I see that Turkey and its citizens are becoming more and more like a group of theater actors. We act like we care about free speech even when we shut down websites left and right. We act as if we provide equal opportunity to everyone even though we have one of the biggest digital divides in the world.

The latest act was to tamper with the computers at International Monetary Fund/World Bank meetings so that people using them could log into any website that is currently banned in Turkey. This will go down on record as one of the most hypocritical acts in history. The authorities tried to soften the problem of Internet freedom by giving foreign visitors the ability to move freely. The people responsible for controlling the Internet in this country thought they could get away with it.

However, they are only fooling themselves. The Economist Intelligence Unit issued its e-readiness report for 2009 and Turkey continues to rank 43rd out of 70 countries. Just like the year before. Just as it has been since 2005. No matter how hard the officials try, they cannot hide the fact that Turkey is not progressing, it is regressing. Turkey is a member of the G-20, but its technology record is lagging far behind.

Meanwhile, in the list of the “best countries to live”, namely the UN Human Development Index, Turkey ranks 79th, one step lower on the scale compared to last year. The extent of the digital divide doesn’t help either. So what can be done and how can it be done?

Actually, it is quite simple.

Authorities could start by trusting their citizens. It is what the countries that are much better on both lists do.

When you trust your citizens, you don’t feel the need to ban websites; instead, you believe that each individual can assess what is wrong and what is right. If you do this, then you don’t have to pretend to care about the liberties of a select group of foreigners just to cover up what you “know” is wrong.

When you trust your citizens, you can put the “e” in governance much more easily. Turkey’s e-government project has been talked about continuously since 1998. Its name was Kamunet back then. Ten years later, we are still at exactly the same stage. Some progress has been made, but citizens cannot use the e-government portal as they would like. There are only seven services listed out of more than a thousand that the government has committed to providing.

Furthermore, none of these services can be fully accessed over the Internet. You still have to go to a government office to really get what you want.

In an off-the-record discussion, a person involved in the e-government project reported that the initiative will never take place because various government authorities request hundreds of various documents to perform even the simplest task. She went on to say that there is no IT infrastructure that can handle so many requests from so many different authorities using so many different systems.

So either the government will learn to trust its people or Turkey will remain somewhere in the middle on all indices.