Maybe this is a genuine justice march

My first reaction to the Dec. 17 and Dec. 25, 2013 corruption operations was: “An anti-corruption operation is sometimes not just an anti-corruption operation.” In contrast, I have regarded the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s long march from Ankara to Istanbul from the start by thining: “A justice march sometimes is only a justice march.”  

But there are some who think the complete opposite. 

For instance, actress Hülya Koçyiğit blindly believes that journalists who are in jail are not imprisoned for their journalistic activities. “They must have committed a crime because they have been arrested,” is her logic. It does not cross her mind that there are some among them who are jailed just because of what they have written or what they have drawn.

A cabinet minister is so sure that this is a “march of terrorists” that he came out and said the roads were “not built for terrorists to walk on.” He is not concerned about the fact that the demand for justice is the reason of the march. It does not cross his mind that there could be injustices that should be objected to. 

Some cry out that the march is an “invasion march of imperialism.” It does not cross their minds that this is a democratic protest that they are trying to criminalize. They do not wonder about what they would do if they themselves will need such a right to march in the future. 

The repressive mindset that stopped them in the past whenever they wanted to seek their rights is at work again today. 

Books are once again seen as “more dangerous than weapons.” Ideas are once again crimes worthy of life sentences. Free debate is once again not seen as a platform to seek the truth, but one to stir up domestic strife. Demonstrations and marches are once again not reactions against injustice, but a tool of the enemy and a conspiracy of a foreign power. 

As a result, our debates on the pre-trial arrests of journalists and on the justice march reach the level of unresolvable irrationalities. 


Quality illegitimacy 

On the issue of Koçyiğit, it has been asked many times whether she actually knows which non-journalistic activities journalists in jail are accused of. If so, she should enlighten us.

People think that her problem is that fact she has an opinion without having the proper knowledge. But in fact the problem is that information has been deteriorated, modified, distorted, and completely made up. It is not a lack of knowledge. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan himself frequently complains about this problem.

Do not assume that it this an ordinary, straightforward, simple incident of ignorance. It is actually about there being so much information that there is no room left for doubt.

Culture and Tourism Minister Nabi Avcı wrote a book years ago titled “The Informatics of Illiteracy.” It purported to show how the capacity to think is captivated, how the brain is robotized and for what purposes, even in most advanced countries.

The Koçyiğit case shows the state of ignorance that can emerge not by withholding data but through “data bombardment.” It is the type of ignorance that blunts minds with information pollution, which smothers intelligence with disinformation, illusions and deceit.   

It is a tool to weaken true debate, to oppress it with fabricated, fake, phony information. 
Who benefits from that?

According to Avcı, this state of affairs is only good for forces that do not want the equilibrium to change, who want to regulate the entire daily life of society.