In today’s deeply polarized Turkey, where both the government and its opposition were once equally passionate in their dislike for George W. Bush’s policies, there seem to be no qualms about having adopted his Manichean dictum "You're either with us or against us" — the mutual distaste for nuance can be suffocating to mid-tone voices. So, now that the long-awaited verdict of the Ergenekon trial is met with clashing cries of triumphalism and revolt, hearing the occasional “Yes, but …” and “If only …” is strangely refreshing.
Not that ambivalence is a good thing per se. Indeed, these days in Turkey it reflects a frustration with the judicial process. Those of us who believed that the trial had given the system a major chance at cleansing are disappointed with the court’s failure to shed light on the state’s crimes against the Kurds in the southeast and the assassination of the journalist Hrant Dink. There is also concern that the many flaws in the process made the fairness of some sentences questionable. As Emma Sinclair-Webb wrote in The New York Times, “The trial was a milestone in civilian control over the military,” but “it did not serve to promote a more democratic culture.”
Then, there is the sheer fact of human mortality. If the verdict holds in the upper courts — and barring an amnesty — many of those who were given heavy sentences on Aug. 5 will die in prison. On the one hand, I can certainly understand the sentiments of Robert Koptas who took over Hrant Dink’s desk as the current chief editor of the Armenian weekly Agos: “They killed many and would kill many more, I won’t be saddened because they are punished.”
On the other hand, it is impossible not to sympathize with many families who feel their loved ones are being taken away from them for good. And, of course, the banality of evil seems to have been very much at work; several of the Ergenekon convicts are well-grounded citizens who, after having been subjected to decades of relentless indoctrination in the undemocratic traditions of the Kemalist statecraft, could very well have thought that conspiring to overthrow the government was their civic duty.
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