What if they had been Tayyip's soldiers, the ummah's footmen

If the lieutenants had chanted "We are Tayyip's soldiers, the footmen of the ummah" at their graduation ceremony at the Military Academy, would they still have faced an investigation and been on the verge of dismissal?

Of course not!

Anyone who has even a slight understanding of the nature of political Islamists knows that this issue has nothing to do with the discipline of the Turkish Armed Forces.

If their concern were discipline, for instance, the moment it came to light, the admiral who wore a turban and went to a dervish lodge in his official car would have had his rank stripped and been shown the door.

But he was only retired. And that was done while preserving all his personal rights.

Maximum effort was made to ensure he was not offended.

We are familiar enough with their mentality to be certain that they would not have even done that if it hadn't been whipped up on social media.

Furthermore, we have not heard of any investigations being opened against the responsible officers after the mobilized crowds chanted slogans in Tayyip's favor every time he visited Anıtkabir.

This is despite the fact that Article 35 of the Regulation on the Execution of Anıtkabir Services, titled "Ceremonies," is extremely clear: "At Anıtkabir, only wreaths may be laid and ceremonies held to pay respects to Atatürk. Ceremonies, marches, and demonstrations for other purposes cannot be organized, and wreaths cannot be laid. Any attitude, movement, word, writing, or behavior that does not befit the spiritual presence of Anıtkabir is not permitted."

What makes Tayyip and his cronies' hair stand on end here is both that the young lieutenants—risking the potential consequences—made such a statement on their own, and that they sent a message to the enemies of the Republic and Atatürk through the content of the officer's oath.

Let's elaborate a bit more.

The officer's oath contains "Secularism," the "honor and dignity of the Turkish Nation," the "indivisible integrity of the country," and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's words, "How happy is the one who says I am a Turk"!

In short, everything that Tayyip is allergic to is included.

But the issue is not just about Tayyip's allergy.

The oath taken here goes far beyond general rhetoric; it demonstrates a strong will to struggle against the paradigm of the Neo-Hamidian regime that political Islamists have been weaving stitch by stitch since 2002 and have almost perfected.

Moreover, the lieutenants showed the source of the legitimacy of this will with their chants of "We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal."

We can guess that Tayyip's state of mind has been turned upside down.

We know that for 22 years, he has done his best to replace the Turkish Nation with the ummah, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk with himself, and secularism with Islamism.

But it is also clear that he has not received the result he expected or wanted.

The government is now trying to make the defense of Turkey's founding philosophy and principles—such as secularism, Turkey's indivisible integrity, Atatürk's nationalism, and national identity—a crime through the precedent it will set using the lieutenants.

They are concerned with fortifying the walls of fear around the opposition so that no one will speak out against the steps they will take until 2028.

But what is truly grave is that the people of our country are not strongly standing by the young lieutenants. Beyond keyboard warriorism on social media, there is no significant reaction.

The government is aware of this, which is why it has no intention of taking a step back.

No one takes the CHP's weak, half-hearted statements seriously anyway.

Let us conclude our article by saying that no one should doubt that if things continue this way, the next step will be the banning of politics based on the country's founding values.