By Federico Schiavio.
Barely accustomed to southern Mediterranean countries entering crises one after another, we are now dumbfounded to see Turkey in the throes of political fever while the Syrian crisis is still ongoing. Who is behind it?
Everyone and no one, will the protesters win? No, but they have triggered a process of marginalization of the most hypocritical Islamic theses comprised of small ritualistic revenges, restrictions on drinking, and female submission passed off as virtue. Now that the Turks have learned to rebel, nothing will be as before.
His past constituents have just politically disavowed Erdogan, their former mayor. He harshly punished the Turkish military class (custodians of the secular nature of the Constitution) by trying 400 senior officers accusing them of a coup of whose nonexistence he was himself living proof. He then believed he could remain the undisputed political leader and began to preoccupy himself more with Islamic extremists that might threaten his existence than with a civil society backlash.
He believed that several small captivating pseudo religious modifications such as restricting alcohol service (borrowed from the West), pictures of his wife wrapped up like a mummy, and some bowing and scraping at the mosque, was enough to please his rural Muslim electorate.
With too much complacency and the idea that no one could dethrone him, Erdogan has instead managed to build a coalition against him, for the moment only in the squares, made up of the thousand streams of discontent that stir the Anatolian river.
A hundred young ecologists began to protest the construction of a shopping center in Taksim, the heart of the city, the taxi terminus, the beginning of Cumhurryet Caddesi, which is the main commercial artery of the Golden Horn.
The place was well chosen and the news spread quickly drawing the opposition party, young men looking for the opportunity to prove their manhood, Kemalists without Kemal, and the numerous women yet not coerced by sexist measures, but fearing that possibility and ready to fight. Remember, Turkey before becoming an Islamic country was the land of the Amazons.
As history would have it, Kemal Ataturk was able to modernize Islam. He succeeded thanks to the fact that he was a Turk, a Muslim, a victorious military leader, and Ghazi (title given to those who are wounded in Jihad). He changed the alphabet from Arabic to Latin, abolished religious clothing of every denomination, banned calls to prayer in public, and praying in the street, ordered the summary execution of Mullah’s in charge of areas where suicides occurred in protest, and gave public authorization to the Armed Forces to take power whenever a rise of clericalism reared its ugly head.
The army has abused this constitutional privilege three times:
for an anticommunist cleanup, and in
The arrival of Erdogan has upset this social balance and kick started the clerical resurgence timidly hinted at by Menderes. The Premier has strengthened this position with donations and aid (including free washing machines and refrigerators) to rural areas, which gave him a feeling of invincibility.
With these demonstrations, the societal block of the electoral minority, initially intimidated by the halo of morality that accompanies the monotheistic religious majorities (all patriarchal) abandoned its hesitations, and took advantage of the ecological excuse to take action at a time of lukewarm relations between the U.S. and Turkey because of the latter’s hesitation to clash with Syria. Their weakness is that they do not have a leader and they are divided. They are missing an Ataturk.
The protesters are students whose secular universities have postponed exams, Islamist elements unhappy with the conduct of their personalistic Premier accused of instrumentalizing religion for electoral purposes. Fringe Islamists like the Alevis that the Premier has offended with an insulting historical reference (naming a future bridge over the Bosphorus after Sultan Selim I
who decimated them). Environmentalists supported by communist fringes defeated in the 90s, entrepreneurs tired of the network of sweetheart deals and corruption that favors party members, nationalists eager to avenge the maxi trial of the Armed Forces. The Gulen movement of moderate Islamists, the PKK Kurds dissatisfied with the peace negotiations, the pro Syrian Kurds, the Iranian Kurds, humiliated journalists, proponents of entry into the EU, etc.
Erdogan had a textbook reaction, while a mob infiltrated the ranks of the protesters burning shops and cars and scaring the middle class, he was received with great pomp and fanfare on an official visit to Tunisia. Leaving his deputy to make an appeal for calm, recognize the well-founded initial protest, condemning the violence, and cancelling the Taksim project, thus laying the groundwork for a triumphant return.
Frazzled by the dissent in his homeland, will Erdogan try to gain space by uniting the country on the theme of Democracy in Syria with a humanitarian intervention? I doubt it. He has over a thousand kilometers of land and sea borders with Iran and Russia, two potentates not to be underestimated.
For now, Erdogan is leaning toward nationalism, a dangerous option that could breathe new life into the military.
Three:
in Izmir (NATO headquarters) accused of plotting to plant a bomb and eleven foreigners
in Istanbul – including four Americans, two Britons, two French, a German, a Greek, and an Indian, accused of taking part in the riots as troublemakers. As I write, more
are being made.
Afterwards, six trade unions and employers’ associations issued a joint statement condemning the violence and confirming that the riots are detrimental for business. With the summer, tourists arrive. In September, we will pick up where we left off.
