Pain? Who cares?

Is it not rather strange? Since the June elections, the country has been losing lives in dozens to terrorism, boosting the popularity of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Why? Has Turkey turned into a pain-worshipping society?

Anyone recall how many people perished in the Diyarbakır blast? Does anyone remember what happened at that Suruç gathering of young people carrying toys to the children of Kobane, the Syrian Kurdish town besieged by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorists? Was it not very strange that all the cameras overlooking that garden where people gathered for their unfortunate end in the hands of some bloodthirsty beasts were all out of order? The Ankara blast of Oct. 11 was different in that sense because the deadly blast took place while some people were recording people dancing joyfully to folk songs with their mobiles. Everything happened in front of the eyes of Turkish society. The Sultanahmet attack targeted German tourists. Why? Were the terrorists trying to convince the German society that to fight global terrorism a global campaign was required? It is difficult to understand.

Without any doubt, the police and the intelligence network must have prevented many other calamities before they were staged by the beasts. However, the same security and intelligence networks were not successful enough to stop terrorists from staging a dastardly action in the heart of Ankara, in the so-called “State District,” which holds the parliament, the office of the chief of general staff, the command headquarters of the land, navy and air forces and, of course, the Interior Ministry as well as the old Prime Ministry building, many other ministries and top government offices.

Is the latest Ankara blast a message addressed to someone? Was it a warning against certain policies of Turkey? Was it an act to convince the Turkish military that if they did not behave well there might be a price they would pay?

At a time when many people were commenting on statements from Riyadh and Ankara that Turkey and the Saudis, together with some other Muslim Sunni states, might undertake a more aggressive stance and may even consider a land operation in Syria against ISIL militants, and charges that the Turkish military was skeptical of undertaking such an adventurist action, was the Ankara blast a coincidence?

By the way, what was the reason behind President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan complaining recently at a meeting at the extravagant palace with village headmen that a system with a popularly elected president and a popularly elected prime minister was very difficult to sustain, and some bureaucrats were not fully obeying him?

In any case, in a decade or perhaps less, either a local or international hacker may perhaps get hold of some documents of the Turkish or foreign intelligence or some other departments that might have an idea or some clues of how and by whom those dastardly actions were staged. Indeed, if at the “State District” of Ankara a terrorist action might have been undertaken with a stolen luxurious car with “cloned” license plates, no one can claim it was undertaken individually by a contracted small urban terrorist cell. Such an action must have “professional” intelligence capabilities as well as “advanced capabilities” to evade the barriers of security measures in that area.

Naturally, the Turkish intelligence might have the capability of identifying the culprit of a crime within few hours even if a car was blown apart, burned to ashes and its remains scattered all around. From such an inferno not only a finger of the terrorist might be miraculously found to identify the beast, but with the help of God, an unburned identity card of the terrorist might be collected from the blast site. God must be very generous to Turkish intelligence, at least sometimes.

Yet, it is difficult to make everyone accept wholeheartedly and believe such miraculous successes. Furthermore, was the terrorist a member of the Syrian People’s Protection Units (YPG) or that of the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), the urban terrorist wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) separatist terrorist gang?

In any case, the Turkish nation must be accustomed to pain. The Suruç blast was mourned for several days. The first Ankara blast in October was a source of “national mourning” and after foreign ambassadors and some dignitaries paid visits to the blast site and left flowers at the blast point, Turkey’s almighty leaders decided to be generous and visited the blast site.

Now, except for some rhetoric and lofty statements that the state would be vigilant in fighting terrorism, no national mourning was declared, no decrease was seen in extravagant ceremonies… How could the state, for example, refrain from boasting with a grand ceremony at a palace hotel, the grand gastronomic success of a southeastern Turkish city?

Was the attack just four days ago?  The lives lost, over 60 people wounded? Who cares? It’s just pain, as usual…