Dear
Mr. President,
I
was amongst those who approved of the prior decision of The
Republican People's Party’s (CHP) about not participating in the
Democracy Rally you held in Istanbul. This was due to your
undependable attitude towards the concept of democracy over the
years. However, your insistence on “unity
and solidarity of the country and the triumph of democracy”
came to fruition and first Devlet Bahçeli the leader of Nationalist
Movement Party (MHP), then Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu the leader of CHP
accepted your second invitation. Therefore, although I am a person
against you and the political ideology you have been representing for
years, I decided to join this rally and give a chance to the
democracy-peace duo. I went to Yenikapı. On the premises, I got
together with all your supporters. Today, with your permission,
stowing away my judgments and even my political beliefs in the
refrigerator, within democratic practices, I will share with you my
thoughts free heartedly.
Dear
Mr. President,
The
July 15 bloody FETO (Fethullah Gülen Terrorist Organization) coup
attempt, I hope has inevitably reminded you during a most critical
process one of Atatürk's most important discourses: “The
Republic of Turkey can never be the country of sheiks, dervishes,
disciples and members of sects. The best, the truest sect is the sect
of civilization.”
Your
voters, who looked upon sects as "innocent religious formations"
up until today, have probably come to their senses.
As
you know, most of the 2nd Republican1
writers who supported you and the political Islam would get defensive
whenever FETO aka “F-type” was mentioned and say, “What's
their difference from civilian lobbying groups or non-governmental
organizations?”
That difference, Turkey as a whole had to learn it on that night by
paying a heavy price.
Following
the orders of a fundamentalist fanatic, the raving so-called soldiers
did not refrain from firing artillery, shells and machine guns at
their own people, inflicting heavy losses on our people.
What
is interesting is fact that, those members of the military you tried
to prevent being discharged from the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK)
always by putting an annotation to their “discharge” decision by
the high military council, along with those belonging to the same
group (FETO) who leaked into the highest ranks in the army, carried
out these unforgivable attacks against you and the public. And most
of the soldiers within the TSK, who protected you and warded off the
coup, came from the Kemalist-traditional TSK line. Thanks
to them and the masses you to called to the streets via the media,
FETO’s vile operation did not achieve its goal. The trouble is that
there may still exist ‘sleeper cells’ infiltrated deep in the
TSK. This suspicion is constantly brought to the agenda. Perhaps
the most secured harbor for you is the Republican-Democrat-Kemalist
officers that did time in prison during the ERGENEKON2
case! No one doubts that they stood dead on end against FETO and the
coup.
More precisely, maybe there is no one else other than these people
that passed this full “test” of being and anti-FETO personality!
I hope that from now on, the critical positions like your
Presidential aider, will be chosen more carefully.
I
WAS A TARGET OF FETO AS WELL
Dear
Mr. President,
FETO
messed with me too. At the turn of the 1990’s the Foundation
of Journalists and Writers,
which is under Gulen’s control, had invited me insistently to their
reception (“Gulen
Hoca wants you among us”),
which of course I had refused. I did not fall to the trap. I left a
big distance between us and carried on with my Kemalist struggle.
Later during the Ergenekon case, using the same tactics against
Kemalist figures like Mustafa Balbay, Tuncay Özkan, Doğu Perinçek,
they made up indictments consisting of most untrue scenarios that
were exposed without achieving any results. Apparently I was also a
victim of phone hacking for many years. I
was informed of this last year by senior overseers of the supreme
board of judges and prosecutors. They showed me also official
documents and police records. Of course I pressed charges against
these people and participated in the proceedings in the FETO case as
a plaintiff. In
addition, the source of the heavy attack I was subject to in 2011, a
“commissioned murder” in all its aspects, is still in the dark.
The aggressor was sentenced to serve 32 years in prison but did not
confess his connections.
THE
SOVEREIGNTY WHİCH CAME DOWN DOWN FROM THE SKIES AND SECULARISM…
As
the saying goes, “every
cloud has a silver lining”.
After the coup attempt, the vast majority of our people wanted to
believe in the winds of peace and democracy blowing in the Turkish
political climate. Because the public is most severely divided into
at least three or four major groups and people can no longer stand
it.
Despite
all the political groupings in Turkey, they miss the old days when
they as a whole looked up with hope to the future and democracy.
As
you well know all efforts trying to politicize religion assert,
"Sovereignty
belongs to Allah"
as opposed to “Sovereignty
rests unconditionally with the nation”.
Come July 15, the shift to "Sovereignty
belongs to the nation",
particularly seen in the political party you have founded, the AKP is
extremely promising. Because
as you can see, after saying "Sovereignty
belongs to Allah",
you can never know or calculate whose hands this "authority"
will fall into; in the hands of which sheikh or a sect leader with a
brain full of seeds of discord! Could
there be a more despicable
separatism
than using faith and love of God as an argument, as a quest of power
in the political arena?
So
in this case as well, we have ascertained that Atatürk is right. I
hope everyone draws lessons from these experiences and we will no
more have any sects that will have an access to unduly power and
underserved profits.
I'm
sure you are actually glad that the “triumph of democracy” on
July 15 was attained with the wholehearted defense of democracy of
the media organizations, which you had often harshly criticized in
the past.
Just
like the discourse, "Everyone
will one day be in need of law",
the statement “Everyone
will one day need a free media"
has indisputable been proven right. Of
course, strictly speaking, the media in our country is still far from
being qualified as "free".
According
to the world freedom of press index issued by Reporters
Without Borders
in Washington in 2016, we rank 151 out of 180 countries in the world,
just reminding...
I'm
sure, in a contemporary Turkey where people who revered democracy in
Yenikapı, you too are disturbed by this situation.
Dear
Mr. President,
At
the demonstration which was held in the memory of 239 martyrs and for
democracy nice words were spoken, the public was promised democracy
and days full of civil peace and comfort. In particular, the CHP
leader Kılıçdaroğlu’s insistence that “politics
must be kept out of the mosques,
courthouses
and barracks”
was striking. On the other hand, the speakers of the rally had
difficulty in explaining exactly the meaning of the word secularism.
Because the critical threshold of the case, of course, evolves around
secularism. Unfortunately, somehow the public was unable to learn or
unwilling to accept that secularism is above all a concept that is
related to the separation of state and religion and that it respects
all religions, all faiths and nonbelievers equally.
DEMOCRACY
IS POSSIBLE ONLY BY TOLERANCE AND RESPECT OF THE OTHER
Dear
Mr. President, before addressing you with questions in this regard as
a citizen, I wanted to make some succinct reminders about the word
“democracy”. As
you know, democracy is first and foremost a cohabitation culture.
It’s not about just tolerating but also knowing that one is
compelled to tolerate others who are not like him, who do not live
like him, who do not think like him.
Democracy means the unconditional sovereignty of the nation, the
power being neither in the heavens nor at the hands of one single
person. Secularism
comes also with pluralistic thought and freedom of expression. The
essence of democracy is respecting your opponent, your rival even in
the most harsh difference of opinions. It is a series of a code of
ethics. And not the powerful misuse of that power to bring the
minority to its
knees,
making deterrent threats. In
the end being a democrat means, people who work for you in your
surroundings, in your political sphere, in your bureaucracy and
security forces should equally be egalitarian and democratic. So if
you are going to highlight democracy the way you have been
emphasizing since July 15, you need to miraculously carry your entire
team to the same level. I hope you will succeed.
COULD
YOU REALLY CHANGE IN THESE MATTERS AND BECOME A DEMOCRAT?
Dear
Mr. President,
At
the Yenikapı rally, where more than 5 million of our citizens
gathered together, I would like to believe that the setting you have
built on the concept of democracy is sincere. Then I ask you: A few
days after the coup, you declared in the public squares, “We
will re-install the ancient Artillery Barracks in Taksim”
(which was one of the triggering points for the Gezi Protests). Are
you still insistent on this allegation? Atatürk
Cultural Center has been unnecessarily closed down for 8 years; will
this illogical situation that has become a real torture for the
artists still continue? The
heartbreaking situation that our
State
and City Theater, our ballet, our opera, and our classical music
orchestras have collapsed into is evident. Will this matter persist
or will it be corrected by giving an ear to rightful complaints and
the loud uproar of art institutions?
In
historical matters, will the sensitivities of the community be taken
into account and will the founders of our Republic be approached with
due respect? Will
you be able to stop the so-called teachers or head of departments who
are trying insidiously and step by step to erase Atatürk's name and
reforms anywhere?
How
long will everyone’s state of “being
on a bed of nails”
concerning “the separation
of powers” which is normally under constitutional guarantee that
has created a great disturbance in the political arena and in the
society continue?
On
the 1st May, will the modest and justified demands of the workers who
want to fill the main squares, notably Taksim, be met by a wall
again? Will
the Justice and Development Party (AKP) municipalities grow out of
the habit of complicating and disrupting transportation during the
days of opposition rallies or meetings?
Will
the
“Saturday mothers”3
are
able to share the pain of their children with each other and the
public without
clashing
with the police?
Are you going to continue your tradition of lashing out to or suing
journalists and writers who harshly criticize you? In this regard,
dropping
all
old lawsuits against
those who
were charged with insulting you was a very important step. How will
the rest follow?
Will
you exhibit reactions like immediately pressing charges against those
who criticize
you
(not
referring to those who openly insult you) on
the social media, or going even further by slowing down the Internet,
banning a popular social media? Will
we continue to witness a country where prisoners are lost or die in
custody, where those that do time in prisons struggle with death due
to the process of being unable to receive necessary health services?
Will you still keep just watching those at the head of the state
media TRT, who persistently do not give any broadcast time, or right
to answer, or special program to any opposition party? Will
the AKP continue to embed their own people at every level of the
state and ministries?
Are you going to allow the attendance of journalists from the
opposition to the television programs or the press conferences you
participate in or foreign trips you take?
Will the LGBT Pride parade still be sieged by the cops and will
people be asked to leave the streets?
Dear
Mr. President, if you are sincere about the
“triumph
of democracy”,
as you should agree, all the answers to these questions need to be
different from those given so far.
AS
THE PRESIDENT OF AN ART ORGANIZATION...
Dear
Mr. President, the goal of this article is not to create controversy.
Since the people now really look forward to the calming down of the
political environment and since you too, after this bloody coup,
insist that with a new era of dialogue and reconciliation
specifically want to make democracy bloom, serious steps should be
taken to change things. For example, while we were at the Democracy
Rally; the play,
“At
the Table of the Sun: Nazım Hikmet and Brecht”,
performed by one
of Turkey’s honorable actor and theatre director Genco Erkal at a
historical site in a schoolyard in Moda has been banned. A week prior
to this incident, at the İstanbul Municipal Theatre, 7 actors were
nonsensically removed from their jobs due to their leftist and
opposing views. Those seizing the opportunity of OHAL (State of
Emergency) stopped many artistic activities and theaters in various
part of Anatolia. I,
as the World President of International Association of Art/IAA- an
official partner of UNESCO and President of the Turkish National
Committee, UPSD regard all this as very strange and of course totally
unacceptable.
If
Turkey is truly going to go through these changes, then please
intervene in these impermissible acts and allow no longer the
bureaucrats to practice this arbitrary pressure on artists in
every country there are people who are more royalist than the king.
Let them not be afraid of people thinking, questioning, criticizing
and protesting.
They are the conscience of this country. In fact, we artists want
much more from this state. While going abroad for your political
trips in the same way that you take with you businessmen, bureaucrats
we expect you take along with you your museum directors, artists and
curators and go ahead with the construction of at least ten Museums
of Modern and Contemporary Art at the four corners of the country.
Because
foreign politicians and businessmen evaluate our country by the
museums we have not built, in as much as by the bridges we have
built!
You probably are aware that the State, since the Atatürk era, has
not opened a single Modern and Contemporary Museum in our country!
TO
RESPECT THE OPPOSITION ARTISTS AND THINKERS
Dear
Mr. President,
In
every democratic country in the world, leaders regard in tolerance
the opposition cartoonists, writers, theater people, artists or the
musicians. Sometimes they even take advantage of the situation in
order to make fun of themselves. That behavior on the contrary, makes
them even greater in the eye of the public. You
have to carry-on as the President also of the people who want to see
you lose in the elections. So if you suddenly decide for instance to
open new museums and surprise the world by appointing a board of
directory that would let artists exhibit nude paintings or opposition
political works; in that case you will freeze everybody with those
unexpected moves.
Only then the whole world will be accepting that this country is
finally sailing towards a real democracy! Surprise everybody Mister
President!
THIS
YEAR WILL BE YOUR LITMUS TEST
Dear
Mr. President,
If
there are no changes of conduct in the examples I have presented to
you, trust me that it would be a pity for the 5 million people that
went to the Yenikapi manifestation and all the Turkish citizens that
are dead tired about what the country is going through. In
that case, may it be in our country or in the outside world, people
will think that this great rally was nothing more than a sort of non
substantial show off! Then the undisputed comment that the main issue
in this manifestation of August 7, was nothing other then your own
search for support and power.
Which would mean that in the coming weeks everything would turn very
fast to its initial position and all your efforts regarding
compromise that you had started with such and euphoria, would
abruptly end. Let me also tell you that the issue of death penalty
that you have thrown into the hands of the Parliament, would end up
the EU cutting off all relations with Turkey and beyond that, our
country would turn into a sort of unlawful state of the Pirates! You
know much better than me that in a lawful state, the changes made
within the law, can never be applied to an ulterior date.
I would kindly ask your special attention to that very important
matter.
Dear
Mr. President,
This
flowing human
ocean
upon which you placed your emphasis in the demonstration of Yenikapi,
was maybe the largest crowd in the history of the world that attended
a political rally. It was a big success to bring together this
manifestation at such a level of intensity and a spirit of “single
body” as you worded it, with the Parties of the opposition being
present on the same stage as you and the Prime Minister! Turkey badly
needed that after all the disastrous attacks of the PKK, ISIS and now
FETO. In
order to record the manifestation of 7 August as an unforgettable
page in our history, can only become possible by turning it into a
milestone day for democracy. That’s why I would like to point out
that the issues brought here to your agenda, are the ones that people
are waiting with a growing curiosity in Turkey as well as in the
outside world.
As
I respectfully salute the 239 new democracy martyrs and their memory,
I would like to repeat here that my strongest wish in life is to see
Turkey full of peace and freedom, living as a country that has
digested democracy fully in every regards.
Respectfully,
BEDRİ
BAYKAM
1.
“The
Second Republicans”
are some media writers, university professors whose common
denominators is to underestimate Atatürk and his times, try to
minimize or criticize the values of the reforms that Atatürk
brought. They have been close to the so called soft-Islamist and
Kurds. However their own lifestyle and family roots are most of the
time “Kemalist”. All their theories were very “a la mode”
when they controlled the media and used their power to the benefit of
the AKP. According to the Kemalists they have been “used” by the
power of political Islam and then thrown as waste after their
“expiration date. Now they are floating in no-man’s land without
belonging to any group.
2. ERGENEKON and BALYOZ were the name of the court cases, when hundreds of Kemalist journalists, writers and army officers were arrested by prosecutors and the police in made-up conspiracies, plots with false documents and operational invented loadings of fake material into their computers, accusing them of wanting to abolish the Republic of Turkey. Most of those names stayed 6-7 years in prison. The court case was during the high times of the AKP-Fethullah Gülen partnership. When Gülen’s people attacked Erdoğan and his family on corruption charges, their roads split. Quite fast following this high conflict, the Ergenekon and Balyoz convicts were released.
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