Authoritarianism Strikes Turkey

Some say it’s the Turkish Spring, others opine that it’s a protest by the increasingly sidelined secularists who feel that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government is not listening to their voice and turning progressively dictatorial.

Turkey has seen a remarkable rise in its fortunes under Tayyip Erdogan’s government. Exports have increased tenfold in the last ten years, credit rating upgrades by Moody’s, JCR and other agencies around the world, stellar GDP growth rates and a growing political influence in Africa and Middle East have all made Turkey, a major regional power.  But all of this came at price. At least this is how the apparently wronged secularists feel. Their major beef with Erdogan’s AKP led government is that under his rule, the country has started to lean towards Islamization thereby abandoning the secular principles on which Mustafa Kemal Pasha founded modern Turkey.

Tayyip Erdogan’s track record in listening to public opinion and media freedom has been less than stellar than his economic and foreign policy wizardry. These protests that are largely a grassroots movement are essentially a disapproval of the Turkish prime minister’s increasingly authoritarian style of government.

The protests started with the Turkish government’s plans to build a shopping mall on the Gezi Park on Turkey’s iconic Taksim Square. The protesters maintained that the park was one of the few remaining green spaces in Istanbul. However, the Turkish government seemed to be unimpressed by these views and pushed ahead with the development. At the start the protestors numbered in just hundreds, but due to the brutal response of Turkish authorities, the numbers ballooned to hundreds of thousands and protests have spread to 67 town and cities including Ankara, Izmir and Konya. Well over 3000 protestors have been injured and so far 2 deaths have been confirmed. The viciousness of the crackdown on protestors has drawn condemnation from both AKP members and international governments. Even the Turkish president Abdullah Gul and Deputy Prime minister Bulant Arinc have spoken against the police brutality on peaceful protestors and urged the authorities to show restraint. But the most important person in this episode, Tayyip Erdogan has bluntly said,

“"I am not going to seek the permission of [the opposition] or a handful of plunderers”. He further said, "If they call someone who has served the people a 'dictator', I have nothing to say”.

It is becoming apparent that Erdogan is succumbing to the disease of self-righteousness and authoritarianism that has plagued the heads of countries emerging out of Arab Spring. For example, according to human rights groups, Morsi led government in Egypt is proving worse than Mubarak’s dictatorship with curbs on media, judiciary and attacks on protestors. It’s a phenomenon that occurs every time leaders are swept into power by a huge public mandate. They begin to think that only they know how to solve the country’s issues since the people have trusted them and thus they bypass all the checks and balances that are kept on the heads of states, turning increasingly paranoid and see enemies everywhere-in short they become dictators.

The protests that started from saving a park have now become a demonstration against Erdogan’s style of government. Turkish media has been silenced on the protests, but it has been the social media that has risen to the occasion. No doubt perturbed by the success of social media in sharing the brutality of government crackdown, Erdogan has condemned it- especially twitter- saying,

 “Now we have a menace that is called Twitter. The best example of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society.”

He also declared social media as a ‘danger to society’. Parallels with Arab dictatorships can be safely drawn.

These protests have cracked open the divisions in the Turkish society, on one side are the rising Muslim conservatives that helped Erdogan secure 50% mandate and on the other hand are the Kemalist secularists that are getting disconcerted with what they term are ‘Islamist’ views on alcohol consumption, morality, women rights, abortion and of course,  intolerance of critical views. Also, they fear that Erdogan will pass laws by the time of 2014 elections that enable more power to be vested in the President and might to try to become President.

Well, these protests have surely dented Erdogan’s bid to become a powerful president- if he tries to become one- and might also effect his election campaign in 2014. How much damage has Erdogan’s AKP sustained? It seems that 2014’s ballot will decide. In the meanwhile, just a humble advise to the Turkish PM: Please listen to your people.