…and in the Darkness Bind Them.*

Friend of the Gormogons Claire Berlinski† has written an excellent, very entertaining article on the Ergenekon case, in which Turkish prosecutors claim to have uncovered an massive, incredibly baroque, murderous conspiracy attempting to strike at and destabilize the Republic. As Claire notes, such an allegation would be laughable in most places—but Turkish politics is so oddball and crazy there may be some (or no!) elements of truth in here.

Plus, Turks love conspiracies—or at least talking about them. There is a long-held view in Turkey that the military and/or government harbors a nefarious assassination-minded conspiracy known as “the Deep State,” which is designed to retain power for the state by killing its critics and opponents, democratic and otherwise. Many Turks have characterized the Ergenekon case as unveiling of the Deep State—whereas others, in an awesome stroke of meta-conspiracism, argue (of course) that it’s a put-up job by the real Deep State. If the Deep State exists, its most effective camouflage is the net of lunatic theories that have sprung up around it. (It’s obviously generating those theories to hide itself! Fnord!)

Lest you think that conspiracy-mindedness is a fringe phenomenon in Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has expressed credence in some form of the theory in on a number of occasions. Which, others will tell you, is because he’s heading (or is a tool of) a slow-motion Islamist coup d’état conspiracy.

Sound nuts? I assure you, I have not scratched the surface of crazy in Turkish politics. Check out Claire’s article, y’all.

*Nerd shout-out to GorT, who’s the only Gormogon ever to have read The Lord of the Rings, I believe.

†That’s she at right. Rrrrowr, I know. Claire has just put out a terrific little (underpublicized) book called There Is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters. Treat yourself to it, you won’t be disappointed.

Confucius, Œc. Vol.

Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.