Gordion Knot is an ancient proverbial term that is commonly used to describe solving a complex problem by coercive action. According to the ancient story, when Alexander the Great has marched into the Phrygian capital of Gordium he found a chariot belongs to the ancestral father of the city, Gordius. The yoke of the wagon was tied with a knot with its hidden end and who could unravel the knot is thought to be the conqueror of the Asia. After several attempts to untie the knot, Alexander sliced the knot instead of patiently unravelling it and he carried on his military expedition.
The story does not tell us how Alexander’s pragmatic approach has influenced the people in Gordium. However, in the contemporary Turkish politics Turkey is facing with a new Gordion Knot that needs to be untied patiently.
This new Gordion Knot was created by Gulenists since 1970’s by diffusing all Turkish Governmental Institutions using different immoral methods. According to recent trials, Gulenists are accused of using corrupted ways such as stealing proficiency civil servant exams to recruit their disciples. Or, they fabricated evidences to dismiss rival civil servants from their senior state positions to replace with their followers. By the time they expanded their influence over state institutions, they employed many Gulenists and they did not let others to survive under the same roof.
Such an expansion in state and society created many pragmatic relations with Gulenists. People who are seeking a civil servant positon get closer relation with Gulenists, despite the fact that they have no common ground with Gulenist ideology. Along with these pragmatic relations, tactics of Gulenists such as hiding their identity whilst serving in state institutions created a fuzzy environment to identify who are linked with this group.
After the 15 July Military Coup attempt, when Justice and Development Party Government (AKP) has decided to dismiss all the civil servants who have or might have links with Gulenists created a turmoil in the Turkish Political Scene. Thousands of people who lost their jobs cried out that they have no links with FETÖ and they consider themselves as victims of this investigations.
In the beginning of suspension of civil servants from state institutions, there was an expectation that there will be highly sensitive and fair investigations to reveal the connection of these people with Gulen network. However, after the dismiss of thousands of people with legislative decrees and without any administrative and judicial investigation has created question marks on all Turkish society that whether the purpose of these decrees is open a space for government oriented civil servants or fighting against FETÖ terrorism.
As many AKP politician has highlighted that Gulen movement diffused to state such a virus and caused an epidemic that undermined reliability of state institutions. In this respect, despite the diagnosis made by AKP politicians was completely accurate, the remedy they provided was unfortunately wrong. Fighting against a virus must have credentials of virus treatment and protection rather that cutting a body part within many healthy and innocent cells still exists.
In this vein, President Erdoğan and his companions Alexandrian approach that firing all civil servants without any fair trial principles as similar to cutting Gordion Knot may cause unexpected results that have not been considered yet by AKP management. First of all, the way followed to dismiss these people may cause judicial cases that will end up with paying higher compensations to these people in the long run. Secondly, the democratic reputation of Turkey will be undermined not only cases against Turkey in European Court of Human Rights but also thousands of people will seek refuge from Western countries saying that they are dismissed from their jobs without any fair trial and they have the fear of being prosecuted as similar to they lost their jobs. Thirdly, in consideration of higher number of dismissed people, every family has one closer relative facing with this problem. The misery of these people such as unable to find a job and having difficulty to look after their children will create a public opposition against the AKP as soon as traces of coup attempt disappears. If AKP refrains to take necessary steps to fair trial of dismissed civil servants, many people who voted for AKP will seek another political party (which is most possibly major opposition party Republican Party-CHP) to end up this victimization that may also end of ruling years of AKP. Finally, within these people there are many innocent but highly intellectual academicians who have add value to Turkish science and politics. Losing these people to other states after investing them for long years will be a big loss for Turkey’s intellectual development and replacing these academicians will take time sooner than expected.
In short, eliminating FETÖ threat such an Gordion Knot must be reconsidered by state authorities not only creating public opposition and undermining democratic tradition of Turkey but also protecting intellectual investment of Turkey that could not be replaced easily within short notice.
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