Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Deep Shit...

This will take some explaining.

In my first semester here, way back in 2004, there was often political talk, the sort which sounds unmistakably like "conspiracy theories". I'm gonna have to keep those words in quotes, cause I know it's often a derogatory phrase. Try to understand that I'm attempting to articulate phenomenon, which people actually believe to explain their world. Sometimes, when people speculate about possible interests and agendas within an organization, they come up with some absurd stuff:

"Sean, did you know that the Jews control the world?"
- "No, I didn't. I'm not a Jew, but I'm Jew-ish, do you think they will give me a job?"

"Sean, did you know that the Jews planned and carried out the Sept. 11th attacks?"
-"I can believe it, they also eat puppies, right?"

"Sean, did you know that America is run by the Jews?"
-"Huh, so are Jews in general poor administrators?"

And so on... The concept of who is a "Jew" is an interesting one here, and the term is generally synonymous with "Israeli". I can understand why, but that doesn't make it sound any less preposterous. Admittedly, AIPAC, the US alliance with Israel, and Israeli spies in the White House, all feed these "theories".

The bait and switch with the above conspiracy theory is that it creates the impression of unseen and impregnable ethnic forces honing American policy, distracting from the fact that a long-time ally willfully compromised US national security and is being investigated for it. There is a conspiracy, but the associated theory is nonsense!

Apologies for the long explanation. "Conspiracy theory" is a genre that I had to learn to negotiate while conducting my Fulbright research. I think it is a legitimate way that people deal with the unknown shadows of their governments. It happens everywhere, and all the more frequently in societies or circumstances of questionable democratic openness. The theory is confirmed by a real event, though the event may be evidence of some other possible theory. Either way, I regard it as important that people, who are prevented from knowing/trusting what goes on in their country, are making an effort to explain it.

Seriously though, can we stop with UFOs?

That said, if evidence were presented today that confirmed UFO conspiracy theories, I would probably crap my pants and become a believer.

This is what happens in Turkey, often.

Turkey has many "conspiracy theories", and perhaps I'll explain some of the absurd ones later. Right now, I want to talk about history (which is, anyway, just a PC term for "conspiracy theory").

The household theory in Turkey, the one known by EVERYONE (I'm always shocked by this, like it's part of the school curriculum), is called the Derin Devlet, or "deep state". It describes the money and power interests that are formed by the intersection of military, government, radical right wing, mafia, and capital agendas. S0me of them were "trained" my the CIA as part of Operation Gladio. These people are generals, journalists, assassins, businessmen, police, terrorists, chefs, etc., all plotting Turkey's future behind the scenes. As the theory goes, this group manipulates public opinion through media control, disappears key opposition, leads all the major arms of government and the military, and so on.

In short, they are in charge and unknown... and probably Jewish, depending on who you ask.

Here is a short list of events, attributed to the Derin Devlet, that made international news:
Assasination of Father Santoro
Assasination of Hrant Dink
Murder of Journalists and Academics (generally on the political left)
The Taksim Square Massacre in 1977

There is even a version that projects the Derin Devlet as starting back in WWI, tying it into the Armenian Genocide.

The thing about a theory, is that it is related to evidence. In this case, I don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg, but the evidence is definitely startling (I'm loving up on Wikipedia today, cause you probably can't read Turkish):

"The Susurluk scandal was an affair that rocked Turkey between 1996-1997, and pointed to an illicit relationship between the government, the armed forces, and organized crime in the country, a connection sometimes attributed to the Deep state."

Basically, there was a car crash in 1996. When authorities arrived on the scene, they found the bodies of an Istanbul deputy police-chief, the leader of militant right-wing gang, and a mafia hit-woman. The only survivor of the crash was the Şanliurfa leader of the "True Path Party". I recommend following the link, cause the description of the grab-bag which the crash offered up is amazing, and pretty damning.

So, why am I covering all this old news? Context.

Starting in January, "some 33 people, among them former generals, lawyers, two “mafia” leaders, rank-and-file soldiers and even a journalist [were] apprehended in a nationwide operation...", members of another secret organization, Ergenekon. The following weekend, thirteen more were arrested. Yesterday, according to TDN's print edition, twenty-five more of these douche bags went down.

It's fascinating for me, to say the least, because the Deep State is part of the fabric of so many political discussions. Like I said, it's as though all that "evidence" on UFOs, that just couldn't be believed, were suddenly confirmed as the truth. At the same time, though, it is hard for me to be optimistic. The words of a friend, spoken after the first round of arrests, are ringing in my ears:

"This is nothing to get excited about. One-half of the Deep State just decided to arrest the other half. They'll be replaced soon enough."

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