The Turkish government had commenced to negotiate with the PKK in order to resolve the most prominent issue that it inherited since the very first years of the Republic: the “Kurdish issue”. As a result of Erdoğan’s initiative in 2009, negotiations between the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and the PKK started. After a while, transcripts of proceedings between MIT and the PKK in Oslo were published in a daily. At the time, nobody knew that these were leaked by FETO, which had infiltrated the state and established a parallel structure over 40 years. Only two things were known about this organization then: firstly, it was a religious congregation with a significant financial power that opened schools all around the world and possessed multiple media outlets and business associations. Secondly, they had racist tendencies towards Kurds that were made apparent by their media outlets and speeches by Fetullah Gülen.

Known for being comparatively more sensitive towards Islam than western parts of Turkey, not many in the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions really liked Gülen’s congregation due to their racist tendencies. Moreover, the majority of Kurds who still preserved the medrese and dergah traditions (traditional educational and religious institutions) inherited from the Ottomans didn’t perceive the said congregation as “religious” and didn’t find its leader’s residence in the US ordinary. Even though FETO infiltrated the bureaucracy, military and universities in the region, they were only able to gain a few followers among the people.

On February 7, 2012, during the early hours of the day, a news flash: Istanbul’s Specially Authorized Prosecutor Sadrettin Sarıkaya who was conducting an investigation into the PKK-linked KCK organization, requested MIT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan to come to the courthouse on Thursday. I have to repeat this as it isn’t a situation that could be comprehended at the first. Try to think of this event occurring in the UK. The then Prime Minister Erdoğan and his government initiates a reconciliation and peace process and a prosecutor in Istanbul calls the head of MIT to the courthouse as a suspect!

http://thenewturkey.org/fetos-civil-administrators-and-their-trips-abroad-before-the-coup-attempt/

Istanbul’s Specially Authorized Prosecutor Sadrettin Sarıkaya personally called MIT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan, former Undersecretary Emre Taner, former Deputy Undersecretary Afet Güneş and two other former MIT employees and demanded they give statements as a part of the KCK investigations. The prosecutor was accusing Fidan and his colleagues of having committed a crime for being part of the negotiations with the PKK in Oslo. There was another interesting situation. On the same day, the Prime Minister was in Istanbul to undergo a medical operation, which the public did not know about. However, due to security concerns, the time of the operation was changed. For this reason, when Hakan Fidan called the Prime Minister he was able to talk with him. Erdoğan sensed something foul about the situation and told Fidan not to go to the courthouse and give a statement. Even though Erdoğan said on TV after the incident, “They would first arrest the head of MIT and then me. I had authorized the head of MIT. So, they should personally call me to the courthouse”, nobody – with the exception of those who were interested in the Kurdish issue – cared much about this statement. It was widely known that the prosecutor was close to FETO. However, the incident was perceived by many as the group’s exaggerated sensitivity towards the Kurdish issue rather than a Gülenist attack on Erdoğan and the state.

The Gezi Park incidents in June 2013 followed this event. The protests were initially started by people whose concerns were environmental and who objected to a construction project that was to take place in a park in Taksim. Yet, it didn’t stay as a protest by environmentalists. After a little while Kemalists, later joined by the Alevis, joined the protests alleging that “their lifestyle was under threat.” It became apparent that FETO had a finger in this incident. Gülen and his organization tried to provoke the protesters with their associates within the police force through the use of violence. Zekeriya Öz, a fugitive Gülenist and a former prosecutor, tweeted the following on this subject: “If the PKK had participated in the Gezi Park protests, those who are governing now wouldn’t be in their seats. I don’t know who ordered them, but the PKK didn’t join.”

There were other prominent Gülenists that were trying to spark new conflicts by provoking the protesters that were completely organized over social media. For instance, a renowned Gülenist fugitive Emre Uslu, who now lives in the US, tweeted that PKK militants turned a car over which had female passengers with headscarves in Maltepe, Istanbul (however, such an event didn’t transpire). Efforts to evolve street protests into a civil war through constant provocations were apparent. While Gülen’s media outlets openly supported the Gezi Park protests, the Gülenists changed their tune towards the end when a group in İzmir vandalized their school. Participating in the Gezi Park protests with various reasons and motives, the majority of the youth seemed unaware of this effort to exploit the situation.

We started to hear that a new wave of street protests similar to the Gezi Park protests were to take place in November. These could’ve been just a rumor, of course. Still, I had heard this from an academic who lived in the US and from a journalist that had ties with FETO. The Gülenist journalist had said “I don’t know if 10 or 15 soldiers will be killed, but something will happen and Erdoğan will go.”

6 months after the Gezi Park protests, on January 9, 2013, three women including Sakine Cansız, who was one of the founders of the PKK and who supported the peace process, were killed at the Kurdish Information Bureau in Paris. These killings took place right after the government announced that they were negotiating with Abdullah Öcalan for the resolution of the Kurdish issue. This incident pitted the two sides against each other. It was a sensitive and fragile issue as after all there were negotiations with a terrorist organization and the Turkish public’s top enemy Abdullah Öcalan. The person who was caught by French security forces had a trace of gunpowder on his coat. His name was announced as Ömer Güney. According to the information gathered from the French security forces, Güney was close with the terrorist organization to an extent that he could be deemed a PKK sympathizer. This information consolidated the theories that it was an intra-organizational execution. There was great outrage and this outrage poured onto the street. The funeral of Cansiz in Diyarbakır was attended by tens of thousands of people.

Eleven months after the murder, the December 17-25 operation that was conducted by the Gülenists within the judiciary, security forces and media aiming to depose the government with the accusation that it was corrupt took place. For the first time, regardless of their political views, all witnessed and became aware of the intimidating operational capacity of FETO. During those days, Gülenist media outlets started to spread disinformation that MIT was responsible for the murder in Paris. Moreover, they alleged that Ömer Güney was actually a member of MIT. Yet, almost nobody cared about this subject as there were more pressing issues present.

In January 2014, PKK-affiliate KCK stated that the murder of the three women was carried out by FETO’s members within the state and that Ömer Güney was actively engaged with Gülenists. Ömer Güney, who was to be tried after a two-year long investigation by the Paris Prosecutor’s Office, was taken to a hospital for an ailment in his brain. In January, just one month before his trial, he died. It was later discovered that Ömer Güney was visited by three individuals from Turkey and that those individuals were FETO members.

Then, the terrible event known as the Kobane incident took place. Using Daesh’s attack on Kobane and the alleged inaction by Turkey as excuses, the leader of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtaş and his colleagues called for countrywide streets protests on October 7. I said to myself “this must be the second Gezi Park protest that was being discussed.” Protesters built barricades and engaged with the security forces. 50 died and 682, 139 of them police officers, were wounded. 1,113 buildings, including 25 district governor offices, 67 police headquarters and 29 political party offices, were damaged.

One of FETO’s media outlets, Zaman Daily’s Editor-in-Chief Ekrem Dumanlı visiting Diyarbakır’s Mayor Gülten Kışanak and their open support for HDP while the aforementioned events were taking place were intriguing. When news of the visits by HDP deputy Ahmet Türk and former HDP deputy Nazmi Gür’s paid to Fetullah Gülen in 2014 in Pennsylvania was heard, it astonished many. There were many news pieces on FETO providing intelligence to the PKK and deciphering the code names of state operatives within the PKK. How the PKK dug trenches in many cities, especially in Diyarbakır, in order to start a war despite the people’s objections was made clear after the July 15 coup attempt. The FETO-member military officers and pilots bombed the Parliament with F-16s that flew from Diyarbakır. FETO militants did whatever they could to both provoke the public and enable the PKK.

Two years after these events two HDP deputies, one of them in prison, made two statements. These two statements are unprecedented, considering HDP’s disposition in the last two years. In his interview with journalist Ruşen Çakır, HDP deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder said the following: “October 6-8 Kobane events might have never taken place, because the ‘prevalent state perspective’ [AK Party] was foreseeing solidarity with Kobane. I will be extremely clear about this; the said solidarity was obstructed by FETO-affiliated generals whose roles in the July 15 coup attempt is apparent. They put an extreme pressure on Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. Now, generals who commanded the units in Sur, Nusaybin and Cizre are being tried as the perpetrators of the coup attempt. I have seen how these generals obstructed the solidarity between Turkey and Kobane-Rojava.”

Accused of “being a member of a terrorist organization,” “inciting to commit crime” and “inciting the public to unlawful meeting and demonstration,” HDP deputy Ayhan Bilgen made a similar statement very recently during the session of his trial at Diyarbakır 5^th Heavy Penal Court:

“October 6-8 was a demonstration of a civil war in this country. Who incited these conflicts must be investigated thoroughly. It should be investigated whether these were the same people who wanted to depose the elected government on July 15.”

The fog of war is slowly fading, yet unfortunately it isn’t possible to talk about a social base that would support the reiteration of a peace process, not in the short-term. FETO is an important component of this issue and so is the PKK. How these two terrorist organizations came together after years and their role in all that transpired must also be taken into account.

When the opposition wasn’t able to produce the results they wanted in Turkey’s constitutional referendum, the usual muttering, baseless allegations, rejections and lastly the call to the streets began. This call inevitably reminded the people of the Gezi Park violent protests, which caused a trauma in society’s collective memory in recent political history, and gave way to clear acts of violence. It brought to mind images of vandalized public and private institutions, burnt down public transport vehicles, construction equipment, police cars and even vehicles belonging to the media; damaged ATMs and CCTVs, ransacked shops, uprooted pavements, garbage containers, seized construction equipment driven towards the prime minister’s residence, the burning down of AK Party bureaus…

The society’s acquaintance with the left’s relation with violence goes back to the 1970s. Armed assaults by various leftist organizations towards the police, businesspeople and notables; fights with sticks and stones, and clashes with Molotov cocktails were all witnessed by the people; however, these acts of violence were usually limited to small groups. The mass leftist spiral of violence, as if they were under hypnosis, occurred during the Gezi Park protests, and was unprecedented.

Roots of Leftist Violence

Firstly, we have to accept that, even though they are the ones who use the rhetoric of democracy the most, the left cannot be democratic due to its nature. This is because the left believes that history is about conflicting social classes and that the dominating classes can only be overthrown through force. In their belief, classes ruling the society will never willingly give up their powers to the downtrodden; therefore, the oppressed masses should organize themselves and depose their oppressors. They believe there is no other way.

As their objective is “sacred,” the ends will justify the means; the toolset of violence, including armed uprising, are legitimate. Elections, ballot boxes, and the parliament are all “bourgeois institutions” which have to be annihilated, eventually; that’s why Lenin says that the parliament is “the barn of bourgeois.” These institutions, according to them, will only have meaning in the dictatorship of the proletariat after the revolution.

Therefore, being a “guerrilla in the mountains of Dersim” or forming “armed propaganda units” in cities is more attractive than managing campaigns and trying to garner votes for parliamentary elections. Because those who arm themselves and try to dismantle the state mechanism are fighting for the future of the people. All of them are brave revolutionaries who are sacrificing their lives for revolution.

Empathy with Murderers

Let’s remember the Çağlayan Courthouse incursion on March 31, 2015. We still remember the praise heaped upon the DHKP-C militants who first held prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz hostage and then martyred him, and how the hashtag #BizDeSiziSeviyoruz (#WeLoveYouToo, referring to the militants) became popular on social media afterwards. We didn’t hear the slightest of condemnations against this murder from the left; on the contrary, leftist groups even embraced it. Even the Cumhuriyet daily ran a headline and content that attempted to legitimize the murder. A journalist reported a telephone interview with the terrorists (whom the journalist presented as poor young revolutionaries that were forced to take such an action).

When the murders of the Sabancı Center occurred in 1996, all the leftists praised the act as a “strike against Turkey’s bourgeoisie.” When riots in the Gazi neighborhood took place in 1995, the left produced violence as much as they could from the existing chaos. Alevi coffeehouses were assaulted and with the incitement following afterwards, tens of people lost their lives due to police firing on protestors. There were clear provocations; however, leftist groups started their tour de force since day one. All the walls of the neighborhood were filled with revolutionary mottos, militants coming from other cities were settled in the neighborhood, and all groups seized areas and clashed with police for days. In the following years, while a smaller leftist group, which I was a part of, used the motto “Never again!” after the Gazi riots, all the other leftist groups employed “One, two, three, more Gazi!” as their motto, referring to the Vietnam War.

Amidst the clear massive hysterical violence of Gezi Park, there were other acts of violence which the protestors tried to keep it hidden. All leftist groups occupied certain areas and hung their flags and banners on the barricades they made there. There were some groups which even stopped and checked the IDs of people who entered their “territory.” One group stopped and beat down a young person who was passing with a beer can in his hand.

Two homeless people were tortured by militants of the Socialist Reconstruction Party (SYKP) at an abandoned building they had invaded (another dimension of violence) and named “Berkin Elvan House of Occupation.” Coincidentally, the media covered this. When one of the perpetrators was suspended from the party, the case was closed.

Effect of Militarism

The appraised violence of the “revolutionary” left permeated both their actions and discourses. Their rhetoric and practices reek of militarism. For instance, on May 1, which is mostly disregarded all around the world, but is deemed as a “holy day” by the Turkish left, some leftist groups wear matching uniforms, carry red flags of the same size, get into military formations and pace around while singing anthems. They are as orderly as a military unit. These groups have certain supervisors who ensure that the order is maintained and no outsider joins their march.

The names and the terminology of these groups reflect militarism. Names like “People’s Liberation Front,” “People’s Liberation Army,” and “Liberation Army of Peasants and Workers” have existed since the 1970s. Military terms in the leftist jargon are also quite frequent. For instance, the Western term of “struggle” was accepted as “war” (savaş) by the Turkish left. There are many other military terms in the leftist jargon: triumph, martyr, enemy, platoon, fortress, armed revolutionary units, siege, front, retreat, rear guard, offensive and so forth.

In anthems that are written for militants who were killed during clashes or terrorist acts too, hints of militarism can be found. In Grup Yorum’s anthems there is much praise for machine guns, Kalashnikov rifles, fortresses and armaments. This is the reason behind semi-military street demonstrations where red masked and armed militants march in certain areas like Okmeydanı or Gazi.

CHP Calls for Violence

Is the situation any different in the CHP, a mainstream political party? It is unfortunately not. No one can’t utter any negative opinions about leftist figures like Mahir Çayan, Deniz Gezmiş or Che Guevara at any local branch of the CHP; as they consider these figures part of their tradition and show them the utmost respect. Let’s remember Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s portrait right beside Deniz Gezmiş’s and his speech at the parliament, saying “I’m Kemal from Dersim! I’m Kemal the Revolutionary!”

We are acquainted with the violent demonstrations by community centers and student collectives affiliated with the CHP: their clashes with the police or other groups, and their assaults on kiosks opened by conservatives. Or, we know that it’s almost a tradition that CHP deputies try to protect the members of illegal leftist groups who are detained, to the extent of becoming their lawyers. The distance between the radical left and the CHP is shorter than assumed.

Let’s not forget that the clashes and deaths during Gezi Park started after the CHP canceled their Kadıköy meeting and directed its masses to Taksim. Unable to accept the results of the referendum, CHP has once again called people to the streets. They may be justified in venting anger over not being able to become the ruling party; however, actions go far from using legitimate political channels, and make them responsible for all the negative consequences that might follow. The cost of the constant call for chaos could be high. It should be remembered that one cannot achieve any political outcome with such methods in the newly accepted system of government.