Recently, I revisited Hannah Arendt’s classic Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Widely considered one of the most unsettling intellectual accounts of the 20th century, the book emerged from Arendt’s observations of the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Her central thesis remains provocative: evil is not necessarily the work of monstrous figures, but often the outcome of ordinary bureaucrats who do not think, do not question, and simply obey.
Viewed through this lens, today’s Turkey becomes tragically legible. Yes, the machinery of repression has been designed at the center of Erdoğan’s regime. Yet it spread to the provinces, into schools, courthouses, police stations, and neighborhoods not only through government officials but through teachers, rectors, neighbors, academics, and civil servants—those who were “one of us.”
The Bureaucracy of Obedience
Eichmann, Arendt argued, was not a demon but a thoughtless bureaucrat. The same dynamic played out in Turkey after the failed coup attempt of July 2016.
Tens of thousands of teachers, doctors, judges, prosecutors, soldiers, and academics were dismissed or jailed for such “crimes” as holding an account at Bank Asya, using the ByLock app, or belonging to a union. Committees, judges, police officers, and rectors excused themselves with the familiar refrain: “We were just following orders.”
Arendt would recognize this instantly: the unthinking functionary becomes the willing accomplice of evil.
When Law and Morality Diverge
For Arendt, thinking is not optional—it is an ethical responsibility. When the law itself becomes immoral, conscience must prevail. Totalitarian regimes, however, provide legal cover precisely to paralyze conscience.
In Turkey, decree-laws (KHKs) after July 2016 dismissed thousands without trial, canceled passports, and condemned people to civil death. Judges and prosecutors signed off on this injustice. Some justified themselves by citing orders; others did so eagerly, hoping to advance their careers.
Arendt’s warning resonates: “If the law is unjust, moral responsibility must take over.”
The Normalization of Evil
In totalitarian systems, Arendt wrote, evil is normalized and conscience is silenced. In Turkey, when journalists, teachers, and academics were branded “terrorists,” much of society either applauded or looked away.
Media outlets incited hatred. State institutions—from RTÜK to the Directorate of Religious Affairs, from universities to the military—joined the campaign. In schools, children were taught about the alleged “evil” of the Gülen movement.
This is precisely the “banality of evil” Arendt warned of: the creation of a moral system in which injustice feels ordinary.
The Silence of Academia
For Arendt, failure to think is itself complicity. In Turkey, while thousands of academics were purged, the rest largely stayed silent—or endorsed the repression as “cleansing.” The silence of the nation’s most prestigious universities, or their regime-compliant statements, revealed the collapse of intellectual responsibility.
Society’s Role: Fear, Profit, and Indifference
Arendt noted that people collude with evil sometimes out of fear, sometimes for gain. Both were present in Turkey. After July 2016, the property of Gülen movement members was seized, their homes looted, their children expelled, and they were shunned by neighbors. Those who might have resisted instead profited from their suffering.
This echoes Arendt’s famous line: “The spread of evil requires only that good people do nothing.”
“I Was Only Following Orders”
Erdoğan’s regime cloaked injustice in legality, darkening the lives of millions. Bureaucrats, academics, teachers, and judges carried out orders unquestioningly, or kept silent. Babies froze to death in prison, mothers drowned in the Evros River. Thousands languished behind bars; tens of thousands fled their homeland.
And society? At best, it looked away. At worst, it cheered. “They deserved it. Good riddance!” some said. Others declared, “May God bless Erdoğan!”
These, too, are the faces of ordinary evil.
When Evil Becomes Ordinary
The oppression in Turkey today is not only the work of an authoritarian state. It is also the product of those who turned away, kept silent, or profited from others’ suffering.
As Arendt observed: “The most dangerous being is the unthinking human.”
One day this order will change. And thousands will plead: “I was just doing my job. I had orders. I had children. I had no choice.”
But history will not forgive. Because complicity does not require pulling a trigger. Silence and comfort are enough.
The question Turkey must face is this: How did evil become so easily normalized on these lands?
