We are all liars, thieves and criminals
Yaşar Aydın
There is a deafening noise in the country that numbs all emotions. The regime repeats what it knows to be lies at the top of its voice every single day.
Every day we wake up to raids on shopkeepers, mayors, artists, sportspeople and the LGBT+ community.
The chaos within the regime—involving the stock market, investment funds, Gökçek and Binali Yıldırım—is another source of noise.
The government wants to run the country amidst a huge cloud of noise and dust as a strategy. In this way, it wants the country’s realities to remain unheard, unseen and even unfelt.
NO ONE IS CLEAN
This is not merely a situation favoured by the Palace regime. All authoritarian regimes around the world follow a similar method and can even succeed in persuading the public.
Consider US President Trump. His son-in-law, his children – they have all pounced on the country’s resources and are even using international relations for their own enrichment.
Trump is the person whose name is mentioned most frequently in connection with Epstein’s paedophile island. Yet the vast majority of those who voted for him are ‘reasonable’ people who go to church every Sunday and fly the US flag outside their homes. There can be only one explanation for such power whilst being at the forefront of every kind of scandal, abuse and corruption: the absence of truth.
Turkey has seen the emergence of a new class of wealthy figures over the past 25 years. Politicians, mayors, senior bureaucrats, businesspeople and even journalists – anyone close to those in power has rushed to join the ranks of the wealthiest.
This situation had become so normalised that when the Prime Minister at the time, Davutoğlu, sought to introduce a political ethics law, he revealed to the public that President Erdoğan had told him: ‘If we introduce a political ethics law of this sort, we will not be able to find provincial and district chairmen or administrators to work for the party.’ A chain of prosperity had been established, and this circle must not be broken.
When this accumulation of wealth began to grate on the public’s nerves, the solution devised by those in power was to accuse every administrator in the country of irregularities and corruption, and to convince them that they were part of this system. One of the reasons behind the operations targeting opposition local authorities and their officials was this perception campaign.
The situation is much the same in drug operations. Recall that, following the emergence of footage showing an AKP adviser using drugs in his car, they left no prominent figure unscathed. The government is trying to convince the public that it is not just they themselves, but everyone, who is corrupt.
POLITICAL FIGURES
A key factor behind the government’s ability to manage this situation so comfortably is that the established codes of politics remain unchanged. To help clarify the issue, I’d like to recount a striking dialogue that took place on a television channel two weeks ago.
During the programme, when an academic criticised the CHP–New Party collaboration in the Üsküdar Municipal Council election, claiming it ‘legitimises illegality’, the journalist replied, ‘These things happen in politics’. It seems that even if you take the helm of the main opposition party through a government manoeuvre, you can still be part of the opposition within the realities of politics. What we call ‘politics’ has become a profession dominated by an overwhelming majority of men of means, who hold the authority to make decisions on behalf of the people.
In Turkey, ‘politics’ has for a very long time been reduced to a state where the entire will of the people is handed over to a few thousand individuals. Both the ruling party and the opposition have benefited from this established order. Indeed, this situation is not limited to political parties but has become a widespread feature, extending from trade unions to NGOs. There was no one left to complain about the situation.
In Turkey, everything has been turned on its head, the regime has changed, yet the established system within the country remains unchanged. Opposition parties have spent—and continue to spend—their time trying to find a party and a figurehead to stand against the AKP’s one-party rule and its ‘one-man rule’.
Yet this is the very ecosystem in which the AKP has established itself. Without changing this system, it is impossible to prevent the AKP—or similar parties—from coming to power. Many opposition groups, particularly the trade unions, are also going through the motions by issuing press statements that merely ‘pretend’ to take a stand. There, too, the priority is to protect internal power structures.
But the reality is that it is impossible to formulate a response to a regime that has become the state itself through this established way of life.
THE PEOPLE LONG FOR THE TRUTH
The handshake ceremony between Özgür Özel and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was the subject of much debate. In particular, New Party voters reacted strongly against Özel. Initially, the reaction to such contact between the two party leaders was difficult to understand. But the public’s memory is not as weak as is often assumed.
There is no doubt that the reaction to Özel’s handshake was fuelled by the previous encounter between Erdoğan and Bahçeli.
The people of this country are thoroughly fed up with artificial feuds and tensions. They have had more than enough of on-camera disputes stemming from behind-the-scenes politics. That is why they were concerned that the goodwill extended to Özel and the New Party would be squandered all too quickly.
Turkey is experiencing a political fracture of a depth unlike anything seen before. The public’s stance in this fracture is very clear. There is an expectation that prominent political figures will adopt an equally clear and uncompromising stance.
Another success of the ruling party has been its ability to separate the national agenda from the political agenda. The opposition, too, is being swept up in the ‘agenda’ wind stirred up by the ruling party. For example, last week, during the most-watched hours on news channels, all the on-screen captions were the same: ‘Will the New Party change its name?’ The participants and approaches may differ, but the agenda is the same.
WHAT IS SET TO CHANGE
A political philosophy that seeks nothing for itself, prioritising citizens’ expectations above all else, has become the greatest threat to regimes worldwide.
This is because they are able to remain in power by relying on the belief that the established order cannot be changed. These regimes are the ones who best understand—and are most concerned about—the potential impact on society of even the mere possibility that a politics aimed at creating a different world might succeed.
So the course of action is clear. The palace regime is attempting to maintain its power beneath a thick veil of fog where nothing is understood.
The way to break this trap is not to play the game the regime has set up by its own rules, nor to join in this clamour and continue to ‘pretend’.
What must be done is to part that veil of fog, silence the clamour with the voice of truth, and transform politics back into a battleground where the people are the protagonists. Unless a principled and uncompromising line is drawn that connects with the people’s reality, this system will continue to turn.
Only a very small section of society is part of this corrupt system and benefits from it. Those who want the system to continue in this way are the ones who grow richer whilst the overwhelming majority of the people are impoverished.
To get used to this system, to accept it as normal, to think it is unchangeable – that is defeat. Yet life’s call is in the opposite direction, and the wind is blowing in the wake of that call.
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Hepimiz yalancı hırsız ve suçluyuz, published in BirGün newspaper on September 21, 2026.