What is going on in Turkey?
M. Orhan Tarhan
March 12, 2008
On February 9, 2008 the Turkish Parliament in Ankara changed the Turkish constitution, the part that could not be changed, even the part that cannot be discussed. They lifted the ban on wearing head scarves or turbans at the universities. This was a strong blow on the laic character of the constitution. How did it happen?
There are two major opposition parties in the parliament: The National Movement Party (MHP) that was known as being laic and that is a nationalist – fascist organization and The Peoples´ Republican Party (CHP) originally the party of Ataturk and presently an old-fashion socialistic party having no resemblance to Ataturk´s creation.
(Remember, the same thing happened to our Republican Party here that was hijacked by the Evangelical Christians.) As a total surprise, MHP announced that it would vote together with AKP. That, of course, exceeded 2/3 of the vote and the constitutional change passed. The CHP did not spend much energy to defend the laic constitution during the weeks and months before the vote. A good friend of mine who lives in Ankara e-mailed me the following: " A few days ago we were together with a politician opposed to AKP. We asked him why CHP did not object [to the change of the constitution]. He replied as follows: The CHP is content of the place it is in. It does not have the desire to become the ruling party. So it would not be involved with these things." I was shocked. If that is true (It is very probably true) then the CHP has no business being in the Parliament. People assume that they will act as the opposition and are deceived. The CHP does nothing. The state should make them pay back all their salaries and should chase them out of the parliament. What a corrupt bunch!
The air in Turkey is full of "complot theories´, some sounding very credible. Let me give two examples"
(a) Bahceli, who is the head of MHP is in the pay of the CIA.(That explains why they voted with the AKP)
(b) A foreign secret service added 25 % to AKP votes during the last election and AKP did not know about it but now they are very happy with the results.(46 %). Without it AKP would have gotten only 22 %.
These are very serious accusations. The state should seriously investigate them and find out the truth. Then if a crime has been committed, the perpetrator(s) should be punished. But no such thing is being done. The complot theories are allowed to float over the country, giving the impression that foreign hands are doing all the bad things in Turkey. That, happily leaves nothing to do to the AKP government. I have no reason to believe or disbelieve these theories.
I intend to make a short history o political development in Turkey after Ataturk´s death (1938) and give a number of data that show how deeply Turkey is plunged in Islam today.
Ataturk left a blue print for keeping his new laic republic alive. He asked the Turkish Youth to carry out that protection. But his closest co-worker Ismet Inonu was the one who began reversing Ataturk´s reforms without any objection by the youth. Ataturk had closed all the religious schools to put every one in laic schools. Inonu, who was a religious man, wanted to have a school where imams could be trained for service in villages. This was the proverbial camel´s head sticking in the tent. Other "dirty" politicians saw an interest in getting votes from the uneducated peasants and the imam-Preacher schools proliferated during the 50 years although they were clearly against the law of Union of Education. At one point these schools were infiltrated by the graduates of Saudi Madrassas, who brought with them all the anti-republican, anti-democratic, and anti-Western hate propaganda. They became the only schools in the world that were funded by the state, which they were trying to destroy. When these schools became that dangerous, the Ataturk Society of America attracted the attention of the Turkish press and various Turkish state offices without results, Finally this Writer took personally "a smoking gun" to President Demirel who recalled a certain number of imam-Preacher graduates from doctorate studies in the United States but he did not go to the root of the evil. The schools and its teachers continued to produce Islamists.
An other important event was the development of the Islamist parties. Such a party was absolutely unconstitutional, but when it was first formed, the parliamentarians did not object to it.. At the next military take over, that party was closed. But after civilian administration was re-established the same people started an other party with a different name. That is also unconstitutional, but the friendly parliamentarians did not object to it. With the help of the imam-preacher schools, and with the unconstitutional tolerance of the parliamentarians the Islamist parties eventually manage to brain-wash almost half of the Turkish population. They are intelligent long-range planners.
During that time the so-called laic section of parties, a mess of rightist and socialist parties achieved nothing as ruling coalitions in the last 30 years, and on top of it they showed extreme corruption and incompetence. During the 2002, the Turkish voters literally fired them all, opening the gate to the Islamist party.
Now some revealing statistics: [Data assembled by Erol Ertugrul ERGIR and disseminated by e-mail]
How many schools are in Turkey? 67,000
How many hospitals are there? 1,220
How many health care homes? 6,300
Haw many mosques are there? 85,000 For each hospital, there are 65,000 people. But
For each mosque there are only 350 people.
How many physicians are there in Turkey 77,000
How many religious employee? 90,000
How many libraries in Turkey? 1,435
How many libraries in Germany? 11,000
In how many cities are a state theater? 13
In how many cities are there Koran courses 81
In Turkey there are1 opera society, 11 Ballet, 18 design, 18 movies, and 38 theater societies. Now how many mosque construction societies are there: 35,000
The yearly budgets of Internal Affairs Ministry is TL 783 trillion
The budget of the Religious Affairs Directorate is TL 1.3 Quatrillion
This information shows that Turkey is galloping towards an Islamic state with no breaks and no one else´s connivance. Turks should stop blaming others for their troubles and realize the enormity of what they did to themselves. The above numbers were developing steadily over the years. Turkish politicians of those years must have been blind not to have noticed them. The same thing goes for intelligent , modern-minded, Ataturkist men and women. In the final analysis the responsibility for losing the republic left by Ataturk comes to rest on the shoulders of each and every one of the wonderful, peaceful citizens who delegated their powers to their parliamentarians, who sold them down the river.
What can be done now to save the laic Republic? In 1919 Mustafa Kemal found a much worse set of conditions than exist today and he saved it. The non-religious voters in Turkey are still the majority, although a bare majority. Turkey needs a good leader and a good organization. Of course it is feasible. But doing it is the thing.
There are two major opposition parties in the parliament: The National Movement Party (MHP) that was known as being laic and that is a nationalist – fascist organization and The Peoples´ Republican Party (CHP) originally the party of Ataturk and presently an old-fashion socialistic party having no resemblance to Ataturk´s creation.
(Remember, the same thing happened to our Republican Party here that was hijacked by the Evangelical Christians.) As a total surprise, MHP announced that it would vote together with AKP. That, of course, exceeded 2/3 of the vote and the constitutional change passed. The CHP did not spend much energy to defend the laic constitution during the weeks and months before the vote. A good friend of mine who lives in Ankara e-mailed me the following: " A few days ago we were together with a politician opposed to AKP. We asked him why CHP did not object [to the change of the constitution]. He replied as follows: The CHP is content of the place it is in. It does not have the desire to become the ruling party. So it would not be involved with these things." I was shocked. If that is true (It is very probably true) then the CHP has no business being in the Parliament. People assume that they will act as the opposition and are deceived. The CHP does nothing. The state should make them pay back all their salaries and should chase them out of the parliament. What a corrupt bunch!
The air in Turkey is full of "complot theories´, some sounding very credible. Let me give two examples"
(a) Bahceli, who is the head of MHP is in the pay of the CIA.(That explains why they voted with the AKP)
(b) A foreign secret service added 25 % to AKP votes during the last election and AKP did not know about it but now they are very happy with the results.(46 %). Without it AKP would have gotten only 22 %.
These are very serious accusations. The state should seriously investigate them and find out the truth. Then if a crime has been committed, the perpetrator(s) should be punished. But no such thing is being done. The complot theories are allowed to float over the country, giving the impression that foreign hands are doing all the bad things in Turkey. That, happily leaves nothing to do to the AKP government. I have no reason to believe or disbelieve these theories.
I intend to make a short history o political development in Turkey after Ataturk´s death (1938) and give a number of data that show how deeply Turkey is plunged in Islam today.
Ataturk left a blue print for keeping his new laic republic alive. He asked the Turkish Youth to carry out that protection. But his closest co-worker Ismet Inonu was the one who began reversing Ataturk´s reforms without any objection by the youth. Ataturk had closed all the religious schools to put every one in laic schools. Inonu, who was a religious man, wanted to have a school where imams could be trained for service in villages. This was the proverbial camel´s head sticking in the tent. Other "dirty" politicians saw an interest in getting votes from the uneducated peasants and the imam-Preacher schools proliferated during the 50 years although they were clearly against the law of Union of Education. At one point these schools were infiltrated by the graduates of Saudi Madrassas, who brought with them all the anti-republican, anti-democratic, and anti-Western hate propaganda. They became the only schools in the world that were funded by the state, which they were trying to destroy. When these schools became that dangerous, the Ataturk Society of America attracted the attention of the Turkish press and various Turkish state offices without results, Finally this Writer took personally "a smoking gun" to President Demirel who recalled a certain number of imam-Preacher graduates from doctorate studies in the United States but he did not go to the root of the evil. The schools and its teachers continued to produce Islamists.
An other important event was the development of the Islamist parties. Such a party was absolutely unconstitutional, but when it was first formed, the parliamentarians did not object to it.. At the next military take over, that party was closed. But after civilian administration was re-established the same people started an other party with a different name. That is also unconstitutional, but the friendly parliamentarians did not object to it. With the help of the imam-preacher schools, and with the unconstitutional tolerance of the parliamentarians the Islamist parties eventually manage to brain-wash almost half of the Turkish population. They are intelligent long-range planners.
During that time the so-called laic section of parties, a mess of rightist and socialist parties achieved nothing as ruling coalitions in the last 30 years, and on top of it they showed extreme corruption and incompetence. During the 2002, the Turkish voters literally fired them all, opening the gate to the Islamist party.
Now some revealing statistics: [Data assembled by Erol Ertugrul ERGIR and disseminated by e-mail]
How many schools are in Turkey? 67,000
How many hospitals are there? 1,220
How many health care homes? 6,300
Haw many mosques are there? 85,000 For each hospital, there are 65,000 people. But
For each mosque there are only 350 people.
How many physicians are there in Turkey 77,000
How many religious employee? 90,000
How many libraries in Turkey? 1,435
How many libraries in Germany? 11,000
In how many cities are a state theater? 13
In how many cities are there Koran courses 81
In Turkey there are1 opera society, 11 Ballet, 18 design, 18 movies, and 38 theater societies. Now how many mosque construction societies are there: 35,000
The yearly budgets of Internal Affairs Ministry is TL 783 trillion
The budget of the Religious Affairs Directorate is TL 1.3 Quatrillion
This information shows that Turkey is galloping towards an Islamic state with no breaks and no one else´s connivance. Turks should stop blaming others for their troubles and realize the enormity of what they did to themselves. The above numbers were developing steadily over the years. Turkish politicians of those years must have been blind not to have noticed them. The same thing goes for intelligent , modern-minded, Ataturkist men and women. In the final analysis the responsibility for losing the republic left by Ataturk comes to rest on the shoulders of each and every one of the wonderful, peaceful citizens who delegated their powers to their parliamentarians, who sold them down the river.
What can be done now to save the laic Republic? In 1919 Mustafa Kemal found a much worse set of conditions than exist today and he saved it. The non-religious voters in Turkey are still the majority, although a bare majority. Turkey needs a good leader and a good organization. Of course it is feasible. But doing it is the thing.
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