In the 90s, every major political party moved to offer a partnership with us, starting with the late Necmettin Erbakan, who was ousted by the military in the infamous Feb. 28 / 97 soft coup. Erbakan was forming a new party, and he wanted young people to be proactive, and his?ex-Minister of State, a professional man whom I knew personally?had?come to all our events told me that Erbakan wanted to meet me and had been following me in the Turkish press. I am sure he heard about our big Konya event in April 1997,?one of the most?successful events?of our time and?resonated throughout Central Anatolia.?It was also Erdogan and his allies that heard of this following us closely. I would see his people on the streets wherever we visited. He was obviously as Mayor very powerful and using this power to grow his Anatolian base.
Although this was an honor for me at age 35, I had to politely decline the invitation as we were just ending our non-binding partnership with Mesut Yilmaz and the Motherland Party because of the weak and frail positions that they took publicly on critical issues like supporting the army troops in the streets in March 1997 during the soft coup. Exactly one week after the soft coup on March 6, 1997, we had our second-anniversary event in Istanbul where a critical thousand people from Istanbul, Ankara, and many other places came to celebrate our growing movement with principles, values, and self-confidence. The Motherland Party Board was present, and Yilmaz was scheduled to speak right after my speech. I gave a compelling presentation called “Dialogue, Courage, and Decision-making Going Forward” and in front of Yilmaz and his entire senior team, I gave an accurate but scathing portrayal of what was going on in Turkey and, if politics as usual continued this would be one of the worst periods in Turkish history. Yilmaz had no idea what I would say and seemed visibly angry. He went off script short remarks saying that ARI had no idea what Turkish people thought about, and we were politically lost. He called us a bunch of intellectuals enjoying intelligent brainstorming amongst ourselves that had nothing to do with the people's problems on the ground. I knew there was going to be awkward moments. Still, he left immediately afterward and two of his top Board Members warned me about our planned trip to Konya in April, threatening me to cancel my trip and my presentation, which was the same speech in Konya.
Naturally, I was excited to get to Konya as soon as possible to test our new vision in the nation's heartland - so I did not listen to anything they told me, and they predicted that because they knew me well. In public, for quite some time, Yilmaz encouraged the army before the coup, applauded their presence on the streets during the coup, and then continued his criticism until he was granted the Premiership of the new post-coup government. I knew ANA-Sol-D, which was handed to Yilmaz by the military as he became Prime Minister for the third time since 1990, Yilmaz would be a colossal failure in Turkish politics again and I was pretty vocal about this everywhere I went. As I was being invited around the world to speak in Washington DC, I spoke where Murat Karayalcin was present – Foreign Minister of Turkey. He literally left the event while I was speaking and did not return because I criticized his government and its decisions. ATC said this was a first for them in their long existence. I thought this was a good thing I got everyone’s attention. ATC never invited me back for some reason telling the truth probably was my sin.
When historians look at Turkey during this period, they will find the fabric of the country was deliberately destroyed for moronic reasons by politicians, press and businesspeople and so-called NGOs working altogether how do we dispose of everything Turkish? From 2016 in the USA the exact same thing happened. A bunch of morons got together and said how can we destroy without anyone being accountable. So far Democrats are doing perfect job of destroying the entire infrastructure starting with education already destroyed. Every else is also being destroyed at the same time. As I clearly underlined in What is Wrong w America this process started well before Trump became president. For 25 years I listed the reasons why. Trump became President because of this self - destruction. Clinton/Bush/Obama were the reasons why and I explained underlying decisions. Everyone who made these decisions should resign from their respective institutes whatever it may be both sides of the dead US Press corps – govt officials who love endless wars. Institutions like FOX and CNN must be shut down entirely. Everyone must lose their jobs if not then same old same old will continue. Which is happening every single day I have to watch this trash. It is for me personally pure trash unable to swallow anything, so I wait a few weeks and I don’t watch anything. You have to be insane to watch any of this. Everyone not only watches they double down on every issue possible, imagine in Florida how many issues we have here. Watching them paying attention makes me sick to my stomach.
This entire period from 1996-1999, when his government collapsed due to a vote of no-confidence by Deniz Baykal's CHP arguably was the main period in Turkish political history that, I believe, started the country's downfall. I remember a rather large American delegation before the elections in 1999 when I was asked who would become Prime Minister after this election, and I said it will be Bulent Ecevit. The delegation thought I was crazy and laughed among themselves. I was very serious and explained why this would be the case. He was utilizing a central platform to go beyond their typical 12-14 percent base and would attract votes from the center right parties as their leaders are failing and will continue to fail. His votes came mainly from ANAP which drove Mesut Yilmaz and supporters crazy. Abdullah Ocalan was Turkey’s Osama Bin Laden. U.S. special forces handed him over to Turkish authorities in Africa. So, Ecevit also got the traditional support for Turkish national pride which upset MHP leader as well.
For the record, from 1993 until 2011 I never got anything wrong in Turkish politics. This is important for me personally. Everything is in my life story already written. Now I am completing this part of my political career. After Erbakan lost his foremost young minds like Erdogan, Abdullah Gul, and others when they broke off and formed their own party, I always used our proper principles at the movement. Whenever we were hosting or scheduling an American or European delegation, we would always call their party's new headquarters and inform the head of their international relations, who would mostly no other than Gul. These were the times in Turkey when touching the subject of political Islam and religion influencing politics was not done very properly. Still, we treated their new party respectfully and always sent our delegations to their offices in Ankara and Istanbul. One day my assistant informed me that Abdullah Gul was on the phone asking for me, which was not expected and surprising for me, as he simply called to thank me for being proper in our political principles regarding their new party. He did not have to contact me, but he did, and I expressed my appreciation. ?????????
In 1998,?through a businessman in Istanbul who knew me well, CHP leader?Deniz Baykal?asked me and some of my team to sit down with?them for one entire day with?no agenda whatsoever?and?simply?brainstorm about?how?he can cooperate?with us. Again, as we were just beginning to understand the power and possibilities of being totally independent and free to do whatever we were passionate about was too good to mess up by partnering with another party. Furthermore, I could never establish a trustworthy relationship with Baykal as he seemed to represent the old guard. This is important to note here because of my personal dealings with him during the 2002 elections, which was critical for Kemal Dervis. Dervis in all of his meetings would sit down with Baykal without me and talk for hours on end about different issues stating with economic issues. He trusted Baykal and one of the reasons he said alright was due to the fact that they agreed Dervis would only work on economic issues. After Dervis became MP in 2002 when I kindly refused to join him in CHP as MP – Baykal never gave him the authority to work on economic issues. The party structure was already archaic in its thinking and Dervis was not empowered by Baykal to change this. I will write much more about Dervis but as I told Dervis himself he should have stayed out of this election in 2002. He was along with Sadettin Tantan who I knew very well were the two most powerful individuals in Turkey. Had Dervis remained outside the Parliament he may have been able to transform Turkey with Tantan.