[Updated, January 13, 2009] In Turkey, more public figures are beginning to openly question the motives behind the Ergenekon case, arguing that the judiciary is being used to exact "revenge" on the political opposition. (For background on the Ergenekon case, see here and here and here). The Ergenekon case is certainly a perplexing one, and many people (including me) don't know quite what to make of it. On the one hand, as the Susurluk case from the late 1990s demonstrated, there were clearly ties between the Turkish state and right-wing death squads which were used to assassinate PKK figures. However, these right wing death squads were made up of criminal elements, many of whom were rightist holdovers from Turkey's "time of troubles" in the 1970s, when street violence between leftists and rightists plagued the country and resulted in a death toll which climbed on an almost daily basis. So, in addition to participating in the extralegal assassinations of suspected PKK figures, rightist assassins who were apparently working in cooperation with elements within the Turkish state also seem to have been involved in the murder of leftist journalists (either with or without the knowledge of state officials). Drug and weapons trafficking were other activities that these people seem to have been involved in. Ergenekon began as an investigation into all of this, which is great. This, we were all told, would be Turkey's version of Italy's "clean hands" probe from the late 1990s, a probe which would break the back of the "deep state" in Turkey forever. As I've written earlier, however, the Ergenekon investigation has taken a very bizarre turn. The targets of the probe are increasingly members of civil society groups which support the political opposition in Turkey. An investigation which was initially set up to root out state complicity in crimes like murder and drug-trafficking was somehow transformed into an interrogation of elements of the political opposition, who have been accused of plotting a coup against the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party. When the Justice and Development Party first came to power, I was really excited and optimistic. This party, which is referred to as "Islamist" by the opposition in Turkey (a moniker which western media organs have unfortunately appropriated), had been built on the remains of the Refah and Fazilet parties, two parties which were successively shut down in 1997 and 2001 on the grounds that they were acting contrary to Turkey's secular order. The founders of the Justice and Development Party,  Tayyıp Erdoğan and Abdullah Gül (who are now prime minister and president, respectively), had been members of Refah and Fazilet (Fazilet was the successor to Refah, which was the successor of two parties which had been closed for similar reasons in earlier decades), but were both individuals who knew how to speak about issues other than Islam and its place in Turkish society. Erdoğan had even spent time in prison in the late 1990s for publicly reading a poem (written by Ziya Gökalp, of all people, one of the best-known and most revered intellectuals from the earliest twentieth century) that had been considered "inflammatory." Nevertheless, he was allowed to become Prime Minister after the newly-created Justice and Development party won a large majority in the 2002 elections—the first time a party in Turkey had won a parliamentary majority since the late 1980s. Finally, I thought, there is a place in Turkey for a political movement that is not "Islamist," but rather which seeks to normalize the public display of Islamic piety within the framework of a secular state culture. Perhaps the Turkish state (meaning the army, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, and the rest of the permanent apparatus) had found a way to work with people who had, up until then, simply been branded "Islamic" fundamentalists. Alas, the Justice and Development Party was under attack from the "secular" opposition from its first day in power. Increasingly, the country's political scene has become polarized between a political majority which supports the AK Party (they won another majority in general elections in 2007, although with fewer seats than in 2002), and an increasingly defiant and frightened "secular" opposition, which supports the continuation of policies (such as the ban of headscarves in schools and universities) which discourage the public display of Islamic symbols and piety. This opposition, which has traditionally made up the bureaucratic, military, economic, educational, and intellectual elite of the country, has found itself increasingly marginalized over the past decade. In previous years, the Turkish judiciary has simply managed to close political parties when they appeared to step too far out of line. Numerous "Kurdish" parties have been closed over the years, while the parties from which the AK Party has descended had also been closed under various circumstances. In 1997, the Refah Party was at the head of a coalition government when military figures began holding a series of press conferences stating that 1) Turkey is a secular country and it is the responsibilty of the military to defend the country's secular character, and 2) the Refah Party government was in defiance of this secular character. Necmettin Erbakan, who was the leader of Refah and the Prime Minister of Turkey, got the message and resigned shortly thereafter, as it was clear he would be removed by force if he did not proactively give up his position. In 2008, there were similar efforts to close the AK Party,  and I think that these undertakings are largely responsible for the turn the Ergenekon investigation has taken. Clearly, the AK Party has good reason to feel threatened. My fear, however, is that the party is using the Ergenekon case as a means to fight fire with fire, to hijack an investigation into crimes committed by the "deep state" and instead use the probe to crack down on the political opposition. Hundreds have been arrested, including a number of people whose connection with rightist death squads seems far-fetched, at best (see this earlier posting of mine for specifics). It's hard to see where exactly this is heading, particular as the Ergenekon trial, which began in November, still has not gotten beyond the preliminary phase. For anyone interested in Turkey, however, this is definitely something worth reading up on and paying attention to. Jan. 13: Another question that I forgot to raise in my posting above is that, if the Ergenekon investigation is really about uncovering state involvement in assassinations and other crimes, then why have Sedat Bucak and Mehmet Ağar—two of the biggest names from the Susurluk case,—not been arrested? As I discuss in a posting from last October, Bucak was the member of parliament who had been riding in a car with an assassin who had been wanted at the time by Interpol. In the wreckage of their car was found government-issued weapons, silencers, drugs, and cash.  The assassin, whose name was  Abdullah Çatlı, had been carrying several "privileged" passports (issued to individuals working for the Turkish state) under a variety of aliases, all of them signed personally by Mehmet Ağar, who was then the Minister of the Interior! Both Bucak and Ağar were members of parliament at the time, which meant that their parliamentary immunity prevented them from being detained and questioned by police. (Of course, in Turkey parliamentary immunity is easily lifted, such as in 1994 when  five Kurdish deputies took their oath of office in Kurdish, rather than Turkish. For this crime, immunity is lifted, but not for the activities of Bucak and Ağar). Anyway, my point is that it is very difficult to take Ergenekon at face value as an investigation into state terror—rather than as a political witch-hunt against the opposition—when left-wing journalists and civil society figures are being arrested but Bucak and Ağar remain free.