Agitation and provocation

İshak Karakaş

”The Turkish government and interested groups around the government have now reached to a new level of committing crimes against society,” writes Ishak Karakaş for Yeni Yaşam.

Whilst the government coalition (in Turkey) are not able to govern the country, its power has been shaken domestically and it struggles in the international arena with its problematic foreign policy. Or rather a lack of foreign policy.

It seems that the only thing left for them is to provoke division within society. Some spokespersons and pro-government journalists supporting Justice and Development Party -Nationalist Movement Party (AKP-MHP) block who see that there is no tool left in their hands other than stoking violence to maintain their power now share statements, which show that they are ready to push for a ‘civil war’, instigate new ‘hate crimes’ and commit ‘mass murder’.

There is a journalist who once got the support of the democracy front when he was imprisoned, but now I don’t even want to mention his name. Now, he is very close to government and he decided to attack the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) and the Kurdish people in order to get a ‘bravo’ or pat on the back, from the government.

A few days ago, this journalist revealed to us how much he has lost his mind when on a television show he said, “6 million people voting for the HDP means that they are all shooting my soldier.” In other words, this journalist does not hesitate to target the 6 million citizens of this country and he acts as an active divider of society with his furious provocation.

If this was a country in which the rule of law reigned, then the judiciary authorities would immediately have opened an investigation against this journalist on charges of incitement to civil war. But no investigation means that the government positively supports this kind of provocation.

As I said before, it is obvious that the government supports these hate crimes. The AKP and the MHP (the Nationalist Movement Party) expand the scope of these hate crimes day by day. Whilist the Chair of the MHP continues to trigger and provoke mafia chiefs in such a way as to encourage them to use weapons against the people and make speeches that can be easily interpreted as a call for genocide, the AKP officials expand their attacks against the civil rights of the opposition, which constitute half of the population of this country.

AKP Deputy Chair Mehmet Özhaseki said in a speech at an opening event in Kayseri a few days ago, “We must speak about the HDP. They cannot say ‘we condemnd the PKK’ even once in the Assembly. The main opposition party still continues to be their agent to get few votes in the elections. Damn your votes.” he said

It seems that it is no longer helpful to tell the government and its supporters how dangerous their statements are. For this reason, the people who support democracy should now demand and force the opposition to create a unity and to bring social peace forward in their political agenda as their priority. The struggle for democracy and the struggle for peace should now be carried out jointly with all the parties in the opposition.