I know a few Turks and a few Westerners in Turkey. Three years ago, I was prodding a couple Turks on political matters. One was sympathetic to the Kurdish cause, one was not, describing them as ‘terrorists.’ One drank alcohol, one did not. From my point of view, they both endorsed some type of secular humanism in the public sphere, one was more ardent about this relatively new value system, the other had sympathies with minority cultures. Both support the Taksim square demonstrations.I learned of the demonstrations from CNN and Haaretz on June 1. From what I could gather, it was a sit-in designed to prevent development of Gezi Park. Curiously, Haaretz reported that there were also demonstrations in Ankara at the same time. On June 2, more Western news outlets had reported on the existence of the protests, but the scope of the demonstrations seemed out of accord with the motivations Western media ascribed to the protesters. I knew that the Turkish leader had just returned from a meeting with the US president, that the protests appeared to be spreading, and that the media narrative being offered did not explain the situation fully. I reached out to some Turks.
They explained that this is the first time this many minority groups have united against Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian and decreasingly secular tenure as leader. While it began as a protest against the development of a park into a historical military barracks from the Ottoman era, an era that Erdogan and his supporters have been cultivating their identity with, it spread, as many Turks are frustrated with various features of Erdogan’s recent acts and his visions for the future of Turkey. Some disagree with recent beer ban efforts, others disagree with references to the founders of modern Turkey as drunks, some disagree with Erdogan’s designs on Syria, some with his close relationship with the last two US presidents, some with the move away from secular public values to increasingly religious values, et cetera. Within the next few days, some Western media sources began to flesh out the narrative accordingly.
Surprisingly though, the support among the progressive left in the US for the demonstrations was extremely limited. Perhaps this has to do with confusion related to Obama’s support for Erdogan. Perhaps they are confused because Erdogan is democratically elected. I suspect that this complacency flows mainly from a lack of knowledge about the region and the situation on the ground and indifference in general. Increasingly, the American political psyche is suffering from schizophrenia and short-term, irrational instrumentalism. Obama, for example, is likely curating his close relationship with Turkey in an effort to maintain support in the region in general, and for a variety of strategic reasons related to the ongoing support that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are providing to the insurgency in Syria.
Right wing news sources in the US portrayed the situation as limited to Istanbul, perpetrated by violent mobs, and motivated merely by the prospect of cutting down a few trees in the city center. The effort is to portray the protesters as young, irrational, and violent. Interestingly, these sources cannot stigmatize the movement as Islamist, as they were able in Bahrain and Yemen during the ‘Arab Spring’ demonstrations. They concentrate on whether Erdogan, described as a key US ally, can deal with these violent youths quickly.
Because of this variety, the seeds are being sown for alternate histories to emerge in the future that are inconsistent with one another. Many events are like this in the US where the main political factions disagree on values and facts and both have a significant media apparatus to aid in the formation of alternate narratives. Media outlets within Turkey have apologized for not covering the movement and this may or may not account for some of the delay and conflicting narrative in Western media.
If Erdogan is confident because of his democratic mandate, doesn’t a selective, ruling-party media cut against the claims of a genuine democratic mandate? Aren’t communication and information the infrastructure and fuel of democracy? Is a country like Turkey, with a variety of minority groups, often separated by geographic and religious cleavages, an ideal candidate for a majoritarian style democracy? I cannot help but think that, if Turkey had a power-sharing or consociational executive branch, compromises among the groups… which are increasingly important and being increasingly resisted by the AKP administration, would be forced. Erdogan would not be able to overpower a minority veto with any amount of rhetoric. This would be a slower moving, potentially more gridlocked style of democracy, but I feel that, in due time, a variety of coalitions would emerge, shifting depending on the issue. This variety of groups would learn to work productively together and quickly learn that amicable conduct will benefit each in the future when unforeseen issues arise and unforeseen coalitions are needed.
When political entrepreneurs over-emphasize historical identities, it worries me. Driving wedges between different domestic groups with memories of wrongs hundreds of years old is a cheap trick. Emotional memory is a very resilient sort of memory. I don’t think that a leader who serves all his citizens resorts to this type of hot-blooded rhetoric.
[ 0 yorum ]
Yorum Gönder