I apologize

I read the "Straight" with interest the other day. It commented: "Egemen Bağış, parliamentarian-turned-chief-EU-negotiator, is someone we know well at the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. And let’s admit it, we like him. He’s the kind of politician journalists take to: affable, gregarious and a good storyteller. He is someone able to rise above partisan politics without betraying partisan loyalty. He also has a sense of humor." (From the Bosphorus: Straight, Egemen Bagis: Right time, right man, the Daily News, Jan. 12, 2009).

I couldn’t agree more. Mr Bağış, author of the famous article "My Party is Good for Turkey" (LA Times, March 24, 2008), should now tell the Old Continent why Turkey is good for the European Union. If he uses half of his marketing and public relations skills Turkey could become a full member by the turn of 2010 Ñ at the latest. I have every confidence that in about six months every European will learn how European Turkey is, just like every American learned how secular, democratic, liberal and pro-western the Justice and Development Party, or AKP is.

I guess that should be sufficient repentance and a public apology for the criticism this column produced for Mr Bağış in its unenlightened times i.e., all times until last week. My other apologies should go to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his cabinet ministers, party executives and all the AKP folks.

I admit it took me quite a while, but I have eventually understood why Mr Bağış’ party is good for Turkey. In the first place it is reformist. It has a pro-EU agenda. It advocates civil liberties and it fights undemocratic forces which are hidden within the state’s despotic secular echelons. I will not fear to name them: They are some members of the high judiciary and most of the military top brass.

All the same, times have changed and fortunately Turkey is fast metamorphosing into a democratic society ruled by the nation’s will, not by the autocratic, Kemalist elite. We should support this process.

Mr Erdoğan, as evinced by his unchallenged popularity, is a leader who deserves much praise for his brave reformism. He has not only risked the closure of his party last year, but has also personally been the top target of Kemalist terrorists who boast themselves with the shadowy gang, the Ergenekon.

For many years we lived totally unaware of the dangers those coup-plotters posed to our democracy. Thanks to a brave prosecutor, Zekeriya Öz, we can now wake up to better days. This is not only the victory of heroes like Mr Erdoğan and Mr Öz, but also of our great nation.

The arms caches our independent prosecutors have recently unearthed and their horrifying contents tell us how big the danger was. We in the media should fully support every judicial effort to unmask this shameless organization and its members. Logic tells us that less than a hundred men could not have masterminded such a large-scale conspiracy. Other members of the gang should be arrested too.

Some members of the media have the habit of undermining this investigation. They should stop doing so. If some government politicians are publicly threatening that there will be more arrests, it is not because they view this investigation as a campaign to intimidate their opponents. It is because simple logic tells us this is going to be the case.

A few anti-democratic voices in the press have claimed that by mixing innocent opponents with dark characters of the 1990s the investigators are waging a propaganda war aiming to liquidate the last remnants of Kemalist thinking. They claim this is psychological warfare to advance an Islamist agenda. This is nonsense. As Mr Bağış once rightfully argued the AKP is Turkey’s most Kemalist party.

Note to Judge Oz: I am prepared to give out more names who might be linked with your investigation. Note to readers: Yes, I have decided to "convert," but this has nothing to do with the fact that someone linked with certain power circles politely warned me last week to go "low-profile" and not to be too loud in criticizing the government. I am not a coward. I have decided to convert only after having read in the government-friendly media that the next round of Ergenekon arrests would target some politicians and journalists. That media has never been mistaken about a coming wave of detentions. But no, this has nothing to do with their ties with the government officials and theirs with the prosecutors, it’s just good journalism.