Will this phone recording be mothballed?

The government said, “Montage, dubbing, lie.”

The opposition said, “As real as Mount Ararat.”

What will happen now? Will this business be left at that stage?

On one side, there are those who say, “We believe in it,” the other said there are those who say, “We do not believe it.”

So what does this mean? Will this business be made a matter of “belief?” Will this be mothballed?
Let’s leave aside those who say, “Even if I see him stealing, I would not believe it,” those who say, “It does not matter to me even if he steals,” those who say, “If he is stealing, he is stealing from me,” those who say, “He could not have been stealing, that money is the alms collected for the poor,” those who say, “Even if this voice recording is genuine, it does not matter to me” and those who say, “You can call me bigoted or naïve…” These are the people who have associated their own future and own positions with the future and the position of the government.

If they will survive, they will survive together; if they sink, they will sink together. It is vain to expect any “search for the truth” or “morality check” from them.  

Let’s not ponder those who automatically believe and those who approach the situation with the mentality, “I would believe it even if it is fake.” Their issue is not the “truth” either.

Let’s ask on behalf of the huge and calm populations who have their hands on their conscience all the time: What will happen now? Will it be possible to bring out the truth? Won’t there be research? Will any evidence, any proof be revealed? Won’t it be submitted like a “cannon” that one was not there at that hour? Won’t there be research whether or not the voice belongs to the prime minister and his son? Will that recording be handed over to a “trustable” research body that both the government and the opposition rely on? Those incriminated, won’t they put out the smallest effort to shake this off?

Won’t the incriminated be engaged in a search for the truth?

Will we or won’t we have an idea of whether or not the “low voice, millions of dollars, millions of euros, the immense amount of money that is so difficult to get rid of” fake or genuine? 

While it is as easy as a “child’s play” to prove the legitimacy of the phone recording with its authenticity be proven? Or, will it transform into the game of, “Those who believe me, follow me; those who do not believe me, go to the other side”?   

Do not forget: Those who take no effort to find the truth are those who are afraid of the truth.

We know the best, we do

Almost 70 percent of the speeches constitute these template sentences:

“We also know that. We know. We know it, c’mon. Look, get serious. We do know it. We know the best.”

And, after all those “we know” phrases, this was always there: “It looks as if we were naïve … How they have betrayed us…”

The witness is yours, I have nothing further…

Ahmet Hakan is a columnist for daily Hürriyet in which this piece was published on March 3. It was translated into English by the Daily News staff.