ISTANBUL: A weird and dangerous speech

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
Feb 28 2010

A weird and dangerous speech

Sunday, February 28, 2010
HALUK Å?AHÄ°N

When I sat down to write this column, I found myself in a difficult
dilemma. Should I write about what the prime minister wants me to
write or not?

You know what Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an wants me to write
about: He wants me to respond to him as a columnist. With weird games
of logic, he attacks columnists and media bosses. His words are along
the lines of `Either you fire those who don’t support me or else don’t
expect anything of me.’

These are such marginal, anti-democratic words that I think he just
says them to change the agenda. When I write about him, I won’t be
able to write about anything else. I won’t write about things that
have gotten out of control. I won’t talk about internal mistakes such
as the Tekel demonstrations, the `democratic initiative,’ the
`Armenian genocide,’ Cyprus, Ergenekon or Balyoz, about the injustice
in Erzincan or about unemployment, economic imbalance or environmental
degradation. So it’ll be best if I just don’t get deceived and write.

But I just got out of my media-ethics class, where I told my students
that journalists are in favor of freedom of expression and should take
sides in this regard. `In comparison to some professions, journalists
can’t perform their duty well without freedom of expression,’ I said.
`And performing well is the most important obligation of their
profession.’

So, despite the trap, I have to say that the prime minister’s words
were wrong and dangerous. And that what he said yesterday is among the
`unforgettables,’ something that will follow him anywhere in the
world…

After these words, is it possible for ErdoÄ?an to be accepted as a
`democrat’ anywhere in the world? They will confront him with these
words. What had happened that he was so careless and unrestrained? If
it was meant to be a trap, couldn’t he have planned it more carefully?

His speech was fine up until that point; when he said Turkey needs to
be a first-class democracy, I had a slight hope. I even thought about
writing about the characteristics of `first class’ democracies,
starting with his words.

Then those unbelievably weird words followed.

The following question got stuck in my mind: Can a country be a
first-class democracy with such words coming out of the mouth of its
prime minister? Who would do that?

* Haluk Å?ahin is a columnist for daily Radikal, in which this piece
appeared Saturday. It was translated into English by the Daily News
staff.

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