'Tövbe estağfurullah'

It was just before the 1991 general election.

I was an intern reporter at Cumhuriyet. As in every newspaper, there was a "I'll do whatever needs to be done" situation at Cumhuriyet for fresh reporter candidates like me.

Answering phones, going to press conferences of NGOs that no one cared about, covering rallies of small parties with negligible vote shares, putting up with chatty "news sources" who talked a lot but whose words were worth nothing, and somehow getting an exclusive story out of all this to impress the intelligence chief or the Ankara Representative...

In those years, that was the only way to learn the profession. Since not only social media but even the internet had not yet appeared in our lives, we didn't have worries like "let's become influencers" or "let's be content creators."

Our generation, like me, simply wanted to be a "journalist."

But it wasn't easy; to mature, one first had to suffer properly, get used to long and almost never-ending working hours, forget about weekends off, endure the whims of senior reporters, and, more importantly, not step on anyone's toes within the office.

We couldn't just stir up trouble by shouting "they are mobbing me" just because someone sitting at a desk gave us a look, as people do now; besides, we didn't even know what "mobbing" was.

One day, amidst the hustle and bustle of the election campaign, the phone rang.

The caller, after saying they had reached us through someone or other, said something to the effect of, "Today at such and such an hour, a delegation from the Alevi associations federation will go to the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi) Headquarters to meet with Erbakan. They are keeping it secret, just so you know," and hung up.

I was very surprised; I tried to tell the news editor, but since he was very busy, he mumbled something like, "Find out the exact time, then go and see what the situation is."

Orders are orders; I immediately dialed the Welfare Party's number.

They didn't employ a female switchboard operator like other parties. A man who spoke in a lax manner answered the phone.

I quickly explained my purpose, asking if I could learn the time of the visit, as a delegation from Alevi associations was supposedly going to visit Erbakan today.

There was silence on the other end of the line.

A murmur, then a gulp...

Then that sentence came in a muffled voice...

"Tövbe estağfurullah" (I seek refuge in God).

- What does that mean... Who are they, why are they coming here...

The person who had been speaking in a lax manner was gone, replaced by someone who seemed ready to scold me.

"I," I said, "was just going to learn the time..."

He was about to hang up on me, saying, "Get lost, brother, do you know what you're saying?" when someone else took the receiver and ended this terrifying dialogue by saying, "Brother, there is no such program or anything, you've been given wrong information."

Still, I jumped in and went to the front of the party headquarters in Balgat. I waited until evening, but no one came or went.

Now, there are those who ask why the government in Turkey does not prevent the massacre of Alevis in Syria. Let's sit straight and speak straight; the subconscious of all political Islamists who have passed through the traditional religious education of Sunnism is fed by hatred of Alevis.

Even though they feel the need to hide this most of the time, they reveal this hatred the moment they are caught off guard, just like the reaction given by the Welfare Party's switchboard operator.

When it comes to the short passes of politics in a narrow space, even the fact that the government in Turkey ignores the massacre started by jihadists against Alevis for a few days strengthens their own base and satisfies the zealots.

After the Assad regime fell in Syria, I asked an old friend who knows political Islamists well whether the AKP would support the stabilization of Syria or pave the way for its fragmentation.

He said that whatever they have wanted to do in Turkey since 2002 but couldn't, they will either support the jihadists in Syria to do these things or they will turn a blind eye and remain silent. The fact that Jolani seized power is also important in terms of showing that the political Islamist paradigm, which was said to have gone bankrupt after the Arab Spring, is not dead. In other words, the issue does not only have military, political, and strategic dimensions. For the AKP members, there is also the dimension of regaining psychological superiority.

Therefore, no one should think that the government will sincerely stop this brutality in Syria.

They will try to save the situation with a few sentences based on expediency, and they will take a position as if they are opposing this massacre just for the sake of appearances. But in the end, they will continue to watch the terror that the jihadists are spreading across Syria while rubbing their hands in glee.

Let no one have any doubts!