Since I see that some friends have got excited about the recent events in Turkey I decided to write something about it and provide some context. I think it is good to know a bit of history of Turkey before AKP to understand what is going on there. It has been more than 10 years that AKP is in power so people might not know or may have forgotten the situation before AKP.
Turkey was ruled by ultra-nationalist ultra-secular militarist groups for decades. The military overthrow several elected governments and jailed politicians. Torture, extra-judicial killings, suppression, and corruption were widespread. The laws that people often object to are from that area and the constitution written by Turkish military, including insulting Turkishness being a crime. These groups who are sometimes referred to as Kemalists had the control of military, judicatory, academia, media, etc. Yet, they couldn't tolerate even the government being in the hands of people they didn't like. The large majority of Turks who are practicing Muslims were excluded. It was illegal to wear a head-scarf in universities and government departments in a country where over 70% of women wears head-scarf. Essentially these women were banned from attending university. Public officials and even university professors would be thrown out and even jailed if they showed any sign of nonsecular tendency. Writers and intellects were jailed for expressing opinions against Kemalist ideology. Erdogan, the current prime minister was jailed and banned from politics for 10 years for reading an old poem while he was the mayor of Istanbul. The existence of Kurds who are around 20 percent of Turkey's population were completely denied (not a joke)! Speaking or reading in Kurdish was banned and the popular Turkish singer Ahmad Kaya was forced to exile for saying that he will record an album in Kurdish. Popular political parties were closed regularly even when they won elections decisively. The news of corruption in police and politics was a regular daily routine as was the news of human rights violations.
In the years before AKP there were several short-lived governments by parties both on the left and on the right. Inflation was very high (hyperinflation), unemployment was high, governments were unstable. The value of Turkish lira dropped to a third in one night. Nightly interest rates tripled to completely ridiculous amount of 139%. You can look at Greece these days to have an idea of Turkey of that time. Turkish foreign policy was essentially dictated by the US government. There was a very harsh IMF imposed economic program so Turkey could pay its debts and a technocrat from world bank was imposed as the economy minister on the Turkish government to make sure they will implement what IMF wanted. The government and the country were in such a bad shape that it is almost unimaginable today after 12 years of AKP.
AKP was formed at that time. Erdogan was still under the ban from politics as well as many prominent politicians from his previous party. But some other politicians from the party were not under the ban. They created a new party: AKP (Justice and Development Party). Its members were moderate and pragmatist politicians from the banned party plus several other pragmatist and moderates from other right of the center parties. The current Turkish President Gul became the head of the party though Erdogan was significantly involved behind the senses. The party won a landslide election and has been continuously doing so for over a decade, increasing its share of votes in every election. You have to know that the length of Turkish governments before AKP to get a feeling of its significance: a few months!
Over a decade AKP has modernized Turkey, removed many of the laws that EU objected to, fought corruption in police and politics, improved the economy to its current amazing state, forced military out of politics, ... Until Syrian crises it had perfect relations with its neighbors. It followed what I would consider an awesome independent foreign policy. It is trying to find a political solution to the Kurdish "problem" and the right of Kurds have improved significantly under AKP. The list of AKP's achievements can go on.
So what is the problem? The problem is that the support base of AKP is not the western oriented seculars, it is the conservative majority who didn't have a voice in politics for decades (the silent majority) as the Kemalist and what Turks call "Deep Government" didn't allow the political parties supported by them. In all elections AKP has lost in the touristic Mediterranean coastal cities and European parts. You can find the map of the last general election results here:
Yellow is AKP, red is CHP, and light green is MHP. The south eastern parts are Kurdish areas where independent Kurdish politicians won.
The protests that you see these days are by this secular minority who has been voting for CHP (around 25%, significant, but still a minority).
Now, what are these alternative parties?
MHP is an ultra-nationalist racist conservative far-right party. Look up Wikipedia if you want to know more about them.
CHP is the party of the founder of the Turkey, ruled Turkey for decades in a one-party system, is a Kemalist party. It had strong relations with Turkish military, right now it is essentially the party supported by the elite who ruled Turkey before AKP and their supporters. The elite tried to topple AKP government undemocratically. Try to see if they objected to continuous serious violations of human rights before AKP.
Obviously I don't agree with everything that AKP and Erdogan do. However, AKP (and Erdogan) is definitely the best thing that has happened to Turkey over many decades, and Turks know it. That is the reason AKP keeps increasing its share of vote in elections. They are creating a strong developed democratic lawful independent Turkey. When you hear about protests in Turkey against AKP and Erdogan being authoritarian it is good to remember this context.
One final thing: AKP is often criticized for ignoring secular Turkish citizens who have not voted for AKP. Watch Erdogan's victory speech after winning the last election in which AKP further increased its share of votes. His attitude was completely humble and reconciliatory.
The problem, in my humble opinion, is not Erdogan and AKP being arrogant and authoritarian, but rather the secular minority demanding more than their fair share. I mean they objected to the removal of the ban on head-scarves for students attending university and consider it Islamization of Turkey (a country where over 70% of women wears head-scarf).
You are insulting the intelligence of the HN crowd. Your user account created 5 hours ago. Are we supposed to believe that this post was written by "a friend on Facebook?"
>>However, AKP (and Erdogan) is definitely the best thing that has happened to Turkey over many decades, and Turks know it.
Wrong. Although Erdogan and his goons in the Turkish media do their best to give this impression. Turkey was not a perfect country before. But it was actually secular. And that makes it objectively better than what it is today. Forget about the surface-level improvements Erdogan made. He may be wearing sheep's clothes, but deep down inside he's a wolf who wants Turkey to become another Iran.
Where does the 70% came from? Do you have a source for this?
It would be better to check how many "scarf-wearers" are going to universities, this percentage would be meaningful.
My opinion is that universities should be religion-free as science doesn't play well with religion.
I think that the problem might be that the (nonsecular) east wants to rule the (secular) west and viceversa.
"religion-free" is a highly ambiguous term. Can you clarify?
I think that a person has a right to wear whatever clothing they feel appropriate, assuming they aren't committing indecent exposure and they don't have giant spikes protruding from their clothing that could endanger others.
Can you clarify what individual rights you think exist on university campuses, and how these interact with your goal of keeping universities "religion-free"?
Does percentages matter? Lets assume it is 7%.. You can't imagine how many young girls burned by this...
I agree universities should be "Religion free" there are two ways of achieving that, you don't care about religion, you allow all people form all religions fair and square, or second option, you ban people with "certain" religious beliefs from schools. Guess which one got applied in Turkey.
Entering universities while wearing head-scarves was forbidden. You couldn't physically enter them wearing a head-scarf until very recently.
Is it the eastern part trying to impose its will on the western part or is it the eastern part trying to remove what western part imposed on them over decades?
Here are what I see people are claiming to be signs of AKP Islamizing Turkey: allowing women with headscarves attend universities, forbidding shops sell alcohol in late night hours (after 10PM).
In Ontario only government owned LCBO can sell liquor and its shops close at 6PM. The consumption of liquor in public places is forbidden completely in Canada. Surely Canada is not an Islamic state. Are we sure Turkey is a Muslim majority country?
Excuse my ignorance in the following, I am trying to understand the situation based on very little prior knowledge:
What you say makes a lot of sense, but can you comment on how this generally "good" government seems to be using excessive force, and the claimed media blackout on the protests?
I understand that the government may be more respectful of democracy than their opponents, but is it possible that the protesters still want more freedom and democracy, rather than supporting the Kemalist ideology?
Don't believe him. It is basically full of lies, albeit written with a very good English.
AKP basically used EU as a cover to weaken other significant forces like legal bodies, media, military. Now, they are in phase 2, using their power to crush all others who do not live like them. For example, until late yesterday, there were no major TV channels airing the news. We communicated via Twitter, and the only live broadcasting TV was from Norway!
With the weaking of all opposing forces, there is no significant power left against them, or at least, that was what they thought.
The recent ban on alcoholic drugs, Erdogan's constant mention of the Ottomans as his ancestors, his constant stress during his speeches that he dreams of a religious and obedient youth is what we are opposing.
The notion of democracy Erdogan has is very primitive. In his speeches, basically he sees the voting which takes place every 4 years as the only democratic right a person can have.
It is true that in the past, the Turkish state oppressed some religious groups or major minorities like the Kurdish; but the attitude this government and its proponents have is basically contained with revenge. Just to give a final example, the Major of Ankara, a significant figure from AKP, just yesterday tweeted the following:
"You should thank God that we believe in democracy, otherwise we would drown you in a spoonful of water."
The propaganda this government makes is, quite literally reminiscent of 1984. How they re-define words, how they contradict with themselves at each sentence is stunning. They usually say they are the forerunners of "advanced democracy", when they cannot envision a life form other than their own. Of course, every such speech of them ends with the following lie: we respect everyone's lives, everyone can live as they please. It is like the old Ford saying, everyone can lead the life they like in Turkey, as long as it is approved by AKP.
It seems that some of what you are saying is not that different to the claims I was replying to, but with a different interpretation.
E.g. you consider weakening the power of legal bodies, the media and the military to be bad, but from their point of view, these bodies were supporting an undemocratic power structure that favored the pro-secular minority.
On alcohol, there is not a blanket ban, but fairly strict restrictions (in particular limiting sales of alcohol from 6am to 10pm). And lifting the ban on head-scarfs seems like the lifting of excessive restrictions, not the imposition of Islamic ideas.
As to Erdogan's general ideas on the nature of democracy, can you be more specific?
We are not against lifting of the head-scarfs. His proponents try to paint us, the protestors, as traces of that tradition so that they can still play the part of the wounded. As to his Islamist plans, he is quite open about them. He basically emphasizes in his every speech that their aim is to bring the pious youth of the Ottoman empire.
The legal bodies and free media are fundamental for any democracy. As I said before, AKP gov't used EU-restrictions to crush legal bodies and military, but then after they reached their goals turned their back on the EU since the main goal was different. As to the freedom of media, I think we can agree that it is vital for any democracy and just the fact that these events are not being televised are proof how powerless they are. There are journalists working in the media, who have to share international links since their own TVs cannot show the events.
About his antidemocratic ideals, just from his talks today:
- (when talking about his decision to build a mosque in Taksim) We will build it, whether you like it or not. Decision is made. I will not ask these looters (referring to the hundreds of thousands of protestors) whether to build it or not.
- Twitter is a menace. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article37807...
- You gathered 20,000 people. It is not an issue for me to gather 200,000 people. If you gather 100,000 people, it will not be an issue for me to gather 1,000,000 people.
- (Referring to advertisers who have decided to cut their ads from TVs who are not showing the events) I have started an investigation about which companies these are.
His thought on democracy can be summed up as thus: The elections take place. The party who wins the majority can do whatever it pleases until the next elections, since that vote has given them that right. There is no need to reach consensus on any affair. The parliament in Turkey is basically powerless, since they hold the majority and can pass any law they want. He sees democracy as a winner takes all game, that only takes place every 4 years, not as a daily part of life.
Democracy is not a system where the majority can do whatever it wants. It is only a democracy if it can protect and respect the rights of every voter.
Which part is false? What fact are you objecting in his post? I think what he has written is easily verifiable so there is no need to trust him or me. As far as I have checked they are accurate.
As I understand, you have been protesting freely with the support from military, judiciary (it looks that recently Kemalist supreme court tried to close AKP while it had a majority in Turkish parliament and had just won another democratic election), and media for years and you still haven't been able to even stop the increase of AKP's popularity. Is that true? Is his claim that you are minority false?
We are not minority! (It does not matter that we are the minority or not though, a true democracy has to respect the life of all minorities.) In the last election, his party gained 50% of the votes, not 80% or 90%. Unfortunately, our election system is flawed so that they can get the majority in the parliament to pass any vote they want. As an example of the flaw in the system, votes of parties who get votes below 10% do not get counted (which effected Kurdish minority).
Now, let me refute part by part:
> Turkey was ruled by ultra-nationalist ultra-secular militarist groups for decades.
> You have to know that the length of Turkish governments before AKP to get a feeling of its significance: a few months!
These are patently false. Yes, there were coups but after each coup, right wing ancestors of AKP were in power "majority" of time. If you look at elections, in Turkey, in almost elections, right wing got around 60-70% of votes. The only left wing politician who was in power was Inonu and Ecevit, the former being a figure from the Independence War, the latter a politician who was embraced by people left and right for his honest, non-corrupt personality.
1950-60 Adnan Menderes, The Democratic Party: Pro-American, Islam-leaning right wing party.
1965-71 Suleyman Demirel: Justice Party. Right wing party who declared itself as the successor of The Democratic Party.
1975-77: Suleyman Demirel: One more time.
1979-80: Suleyman Demirel: One more time!
1983-89: Turgut Ozal: ANAP. Right wing, pro-capitalist party.
1989-91: Mesut Ozal: Took place of Turgut Ozal, who became the President.
1991-93: Suleyman Demirel. One more time
1993-96: Tansu Ciller: Took place of Suleyman Demirel, who became the President.
1996: Mesut Yilmaz
1996-1997: Necmettin Erbakan. Pro-Islamist, anti-capitalist, right wing party. Current PM Erdogan was the mayor of Istanbul from his party.
2002-2003: Abdullah Gul. Current President, who was then head of AKP since Erdogan was in jail.
> Watch Erdogan's victory speech after winning the last election in which AKP further increased its share of votes. His attitude was completely humble and reconciliatory.
That speech never materialized, as can be exemplified by the use of tear gas against protestors today.
> The problem is that the support base of AKP is not the western oriented seculars, it is the conservative majority who didn't have a voice in politics for decades
Not true, as you can see, what Erdogan calls as his ancestors, Menderes, Ozal and Erbakan were in power. What happened is middle-right wing evaporated, and AKP got their votes since they were proposing a capitalist agenda as well. In other words, right wing was majority in Turkey all the time, but the votes were distributed among several parties. When the economic situation became so bad in 2002, the public protested these parties, and voted for the only prominent new right-wing party at the time. The economic success came due to two reasons: 1- The "technocrat", Kemal Dervis who was brought in the late times of the former gov't made sound economic policies, which the new gov't applied. 2-They sold most of the state owned assets and gained money. See for example Turkish Telekom, the only PSTN providers, who also operated majority of the internet in Turkey. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Telekom
AKP then used its position as the leading party to strengthen its position in the next elections.
> Rather the secular minority demanding more than their fair share.
Fair share? As in, right to live according to their wishes, and not that of AKP?
> I mean they objected to the removal of the ban on head-scarves for students attending university and consider it Islamization of Turkey (a country where over 70% of women wears head-scarf).
Not true. This is lumping all secular people into one big pot. Yes, there were people who objected this, but the fundamental promise of secularity is to form rules so that each person can live his religion freely, that no religion is higher against the rule.
You don't need to list them all, but giving one or two examples of Erdogan's anti-democratic behavior would be nice. Right now it seems as you are calling for a popular democratically elected government to resign because you simply don't like its policies and you haven't been able to stop AKP from winning democratic elections for over a decade. You seem to be trying to do exactly what the Kemalist military was doing before it was forced out of politics.
As far as I have checked major Turkish media outlets, they are reporting the situation and there is no media black out as claimed in the post you have linked to. I find such claims quite dishonest. You should know that making such easily refutable claims will cast doubt on your whole position, you should be more careful about your claims.
Since I see that some friends have got excited about the recent events in Turkey I decided to write something about it and provide some context. I think it is good to know a bit of history of Turkey before AKP to understand what is going on there. It has been more than 10 years that AKP is in power so people might not know or may have forgotten the situation before AKP.
Turkey was ruled by ultra-nationalist ultra-secular militarist groups for decades. The military overthrow several elected governments and jailed politicians. Torture, extra-judicial killings, suppression, and corruption were widespread. The laws that people often object to are from that area and the constitution written by Turkish military, including insulting Turkishness being a crime. These groups who are sometimes referred to as Kemalists had the control of military, judicatory, academia, media, etc. Yet, they couldn't tolerate even the government being in the hands of people they didn't like. The large majority of Turks who are practicing Muslims were excluded. It was illegal to wear a head-scarf in universities and government departments in a country where over 70% of women wears head-scarf. Essentially these women were banned from attending university. Public officials and even university professors would be thrown out and even jailed if they showed any sign of nonsecular tendency. Writers and intellects were jailed for expressing opinions against Kemalist ideology. Erdogan, the current prime minister was jailed and banned from politics for 10 years for reading an old poem while he was the mayor of Istanbul. The existence of Kurds who are around 20 percent of Turkey's population were completely denied (not a joke)! Speaking or reading in Kurdish was banned and the popular Turkish singer Ahmad Kaya was forced to exile for saying that he will record an album in Kurdish. Popular political parties were closed regularly even when they won elections decisively. The news of corruption in police and politics was a regular daily routine as was the news of human rights violations.
In the years before AKP there were several short-lived governments by parties both on the left and on the right. Inflation was very high (hyperinflation), unemployment was high, governments were unstable. The value of Turkish lira dropped to a third in one night. Nightly interest rates tripled to completely ridiculous amount of 139%. You can look at Greece these days to have an idea of Turkey of that time. Turkish foreign policy was essentially dictated by the US government. There was a very harsh IMF imposed economic program so Turkey could pay its debts and a technocrat from world bank was imposed as the economy minister on the Turkish government to make sure they will implement what IMF wanted. The government and the country were in such a bad shape that it is almost unimaginable today after 12 years of AKP.
AKP was formed at that time. Erdogan was still under the ban from politics as well as many prominent politicians from his previous party. But some other politicians from the party were not under the ban. They created a new party: AKP (Justice and Development Party). Its members were moderate and pragmatist politicians from the banned party plus several other pragmatist and moderates from other right of the center parties. The current Turkish President Gul became the head of the party though Erdogan was significantly involved behind the senses. The party won a landslide election and has been continuously doing so for over a decade, increasing its share of votes in every election. You have to know that the length of Turkish governments before AKP to get a feeling of its significance: a few months!
Over a decade AKP has modernized Turkey, removed many of the laws that EU objected to, fought corruption in police and politics, improved the economy to its current amazing state, forced military out of politics, ... Until Syrian crises it had perfect relations with its neighbors. It followed what I would consider an awesome independent foreign policy. It is trying to find a political solution to the Kurdish "problem" and the right of Kurds have improved significantly under AKP. The list of AKP's achievements can go on.
So what is the problem? The problem is that the support base of AKP is not the western oriented seculars, it is the conservative majority who didn't have a voice in politics for decades (the silent majority) as the Kemalist and what Turks call "Deep Government" didn't allow the political parties supported by them. In all elections AKP has lost in the touristic Mediterranean coastal cities and European parts. You can find the map of the last general election results here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_general_election,_2011
Yellow is AKP, red is CHP, and light green is MHP. The south eastern parts are Kurdish areas where independent Kurdish politicians won.
The protests that you see these days are by this secular minority who has been voting for CHP (around 25%, significant, but still a minority).
Now, what are these alternative parties?
MHP is an ultra-nationalist racist conservative far-right party. Look up Wikipedia if you want to know more about them.
CHP is the party of the founder of the Turkey, ruled Turkey for decades in a one-party system, is a Kemalist party. It had strong relations with Turkish military, right now it is essentially the party supported by the elite who ruled Turkey before AKP and their supporters. The elite tried to topple AKP government undemocratically. Try to see if they objected to continuous serious violations of human rights before AKP.
Obviously I don't agree with everything that AKP and Erdogan do. However, AKP (and Erdogan) is definitely the best thing that has happened to Turkey over many decades, and Turks know it. That is the reason AKP keeps increasing its share of vote in elections. They are creating a strong developed democratic lawful independent Turkey. When you hear about protests in Turkey against AKP and Erdogan being authoritarian it is good to remember this context.
One final thing: AKP is often criticized for ignoring secular Turkish citizens who have not voted for AKP. Watch Erdogan's victory speech after winning the last election in which AKP further increased its share of votes. His attitude was completely humble and reconciliatory.
The problem, in my humble opinion, is not Erdogan and AKP being arrogant and authoritarian, but rather the secular minority demanding more than their fair share. I mean they objected to the removal of the ban on head-scarves for students attending university and consider it Islamization of Turkey (a country where over 70% of women wears head-scarf).