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From the columns
(Turkish Daily News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) State cemetery: Vakit, Abdurahim Karakoc
The "middle-way team," comprising the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Republican People's Party (CHP), have done it yet one more time. The latest example of the utilitarian compromising of these two, which bicker over issues concerning the interests of the country and ridiculously oppose each other, is the "state cemetery" issue. They did it again. They discriminated between those who rule the state and those who are ruled even in death. There was "statesman, state agency, state employee" and now, "state cemetery." I know they were all there before. However, the content of their scope has been extended recently. I get goose bumps from hearing the word. It must be like an isolated prison cell -- far from reach, far from view and old. The AKP/CHP team, most probably in order not to be hit by the Ecevit storm, have decided to pass a law allowing for prime ministers and former prime ministers to be buried in the state cemetery, adding Parliament speakers as well. Wouldn't it be more rational if the relatives and loved ones of the deceased could decide where to bury their dead? Funerals of Turkes and Ecevit: Yeni Cag, Arslan Tekin Despite full-page coverage for the entire week by almost all newspapers, despite programs being shown over and over again on every channel for days, leaving enough time for the funeral and planning it for a Saturday, the anticipated grandeur was not there. I caught two columnists talking on one TV channel. One said [assassinated journalist] Ugur Mumcu's funeral had been the most majestic one ever, while the other one argued [Turkey's second president and one of the founder's of the republic] Ismet Inonu's funeral had attracted the most people. I know that they actually both had the funeral of [former leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP)] Alparslan Turkes in mind, for it was a funeral impossible to forget. However, they did not want to talk about him because of ideological enmity. We say 2 million people attended Turkes's funeral, and I am sure that objective observers did not estimate a number less than a million people.
Even their funerals are enough proof to demonstrate that it was "Nationalist Turkes," and not the "People's Ecevit," who was closer to the people.
The balance sheet of Ecevit: Haluk Sahin, Radikal Yesterday [Saturday] I was on a TV show with journalists Yilmaz Esmer, Oral Calislar and Seyfettin Gursel sharing our evaluations of Ecevit's political life. We saw that it was impossible to generalize. Although everyone agreed on some of his qualities (modesty, honesty and his mastery of the language), people can say entirely opposite things about him. Most certainly, it couldn't be any other way for an 81-year-long life and a political career spanning 50 years. Living a long life has both positive and negative influences on the image one leaves behind. On the positive side, you can correct your old mistakes and even make everyone forget about them. On the negative side, you can entirely waste some of the credit you've gained during a later period. Ecevit's life is full of examples of both. Those who would like to live a long life should be ready to take the taste of change. Those who fail to change turn into hilarious figures over time.
Think of Ecevit's life step by step. A father to workers, a minister for employees, a courageous party general secretary, the man who defeated Inonu in his own party, the conqueror of Cyprus, the leader who led the left to government with a landslide victory, a writer who did not give in under political pressure, the party leader who took the party he founded from scratch to power, an honest man who never touched a penny he did not deserve and the person who put Turkey into the European Union family portrait in Helsinki.
Now think again: The man who submitted Turkey to the Nationalist Front government because of his ambition of forming a single-party government, the prime minister of the period of Turkey's worst economic crisis, the party leader who threw his closest allies out of the party and the prime minister who squandered Turkey's opportunity to join Europe along with Greece
Other peaks and pitfalls could be added to this list, according to one's own political view. Sunday's crowd has announced that the balance sheet of Ecevit had more assets. Apparently, there is a love and respect for Ecevit beyond his identity as a politician. This is a valuable legacy.
You get what you deserve: Yilmaz Ozdil, Sabah Ecevit's life-long dream was the Koykent project [an unfinished project launched by Ecevit, at one period funded by the World Bank, involving agricultural reform and bringing technological and infrastructure facilities to underdeveloped villages], on which he worked for 30 years. In his last term in the Prime Ministry, he picked nine villages in the Black Sea city of Ordu as pilot areas for the project, convinced that this was his last chance to realize the project. He had 160 kilometers of four-lane roads and bridges constructed in these places as part of the project as well as sewage systems, phone lines and potable water networks -- previously nonexistent in the area -- all at a cost of $30 million. Although the project didn't do any good for anyone else in the country, it really changed the fate of these nine villages. However, out of the 1,200 voters in the area, his party received only 4 votes.
Even if he didn't do anything for the rest of the country, he gave labor rights to coal miners in Zonguldak.
The miners of Zonguldak say about Ecevit, "He gave us all the rights we have as workers." In the elections, Ecevit received only 8,000 votes out of 333,000.
If he wasn't good for anyone else, his policies benefited the Cypriot Turks. When they were being killed in Cyprus, he saved them. There was a referendum in which 75 percent said, "We do not want this state." [A U.N. plan sponsored by Secretary-General Kofi Annan was voted on by civilians on both sides in separate referenda on April 24, 2004. The Greek side overwhelmingly rejected the Annan plan, and the Turkish side voted in favor.] Thank God the Greeks were faithful, and 85 percent said "no" and their state remains in place
Speaking of states, the state arrested him. The state banned his political activities. Meanwhile, the same state, because he was a statesman, held a state ceremony and buried him in the state cemetery.
Copyright 2006 Turkish Daily News. Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Middle East Intelligence Wire.
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