BY MUHARREM SARIKAYA
SABAH- Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy leader Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat defended his recent remarks to the New York Times, saying, 'Yes, I said those words and I stand behind my statement.' Keep in mind that his remarks were not lengthy ones - just a few lines in a two-and-a-half--page story on Turkey. The part of his remarks which drew criticism from many people, including other AKP deputies, was this: 'Turkish society has been traumatized. Overnight they were told to change their dress, their language. Their religious ways were dismantled.' As the criticism began, Firat was at Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul. When I spoke with him on the phone, he told me that his statement hadn't been really understood and that people had criticized him without reading what he actually said.
When I checked the English text, he confirmed that he had spoken those words and that he stood behind them. When I told him that even some people from the AKP had criticized him, he said that he knew AKP Kirikkale Deputy Vahit Erdem speaks English very well and that he wished Erdem had read his statement not in Turkish newspapers, but in the original. Expanding on his remarks, Firat said, 'The revolution of 1923 (when the republic was founded) brought sweeping changes to lifestyles. After all, revolutions bring changes. None of the revolution was soft. It was a traumatic situation.' He cited the French and Russian revolutions as other examples of this. Firat stressed that the though the 1917 Russian revolution preceded Turkey's, 'Its impact on society is still being felt. Isn't there social conflict? Yes, it's still going on.'
When I asked what he meant by saying that people's religious ways had been 'dismantled,' he told me that the structure based on religion was changed and the caliphate and courts based on Islamic law were abolished. 'A law was passed concerning Islamic monasteries and dervish lodges,' he added. 'Muslim theological schools were closed, and nation's education was centralized. Every revolution is a trauma. Ataturk's revolutions were like this as well. This is the social difference between evolution and revolution. I'm not saying that these were good or bad developments. I'm also not saying that I miss those days. I'm just making a determination.'
Firat can make a sociological determination, but these words were heard differently at a time when a closure case against the AKP is proceeding on the grounds that it's opposed to the very foundations of the Turkish Republic. Some AKP deputies also heard the words differently. That's why Parliament Speaker Koksal Toptan said that Ataturk's revolutions have brought us to the present day. In addition, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk may be criticized by some, but the only feeling deep within the Turkish nation's heart is their commitment to the revolutions and their respect for the indispensability of these revolutions. Today, both the most pious and the most modern people agree with this.