Today is the fourth day of Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice), the Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) 18th anniversary, and the sixth anniversary of the Rabaa massacre in Egypt - one of the most savage massacres in the history of modern humanity.
Every one of these special occasions have been affixed meanings that require much to be said about them today. Every passing year brings with it a diverse interpretations that a major incident gains over time.
History is rewritten every moment, in light of new developments, along with the new meanings added by new incidents. Therefore, it is possible to articulate extremely diverging views in the 18th year of an event, of which we marked each year within a different context for the last 17 years.
The AK Party is a very unique example in terms of the contributions it made to Turkish politics, its development, the development history of democracy in the Islamic world and throughout the world at large. Every event that took place in each one of these 18 years added different dimensions to its contributions. As its 18th anniversary coincided with Eid al-Adha, the headquarters' anniversary events have been postponed to next week. Hence, let us leave our more elaborate evaluation to next week and focus more on the Rabaa massacre today.
We had mentioned it before: even though the Rabaa massacre coinciding with the AK Party's anniversary (12th anniversary) is not intentional, it is a coincidence of great symbolic meaning. Because, the AK Party has reminded us of the people's will in the Muslim world; that it exists and is possible.
This has inspired Arab nations, which have been living under almost complete slavery for a century, to demand a life of independence, freedom and honor. Of course this was not the sole reason behind the Arab Spring process, yet this source of inspiration has surely had a symbolic effect. Of course, while inspiring nations, the nature of the symbolic factor is that it arouses other feelings in those that have an established order.
Thus, the forces disturbed by the Arab Spring process did not only organize counter-revolutions to stop it, they also made great efforts to suffocate in place and eliminate the Turkey example that inspired these revolutions. Such efforts are still ongoing.
Therefore, simultaneous with the movement that prepared the grounds of the coup against Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, the Gezi Park revolt was organized in Turkey with the same reasons, same media communication tactics and discourses. What suceeded in Egypt failed in Turkey. Yet, neither this fight, nor their grudge against the AK Party and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who reminded the Arab people that they are free, deserve an honorable life and that they can do this, is over.
In this sense, they rained bullets down on the crowds that demonstrated their resistance against the coup in Egypt in the most peaceful manner – in a sit-in protest at the square - on exactly the 12th anniversary of the AK Party's founding, and murdered 3,000 people in the most brutal manner.
What is Karbala? The Rabaa massacre was an incident in which 3,000 people were brutally murdered, each as tragically as in the Karbala incident.
The modern world also stands out with its ability displaying that thousands of Karbalas can happen in a single day, side-by-side. As a matter of fact, it is also known for not allowing an elegy for the Karbalas it caused, while giving respect to the Yazidis that shortly had all this forgotten.
The soldiers and police that used the state's weapons against unarmed people in Rabaa, massacred numerous citizens with snipers, and inflicted the greatest cruelty ever by a state on its own people by opening fire on random crowds. This was followed by the bodies of the dead and the tents at the square, where the injured were gathered and crushed to pieces with bulldozers. Some of the bodies were filled into pits and covered, and some were burned along with their tents.
Those who deserve to be tried in international courts for every life taken in that massacre were later accepted into the international community as if nothing had happened. With the courage they garnered from this, they threw into dungeons those they failed to kill in the Rabaa massacre, and almost all of these prisoners died of torture and maltreatment. Those who managed to stay alive were tried in sham courts and executed. Hundreds were sentenced to execution in a single session without any proper trial, based on statements known to be given under torture.
Amid all this, last February, on the day following the execution of nine of these youth, Arab League and European Union leaders did not hesitate at all to attend an event in Sharm el-Sheikh hosted by Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, the sole responsible for these massacres, and pose with him. In fact, looking them all in the face, Sisi asked that they accept that such disgusting democracy and human rights is normal "under Egypt's own conditions," and they listened.
Today, Egypt's condition is bad enough for us to feel ashamed of our age and time in terms of human rights violations. Egypt, unfortunately, represents the model the West wants to see for the Islamic world, with its tens of thousands of political detainees under heavy torture in dungeons, its completely suppressed opposition and media. Because as can be understood, the West wants an model just like this for Islam, and not democracy, not developed human rights and freedoms. Even if they say differently, what they say through their actions at every opportunity reveals this.
