions? I was not assuming that you were an Islamist or anything for that matter. I was criticizing your approach, which arbitrarily separates fear from delusion/paranoia within the current context. I wanted to emphasize the fact that in this case the perception of threat matters, and one cannot praise the perception of one side’s fear over the other characterizing one side as “delusional, sick and immature”.
Here is what you said in an equation format for the sake of simplicity. Please correct me if I am missing anything.
Delusion/Paranoia = fixed, fanciful, false belief that derived from deception = thinking that the threat is real = illness/immaturity
Kemalist camp (and since you have not made any exceptions, I am justifiably assuming that you mean ALL) = ill/immature = delusional/paranoid
The gist of the article is that rightly or wrongly and delusional or not, both camps feel some fear towards each other. In other words, they are equally delusional, sick, and immature in your words. They just need to understand each other and communicate with each other for reconciliation.
What I wanted to highlight was that your final marks on Kemalists was hilarious. It almost parallels the logic in the statement that “yeah, both whites and blacks carry unfounded fear towards each other, but aren’t these blacks paranoid and delusional for acting so?”
But for the spirit of Mr. Akyol’s entry, I will not automatically assume that your logic is flawed and I may have misunderstood you. After all, this is just a blog, and we do not have a lot of time to organize our thoughts and convey in the most comprehensible way.
How is that for a friendly attitude for communication or am I just assuming again?
I agree that there is probability of misunderstanding… and I (we) dont have time for polemics.
***
Below are the definitions of Fear, Delusion and Paranoia… by different dictionaries respected in english speaking world. They jibe with what I said.
***
I said, the emotions Kemalists go thru is not fear, rather delusions and paranoia.
A few examples:
CHP agitated people that if they vote “yes” at the Sep. 12, 2010 referendum, Sharia Law will come to the country the next day.
Many people strongly believed that it will happen. Now that is paranoia and they were delusional.
Similar things happened when Ozal suggested that it is time for private TV and radio stations.
Reasoning was “how are we control all these stations? What if they make separatist and religious propaganda…”
Again, many people strongly believed that it will happen. Now that is paranoia and they were delusional.
Same thing happened if we say “there are Kurds”.
Same thing about Armenian facts, Sarikamis, Cosmic Room, talking about bombing own Mosques in Cyprus, and hundreds more.
The fact is, while Kemalist deep government folks know that all false and fabricated. However ordinary Kemalists’ who are experiencing these emotions are delusional and paranoid… not fear. Fear is when JITEM knocks your door, police at the university gate removes your scarf, Armenians hit the road to an unknown destination.
————————
DEFINITION OF FEAR…
By Wikipedia : Fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger
By Meriam-Webster Dictionary : expect with alarm
By Medical Dictionary : an emotion, generally considered negative and unpleasant, that is a reaction to a real or threatened danger; fright. Fear is distinguished from anxiety, which is a reaction to an unreal or imagined danger.
————–
DEFINITION OF DELUSION…
By Wikipedia Dictionary: A delusion is a fixed belief that is either false, fanciful, or derived from deception. In psychiatry, it is defined to be a belief that is pathological (the result of an illness or illness process) and is held despite evidence to the contrary. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, dogma, stupidity, apperception, illusion, or other effects of perception.
Delusions typically occur in the context of neurological or mental illness, although they are not tied to any particular disease and have been found to occur in the context of many pathological states (both physical and mental). However, they are of particular diagnostic importance in psychotic disorders and particularly in schizophrenia, paraphrenia, manic episodes of bipolar disorder, and psychotic depression.
By Meriam-Webster Dictionary: a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary; also : the abnormal state marked by such beliefs.
By Medical Dictionary : an idiosyncratic false belief that is firmly maintained in spite of incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary.
—————
DEFINITION OF PARANOIA…
By Wikipedia : Paranoia is a thought process heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and/or delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs concerning a perceived threat towards oneself. Historically, this characterization was used to describe any delusional state.
By Meriam-Webster Dictionary: a tendency on the part of an individual or group toward excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others.
By Medical Dictionary : Paranoia is an unfounded or exaggerated distrust of others, sometimes reaching delusional proportions. Paranoid individuals constantly suspect the motives of those around them, and believe that certain individuals, or people in general, are “out to get them.”
(Sorry for the misspellings and broken sentences written in a rush)
Haydar Eren,
Unfortunately, we are walking around circles, and your copy/paste approach do not help at all for we are discussing neither the meaning of any word nor whether that word accurately describes a certain way of behavior.
The fact of the matter is that a Kemalist can also find hundreds of legitimate observations and evidence to support his fear that Islamists are taking over religiously neutral Republican institutions. This set of evidences/observations may range from the number of “mescits” opening up at public institutions to the increasing number of religious schools (or even various academic studies on neighborhood pressure and conservatism in Turkey). You can dismiss some of some of these observations and studies based on your observations simply because they may not have materialized – which by the way does not mean that they will not ever. However, you simply cannot dismiss all concerns based on your observations, and label any group as delusional. In other words, your scale of measurement for determining whether or not someone is delusional is arbitrary. Moreover, when these two segments look at the same object (e.g. headscarf) they may have a different perception and understanding of it (e.g. religious freedom vs. civil rights/women rights). They are also going to use the very same observation/evidence to support their arguments. For example, an increase in the number of covered women will support both of their arguments. One is going to claim that they are gaining freedom and the other is going to claim that they are losing freedom. Tell me which one is delusional now.
Just tell us what you think and why instead of citing others or dictionaries.
Why do you think that we are going around circles?