Delusions of the new order

As I was reading the story of a man who was diagnosed with a “rare mental condition called delusional disorder,” I could not avoid making a comparison with the current mental state in Turkey. Could it be that our country is suffering from a similar problem since the government and its adversaries often seek refuge in delusion? The major delusion of the opposition parties was to refuse to face the realities of the changing time in general and of Turkey in particular. That is why the republicans and the nationalists insisted on defending the ancien regime in the name of secularism and/or the nation-state. As for the governing party circle, they challenged the ancien regime before coming to power and ultimately becoming all-powerful, at which time they started deluding themselves into thinking that they had ended all problems by building a “New Turkey.” One might call it “delusional disorder” or “delusions of the new order.”

In fact the so-called “New Turkey” is being built on grand delusions. The rulers of “the new order” insist in deluding themselves that Turkey is not suffering from a tragic isolation in its foreign relations but that it is being punished for its advocacy of just principles. The delusion is so deep that a government adviser invented the term of “precious loneliness.” As for the democratic deficit, they define it as “the black propaganda by the internal and external enemies of Turkey.” Finally, the failure of the politics of the so-called “Kurdish peace process” have also become totally delusional recently. According to the president and his government, the New Turkey can continue the peace process without dealing with “disliked” Kurdish political actors, like the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and...