(Illustration: Cem Kızıltuğ)
By HASAN CEMAL
This is true. I forgot how many times I’ve been declared a traitor in my 46 years as a professional journalist. They have declared me a traitor or a CIA or KGB agent because of my columns and my stance on some critical issues as a journalist. Some even clearly stated in 2005 that they would execute me themselves and published statements on the front pages of newspapers to that effect, like, “If martial courts are set up some day, and if Hasan Cemal is given the death penalty, I would be one of those who would be willing to execute him.”**
‘Communist, separatist, fundamentalist, traitor, parallel’
This is how this country behaves. If you do not subscribe to state clichés about certain major and critical issues, and if you do not buy the lies of the official history and instead criticize the heads of the state, you are labeled a traitor. Critics have always been fearful of being labeled communists, separatists, fundamentalists, parallel operatives or traitors in this country. These red lines were drawn through defamation campaigns, persecution and imprisonment. Through them, critical stances and pro-freedom views were restricted and discouraged in Turkey. Questioning the points of view of political administrations has always been a difficult task in this country, and it is still a dangerous endeavor.
Figures in Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s administration frequently declare people traitors.
Erdoğan’s most recent traitor is İhsan Yılmaz
They have declared me a traitor and a CIA or KGB agent due to my books, columns or views on certain critical issues.
There are yet more striking examples in this regard. President Erdoğan declared a columnist a traitor because of a speech the columnist made. He said: “There are some traitors who raise some false claims in the US that religious schools are being opened and alcohol is banned in Turkey. They simply commit an act of treason by smearing their country.” This traitor is İhsan Yılmaz, who teaches at Fatih University and writes columns for Today’s Zaman. Yılmaz defends himself with the following:
I analyzed the militarists and authoritarian figures of the past so I have the right to do the same for the current administration as well. They are trying to demonize the Hizmet movement through me. I never called the AKP [Justice and Development Party] jihadist or pro-al Qaeda. I did not even call them Islamist or neo-Kemalist. I called the post-2011 AKP Kemalo-Islamist. With this reference, I tried to explain that the Kemalists had persecuted the religious groups and others in Turkey in the past and that the AKP is doing the same now under the guise of religiosity. And I call this Kemalo-Islamism. I have written a number of columns on this subject.
I never said they make everybody imams. What I was trying to say is that a growing number of imam-hatip schools are being opened as vocational schools, and students were left with no choice but to enroll in those schools. I was trying to say that the system redirects those who did not indicate a preference for the imam-hatip schools. I am not against imam-hatips. I am against the enrolment of students in these schools when they do not want to do so. New imam-hatips may be opened. This is not a problem at all; but if the state converts a school into an imam-hatip school without the consent of the parents, this will not make these people love religion.
As for the arguments on my remarks about alcohol … I object to Erdoğan’s attempt to justify policies on alcohol use with religion. I believe Erdoğan resorts to religion for such a critical issue because this is part of a bigger plan and he is a very experienced politician. You should consider this together with the lies suggesting alcohol was consumed in a mosque [in Dolmabahçe during the Gezi Park protests] and that a woman wearing a headscarf was attacked in Kabataş. If a prime minister refers to alcohol as something prohibited by religion, religious people may not be disturbed by this because, well, we are aware that alcohol is banned under our religion. But millions of others may be disturbed, and this raises tension in this country and disrupts social harmony.
Would Erdoğan make the same remarks in 2005? I am saying that Erdoğan’s discourse is evolving into an Islamist language. I believe that Islamism is the use of Islam for political goals. Islamism is the ideology of seizing power and making people more religious by reliance on state power. This hurts religion and makes people hypocritical. What is being done in Iran is a different version of this. Of course, Turkey is pretty different from Iran in many respects; however, it is possible to observe some common characteristics of Islamism everywhere, including dictating religiosity and using religion for political purposes. I never said Turkey is becoming Iran. I am saying that Turkey is becoming more authoritarian like Iran, but it is not there yet. I have already said many times that Turkey would never become Iran.
Targeting someone because you do not like his views
This is an excerpt from İhsan Yılmaz’s piece. You may or may not like his views. But if you accuse him of treason, this would be unfair. And if you turn this into a campaign of defamation, then you are persecuting him. If you do so, you ignore some basic values and standards of democracy. If you do so, you prove that you are moving away from the shores of democracy pretty swiftly. In democratic countries, presidents or prime ministers would not make remarks declaring their critics traitors.
It is shameful.
* This column by journalist Hasan Cemal originally appeared in Turkish on t24.com
** Cemal, Hasan. “1915: Ermeni Soykırımı” (1915: The Armenian Genocide). Istanbul: Everest Yayınları, 2012. p. 6