First, they opened an investigation against İzmir Metropolitan Mayor Tunç Soyer. The reason for the investigation by the Ministry of Interior was Soyer's alleged insult to Sultan Vahdettin in his speech during the 100th-anniversary celebrations of İzmir's liberation from enemy occupation!

The words deemed insulting and the basis for the investigation were the ones Soyer said, 'My words are taken from Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's Nutuk (The Speech).'

In other words, the AKP's (The Justice and Development Party) interior minister was opening an investigation not against a mayor, but against Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey!

This was certainly not an ordinary event and also signaled a new phase of the AKP's 'main target' in its 21 years of rule. Indeed, AKP's political Islamists targeted Republicans and Kemalists from TV screens and newspaper columns, saying, 'We will prosecute anyone who calls Vahdettin a traitor,' and threatened intellectuals in the person of Ümit Zileli on a TV program.

SHEIKH SAID'S LAWYERS: AKP AND DEM

Then began the defense of Sheikh Said.

When the trustee appointed by the AKP to Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality announced on social media that they had started the construction of 'Sheikh Said Boulevard,' which would connect the Silvan road to Elazığ, naturally, there were reactions.

Interestingly, if the AKP hadn't appointed a trustee, the HDP's mayor would also name a place in the city after Sheikh Said. (Indeed, in 2014, with the votes of HDP and AKP council members, Dağkapı Square was named Sheikh Said Square.) Therefore, the second party that defended the AKP trustee's action against the reactions was DEM (HDP- The Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party)!

Those who took the forefront in defending Sheikh Said were directly AKP members. For example, AKP Erzurum Deputy Abdurrahim Fırat targeted Republicans in a message he published on social media: 'Sheikh Said is our honor. I declare to the public that we will file a complaint under the provisions of the Turkish Penal Code for the insulting statements made by some rude and immoral people about Sheikh Said Efendi.'

REPUBLIC OR REACTIONISM

Atatürk described Vahdettin from the rostrum of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey as a 'traitor, defiler of the presidency, bastard, lowlife, opportunist, a toy in the hands of the enemy, base, plotter' (See Nutuk).

Moreover, Vahdettin's sole membership in the British Admirers (Friends) Society alone justifies these descriptions. This society not only sought a British mandate but also tried to stir trouble in Anatolia with British money and hinder the War of Independence, serving the British with espionage activities. Vahdettin, in the end, fled to seek refuge with the British.

The Sheikh Said rebellion is a multi-dimensional issue in the 1925 context, with various parameters ranging from reactionism to the Mosul issue. It's one of the feudal forces' early attempts to strangle the young Republic: either the Republic will prevail, or reactionism...

That's why Mustafa Kemal said, 'The Republic of Turkey cannot be a country of sheiks, dervishes, disciples, and members.'

THOSE RESPONSIBLE BEFORE HISTORY

Today's Vahdettin and the Sheikh Said issue are, in fact, this: Will Turkey be a country of sheiks and disciples or a country of secular citizens?

The political Islamists suing those who call Vahdettin and Sheikh Said 'traitors' is not a legal matter; it's a political clash. They are trying to pave the way for building their 'Islamic republic,' which they refer to as 'our cause,' by attacking Atatürk's secular Republic step by step. In doing so, they are also trying to write a 'new history' for the 'new regime.'

Nationalists who support political Islamists for this or that reason, as well as Republicans who refrain from taking a clear stance by saying 'We respect sorrows,' will also be responsible before history!