Didim Today

On the final day of 2009, analysts continued to reflect on the past year, on the most groundbreaking events that left their mark as well as their expectations for 2010. There is a consensus that 2009 was filled with much distress for Turkey as the country witnessed many developments in a year that might have been seen in another country in a decade.

2010 is believed to be a pivotal year in which the developments of 2009, such as the Ergenekon trial and the government’s Kurdish initiative, which aims to resolve Turkey’s long-standing Kurdish problem by expanding the democratic rights of Kurdish citizens, will be concluded. There are high hopes that the disappointing developments of 2009 will not be repeated in the year ahead.

Milliyet’s Semih İdiz thinks Turkey is not entering the new year with peace and self-confidence due to the emergence of cases that became successively more interesting as the year progressed. “We are experiencing new developments in the breaking of taboos each and every year.

Almost all the developments taking place in 2009 are hanging in the balance. In domestic politics, the trial of Ergenekon -- a criminal network that has alleged links within the state and is suspected of plotting to topple the government -- and the government’s Kurdish initiative are some of the issues that are in limbo. Many developments took place in 2009 in both these cases, but results have not yet been reached that will bring peace to the country,” says İdiz, adding that everyone will see whether events will reach a conclusion in 2010.

Bugün’s Nuh Gönültaş makes a list of the shocking developments that emerged in 2009, describing them as events that should disappear next year: “There will be no categorization of people on the basis of their ideologies and beliefs, there will be no weapons discovered underground, there will be no ‘Cage action plan’ by the military which aims to kill non-Muslim figures in the country and put the blame on the government for the killings, there will be no plan to overthrow the government, there will be no plan to finish off the Gülen movement, there will be no assassination plot against deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç.” Gönültaş predicts that such shadowy plans will not be discovered in 2010 in Turkey and that the country will have a peaceful year.

Sabah’s Mehmet Barlas says decisions to be made in the new year should aim to meet the needs of the future instead of the longings of the past and that the expectations of the living should have priority over the discourse of the dead.

He suggests that the old understanding of the “state” should be balanced with the “human” reality of today. “On the last day of 1999, would you have predicted that al-Qaeda would strike the twin towers, China would assume the leading role in world trade and commerce, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) would come to power alone for two terms, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would be prime minister and Abdullah Gül would be president in the next decade?

Think about this for a while. Now, a black man is the president of the United States and his wife, who is the descendant of a slave, is the first lady,” says Barlas.

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