Leadership Quote by Bulent Ecevit

The line lands like a brake squeal in the middle of a chase: the point isn’t that terrorism is manageable, but that the state’s response can become its own kind of threat. Ecevit is warning about a familiar political temptation - to treat democracy as a luxury you can suspend until “security” returns - and he’s doing it with a strategic word choice. “Essential” frames civil liberties not as a moral preference but as a functional requirement. Democracies don’t just defend themselves with force; they defend themselves by refusing to become the thing they fear.

The subtext is aimed as much at governments as at militants. Terrorism is designed to provoke overreaction, to lure a democratic state into mass surveillance, indefinite detention, censorship, or emergency-rule politics that corrode trust. Ecevit’s phrasing, “sacrifices should not be made on democracy,” suggests an altar: democracy is what panicked leaders offer up to appear decisive. It’s also a quiet rebuke to voters who demand “whatever it takes,” then act surprised when the “whatever” sticks.

Context matters with Ecevit. As a Turkish prime minister in a country long wrestling with political violence, military tutelage, and the Kurdish conflict, he knew how quickly counterterror measures become permanent infrastructure. His intent isn’t naive idealism; it’s damage control for a fragile legitimacy. He’s arguing that winning the security battle while hollowing out democratic norms is still a strategic loss - because you hand extremists proof that ballots are theater and power is coercion.