A state within a state

It was one of those days when we were more frustrated than usual because we couldn't get a clear signal on our battery-powered handheld radios to listen to football matches while out herding cows. We were watching the cars pass by on the road we knew as the D400. I realized then that I had only ever seen two or three different car brands in my life up to that point. Seeing several times that many different brands all at once left me in complete shock. I couldn't understand if they had suddenly appeared, and if so, why and how, or if they were simply absent from our neighborhood. I was amazed by the vastness of the world I didn't know. I tried to commit these different cars to memory to tell my friends, hoping to spark a bit of that same wonder in them. It was futile! It was too much for my mind to process, and after a while, I started mixing them up. 

Finding my favorite car happened around the same time. A health clinic opened in the house next door, on one floor of the street's only three-story building, right above Ömer Abi's grocery store. The doctor had a car—you wouldn't believe it. I was mesmerized by the number 7 Oktay jersey draped over the driver's seat on one side, and the fact that the rear of the car was shorter than any other I had ever seen. You know how they say 'watching the road'? That was me. I couldn't look too closely because it would be rude, but as I walked by, I would try to shift my eyes as much as possible to catch the details while continuing to walk straight. 

Months after it opened, just before a local election that the whole country was focused on, Tansu Çiller came for the inauguration of the health clinic. That was when I felt I had the right to be a little rude and took a closer look at the car. After all, I couldn't wrap my head around why a sofa bed had been dragged out onto the street just because the Prime Minister was coming to sit on it; I found it inappropriate because it clashed with my mental order of things, but I didn't talk about it with the other kids. When the Prime Minister arrived, I only glanced at her from afar; I didn't even wait to see if she sat on the sofa bed. While everyone else's attention was on her, I turned my focus to the white car the doctor had parked in the field across the street.  

On the evening of the elections, we were watching the news, as we did every night. At one point, the red-background breaking news tickers, which we were just starting to get used to, began appearing frequently on the channels. They were talking about an accident. I couldn't quite grasp it. I thought an accident had happened in Bucak, which I had heard was one of the places where by-elections were held that day.  It took me time to understand that a car carrying people who seemed to have no business being together had crashed into a truck in the Susurluk district. A police chief, a person wanted with a red notice, and his girlfriend had died in the accident. A member of parliament with the surname Bucak was injured. 

In the published photo of the accident, the star emblem on the car's trunk lid caught my attention. I knew of a similar car from the news about Tanju, who was being tried for smuggling cars into Turkey. Naturally, the association the car created in my mind wasn't very positive. This couldn't have been unique to me, as a car brand with an emblem of four interlocking rings—which I had also just learned about at the time—ran advertisements saying, 'accessories you will never find in ours,' featuring items like stacks of dollars, guns, and prayer beads, which together signaled the mafia. 

**

The glazier had a bicycle he used for short-distance errands. It was a low-entry, geared, bright pink bike without the straight bar that usually runs between the seat and the handlebars; it was the only one of its kind I had ever seen.  I don't know where he found it, whether he seized it in exchange for a job he wasn't paid for, or if he got it for a bargain. I do remember, however, that he didn't even turn his head when people called the bike, which looked quite small under his frame while he rode it, a 'girl's bike'. 

I wasn't as brave as he was. For three or four years, I was the only one who used the bike he gave me to ride home for lunch. By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I decided it was indeed a girl's bike and left it to rust in front of the glazier's shop. Yet, I could have used it for at least two more years. Especially after putting in so much effort. And especially when there was Aunt Şerife's nettle pastry, which she would offer while sending me off to buy thread, a strainer, chicken feed, or whatever she needed at that moment, with sentences starting with, 'Hop on your beautiful bike and go get...' 

I liked Aunt Şerife. When she returned from Hajj, she gifted those she felt closer to with a bit of camel meat and a clock that recited the adhan. It was a green desktop clock shaped like a mosque with a minaret. May God accept her pilgrimage, but its only trick was that an adhan recording would play at the time set for the alarm. If it had been tracking the prayer times day by day and reciting the adhan on its own, I would have lost my mind. We drained its battery by making guests listen to the adhan whenever we decided. Once the battery died, it stayed right where it was left for months. 

Listening to music is a passion for us. The day I claimed the bike as my own to the extent of painting 'Canısı...' (My dear...) in white letters diagonally on the chain guard, I set my mind on building a sound system for it. First, I created my own mixtapes by recording music I liked from the radio onto the countless blank cassettes at home that started with, 'Dear listeners, this is TGRT.' After saving up quite a bit of money, I bought a Walkman, partly on credit. God forbid, not out of disrespect for the adhan, but because I believed with all my heart that it wasn't a necessity, I set my sights on the adhan-reciting clock for the speaker. 

After a few attempts, I placed the Walkman under the bike seat and the speaker on the handlebars. I managed to get sound from the speaker by connecting the wires from two headphones, one of which was already broken. I listened to my favorite mixtape on this new sound system so much... I even memorized where the announcements, placed by radio stations to prevent people like me from recording, fell within the songs. First on the list was Sibel Can's 'Bu devirde kimse sultan değil' (No one is a sultan in this era), second was the Ankara March, and third was Murat Kekilli's 'Ben böyle anlayışa tükürrüm vay be' (I spit on such an understanding, wow)... 

When your recording source is the radio, you don't have the chance to record the songs you want in the order you want. One day, while listening to TRT radio, the Ankara March was announced. Thinking it was the march starting with the lyrics 'Look at the stone of Ankara,' I immediately pressed the record button.  I realized immediately that it wasn't that one, of course, but I grew to love this march as well. I didn't delete it, fearing I might never have the chance to hear it again. For a long time, it gave me hope between the Sibel Can song that came before it and the Murat Kekilli song that would follow: 'Ankara, Ankara; beautiful Ankara! / Every unfortunate soul wishes to see you.'

I remember the first time I played this march for Mustafa; it was a moment of gift-giving between us. Returning from picking okra, I showed him my sound system, played the march I had pre-set, and offered him the pleasure of a ride on the bike. Before he moved, he smiled, took a book out of his bag, and handed it to me: Ergenekon: A State Within a State. 

State, politics, mafia... I had already read 10-12 pages by the time Mustafa returned. As the sounds of "Every person in trouble hopes for your help" grew closer, I folded the corner of the page I was reading. Without giving me a chance to say anything, he said, "How about that? You saw it, didn't you?" I could tell from his facial expressions that he was implying there is a system in this country beyond what we are taught. It was as if he had laid out before us the things we had been talking about even during breaks since the accident in Susurluk, but which we hadn't fully wrapped our heads around.

Back then, we memorized both the anthem and the book with great excitement. But there is one question I still don't know the answer to. It wasn't a book from the library or one obtained with a newspaper coupon, nor was it one our teacher or the Quran course had us buy... How did this book reach us? There wasn't even a place in town that sold such books. At the time, the explanation we most wanted to believe was this: Mustafa's mother had found the book on the garden wall and brought it home. Mustafa lived in a dead-end street with three houses spaced apart in the Çiftlik neighborhood, which had only been designated a neighborhood a few years prior. There was no one else in that street who knew how to read and write. Someone was certain that the book would reach him first. And that he would be the first to tell me about it... We even agreed that this part was the most difficult part of Mustafa's test. Fortunately, Mustafa had succeeded by getting the book to me. 

We thought that what was expected of us was to enter into long-term preparations to clean up the dark gangs described in the book. Our country should be governed under the control of the real state, in accordance with laws and democracy. And we were ready to take on the task for this. We made our decision. We were going to assemble the gang. We would act together, prioritize our studies, read a lot, and wait for the day of duty. To support the relaunched "One Minute of Darkness for Constant Enlightenment" protest, we would convince those at home and turn off the lights for one minute at nine o'clock every evening. We would not neglect our combat training, which we carried out according to karate cards. And finally, if they didn't call us, one day we would go to Ankara ourselves: "You are enough for them, beautiful Ankara."

It didn't last long. Aside from our loyalty to the light-turning-off protests, the length of the struggle process and our first loves caused us to neglect our gang activities. Saying we'll do it tomorrow, we'll do it on the weekend, we'll do it in the summer; and with no one coming to ask about us, we just forgot about it. 

**

A few years later, probably a bit belatedly, a new film came to town called Propaganda. While the film ruthlessly criticized the heavy burden of state authority from a diluted perspective, it presented the Ankara Anthem as a symbol of proving obedience to this authority. For the film, the state consisted of an omnipotent, cruel bureaucracy. Yet, was it like that in the film The Herd (Sürü)? In the film, Civan, played by Tarık Akan, did not curse Ankara even when he couldn't find what he was looking for in the city he saw as a panacea for all ills; he did not let the words of the anthem or his hope fall to the ground; he kept believing and gripped the throat of the bourgeoisie. 

Years later, we would encounter Ergenekon as a political case, presented as if it would solve the dark relationships described in the book of the same name, but actually constructed to remove all obstacles in front of new candidates for power. The phrase "a state within a state" in the book's subtitle appeared before me in many different places over time. 

One of the instances that caught my attention the most concerned a legislative proposal in 1960 that would have empowered Alparslan Türkeş and his circle, who wanted the military administration to remain within the National Unity Committee for a few more years. Ahmet Hamdi Başar, who was alleged to have contributed to this process, objected, stating that with this draft, "a state within a state was being established." Apart from this, the same expression was used for Vehbi Koç in Yön magazine. Kurthan Fişek had recalled it being used for the Ottoman Public Debt Administration (Duyun-u Umumiye), and Niyazi Berkes for the embassies in the Ottoman Empire. 

**

I don't know Ankara very well. Since I only go when necessary, I mostly know a few key points. I know Sihhiye, for example. On March 1, 2003, a large group of us went there, and I remember looking for a long time at the Hittite Sun Course Monument and the Hands sculpture over people's shoulders. 

I looked at them for a long time again last month. I had given directions to Mustafa, who was looking around and asking where we were; he told me that if I opened the map on my phone, I could reach the front of the Ankara Courthouse in 10-15 minutes. Although the posters for the Çatlı film I saw while following his directions ruined my mood, passing through Sihhiye had been very enjoyable. 

Mustafa has been in the construction business in Ankara for a while. I don't know exactly what he does. From his frequent invitations to Ankara and what he says about what we would do if I came, I gather that his situation is not bad. I called him when I went to Ankara for a different reason and for a limited time, not because of his invitation. He was childishly happy. I hadn't told him I was coming in advance. He was going from one place to another and said he would pick me up on the way. We would figure out the rest later.

While I was waiting in front of the courthouse, he arrived in a car very similar to the one that crashed on our election day. It had a star emblem. After quickly getting me into the car, he squeezed my left arm, saying, "man, man, man," and for a few minutes, he just showed his joy while adjusting to the flow of traffic. According to him, his diploma hadn't done him any good. He had been working as a contractor for a long time. He loved Ankara very much. He didn't love his wife like he used to. His work was very stressful. He had become unable to tolerate the slightest disruption. So much so that if the power went out for a minute, he would raise hell. I shouldn't look at the car he was driving; he had seized it in exchange for a small debt. Now he was going to leave it at a dealership and pick out a new one from there. Although these old ones were something else: '96 model, V6 cylinder, 3200 engine... Oh, if only he could find a clean, facelifted version of this...

In between, he called me 'chief,' 'boss,' 'old man'... But he said 'chief' the most. We had never addressed each other with any title other than our names before. I had never seen any other friends who were this intimate while only calling each other by their names. I got a little bored. I felt stifled. Focusing on the thing I would enjoy most in that confined space, I started fiddling with the car's original cassette player. I looked for a local radio station first. When I saw that the radio channels were occupied by songs about beauties, prayer beads, and 'manliness,' I gave up. I asked where we were going, and he said, "To the State Neighborhood." I had heard it for the first time. A neighborhood named 'state' inside the center of the state... 

"There should be a few cassettes in the glove compartment, for nostalgia's sake," he said. I looked, but couldn't find any. So that my head wouldn't take it and I wouldn't have to talk non-stop, I turned the radio to a news channel: "...who said in recent months that the best system for Turkey is the Ottoman millet system...  "...who said 'the issue is not borders or the S-400, the issue is legitimacy'... US Ambassador to Ankara and Special Representative for Syria Tom Barrack... while the discussions regarding his name appearing in the Epstein documents continue... on the Iran border of Iraq..."  Not for the sake of nostalgia, but for the sake of healing, I wished so much that I could change the radio station at that moment and have the Ankara March come on: “Ankara, Ankara; oh steel rock / Çankaya is the heart of the Turk within you.”