Conspiracy or simple immorality

While considering world politics, we adopt an approach that is inherited from the dissolution period of the Ottoman Empire, which is based on the artificial configuration of Anatolia and the Middle East following World War I and the games revolving around the acquisition of oil. We assume that everything revolves around power and everything is the result of major global actors' acts of account settling. Actually, this is quite a realistic assumption, but it is not a healthy way to perceive every incident as a result of an absolute rationalism, since major global actors can also make false evaluations and mistakes, and they may end up realizing none of their targets because they are torn between more than one. But still, the conspiratorial point of view has great appeal and speaks to a large audience in countries like Turkey. We have a wide consensus that the Western world in particular is disturbed by Turkey's progress, it suffers from an allergy to Islam and these two factors are combined with the rising power of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Generally, we are searching for proof of this idea in the Western media, and as a matter of fact, we do not have much difficulty in convincing ourselves again and again.

New instances appeared just after the June elections. Nowadays, Turkey is in search of a coalition but even the ordinary observer cannot ignore this simple fact: Through the president and prime minister, the AK Party declared that it wished to form a coalition, adding that it is ready to welcome a possible cooperation unconditionally and its doors are open to everyone. The Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), on the other hand, have restricted the possibility of cooperation from the very beginning by imposing various conditions that cannot be a protocol article of a coalition. If a coalition cannot be formed, it is obvious that it will stem from the "principled" radicalism of the opposition. Going for re-election will be the only resolution if such a stance is pursued. Within this period, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan displayed an attitude that is quite different compared to his stance before the elections. In his official statement, he said "Turkey can solidify the atmosphere of stability and safety again with a coalition founded on the grounds of a common language, common goals and common sense. Parties and politicians that underline the differences rather than common features should know that they would give an account of it to the nation. No one has the right to use their position created by the election results to lock the system instead of taking responsibility."

However, six German newspapers, namely Die Welt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Stern, Der Spiegel, and FOCUS, portrayed the political condition in Turkey with the same headline: "Erdoğan threatens early elections." One of them even remarked that "Erdoğan threatens to impose his constitutional right," without even realizing that this is a lapsus and implying that imposing a constitutional right would pose a "threat" when Erdoğan is the subject of this act. First of all, the fact that all these media outlets used the same expressions demonstrates that they took this "news story" from the same source. Secondly, it is clear that this is not a news story at all, since it does not spotlight any development or incident. Thirdly, it is based on an irrational argument: While asserting that the AK Party wants a coalition and that reelections will be held if this cannot be accomplished, it does not question why such an "authoritarian" administration insists on a coalition. Besides, field studies indicate that the vote rate of the AK Party will increase in a possible election.

In fact, such irrational thinking is not that convincing. Maybe it is the outcome of lingering in the grey area between superficiality and the habit of taking the easy way out. Or, we might be confronted with an ideological bias that throws journalism out of focus. But if these reasons are not valid, it hardly seems to be anything other than a conspiracy that normalizes immorality.