Pashas, diplomats and journalists

They protected — on behalf of the military — the secular system and basic principles of the Turkish Republic.

Feb. 28 has passed but our pashas have been inherited by the media as its legacy.

Though they were not sought after as avidly as in the past, some of them have managed to cling on. Some of them have become newspaper columnists or executives of the Kemalist associations. Some others have starting putting to use their knowledge and experience at centers of strategic studies.

Our pashas performance had not exactly been bad until last year.

It all began to change during the debates on full membership in the European Union and, later, during the Cyprus debates and the Iraq War.

The general public felt that some of our pashas left much to be desired.

Some of them were continued to "glitter" because they were well educated and they had continued to read foreign publications after they went into retirement. Many others, on the other hand, proved inadequate.

So much so that the General Staff had to announce at some point that "Our retired commanders are not speaking on our behalf. They express their own views."

They caused so much disappointment because the Turkish society had come to believe that every officer promoted to the rank of general was "very bright" and knew the best on all subjects.

The general impression had been that they would make no mistakes, that they were highly adept at everything: planning, tactics, strategy, directing armies, psychology…

No one would have believed that the those commanders with so many stars on their uniforms, the commanders that we used to see as they gave orders, the commanders that went through the streets with such fanfare, could have made mistakes.

Yet we have seen that some of our pashas have not gone beyond the books they had read in the past, that they have not been able to understand properly the modern warfare, the new tactics. They have not exactly been able to reflect in their careers proper the skill they had displayed when it came to protecting the republican principles.

Retired diplomats too were in tatters
What about our retired diplomats? How did they perform?

Frankly, with a few exceptions they too were in tatters. The analyses they made were poor, anachronistic, and based on hearsay.

In the past some of these ambassadors were unapproachable, They had a say in the shaping of policies. Assessments they made could alter Turkey’s policies. Our diplomats would be praised to the sky.

The diplomats we saw during the Cyprus-EU-Iraq process were quite different than what we had seen in the past. With a few exceptions they failed in the test. However, the public was not as disappointed with them as with the pashas. Obviously the public did not have great expectations.

How were we?
It is not as if we were good and everybody else was bad.

Those of us who spoke on TV and disclosed views in newspapers, lagged behind the developments. Only a few of these assessments proved correct. The rest proved inadequate.

However, there is a big difference.

Unlike our pashas, we journalists had not received a superior education. Unlike them we never served at positions of responsibility in the state. We have not volunteered to govern Turkey. Similarly, unlike our diplomats, we have not seen the world. We have not learned about the subtleties of diplomacy. We have not taken part in international bargaining processes.

Therefore out mistakes came to be considered "normal".

To sum up, we all come from the same source. No one should claim to be more knowledgeable than the others, scorning others.