But why? Why are conspiracy theories so popular and credible in Turkey?I have been thinking on that for sometime, and here are some of the answers I have found.

Why Not Move On?

First, one has to acknowledge the weight of history. The two final centuries of the Ottoman Empire was an era of continuous defeats and land losses to hostile powers. Moreover, when the Empire finally fell, Turkey proper was occupied by the British, the French, the Italians, and the Greeks. The infamous Treaty of Sevres (1920) gave great chunks of land to all these nations, and it also introduced the idea of a greater Armenia and a Kurdistan on Turkish lands. If Sevres were executed, Turkey would be one-fifth its current size.

Of course we Turks did not accept the Sevres and we buried it with our War of Liberation (1920-22) under the skilled leadership of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk). And I think it is understandable that we have a bad memory from that dark episode. The problem is that we just can't get rid of the psychology of Sevres and realize that the world is much different now. Many of us still think that the plot to dismember Turkey is very much alive in the secret agendas of foreign powers. Why? Why can't we just move on?

That's the crucial question and I think the answer has something to do with our official ideology. Since the beginning of the Republic, it was the state which deliberately kept the memory of Sevres alive in the minds of citizens. The education system and all the official rhetoric always tell that we, as a nation, are surrounded by enemies that do not want us to be safe and prosperous. When I was at primary school, we used to perform amateurish shows in which the little kid who represented the beloved homeland was threatened with the bayonets of other kids who had British, Russian or French uniforms. Today the same theme dominates many bestseller novels or non-fictions, which all argue that our homeland is under threat.

Hiding Our Mistakes

Then we should ask why our official ideology needs such a systematic nurturing of paranoia. I think the answer has something to do with the fact that our official ideology is an authoritarian one. Like all authoritarian creeds, it legitimizes itself by creating enemies within and without. By blaming these imagined troublemakers for all the troubles we have, the state actually finds a great way to bolster “national solidarity” and hide its own mistakes.

Let me give you one example. Less than two years after the proclamation of the Republic, in early 1925, Turkey faced a massive Kurdish rebellion. Led by a Kurdish religious leader, Sheik Said, the rebellion lasted for five moths and could be suppressed after heavy fighting with many casualties. In the same year, the leaders of the revolt were executed and many other Kurds, some of who were totally guiltless, were imprisoned or deported to western Turkey.

Now, each Turkish student learns in school that the Sheik Said rebellion was cooked up by the British. Her Majesty's secret service, the story goes, paid this traitor sheik to start a revolt in order to stir up Turkey at a time when Ankara and London were at odds over the fate of the northern Iraqi province of Mosul. Ask any Turk about Sheik Said, and there is a 99 percent chance that he will tell you about this “British connection.”

But it is false. There is actually no evidence whatsoever proving a connection with the Kurdish rebels and the British government. The real cause of the rebellion is that the young Republic disillusioned the conservative Kurds by its radical secularist and nationalist policies. The Kurds, who were happy under the multi-ethnic Ottoman system, found this new regime too alienating, and thus reacted against it. The incident was caused by Turkey's internal politics.

However, instead of acknowledging this real cause – which might bring the unpleasant question of whether the state makes mistakes – the Turkish official rhetoric has chosen to put the blame on a “foreign power.”

The myth about the Sheik Said rebellion is just one example of a permanent mindset that the official rhetoric installed in the minds of most of its citizens. Once people have that “software” installed, all they see in the world is “internal and external enemies,” and the all-loving, all-caring state which heroically takes care of the troublemakers, but also needs the absolute obedience of its loyal subjects.

If you would like to see how this mindset affects our current political debates, then I suggest reading my next column.