Erdogan didn’t become the leader of all Turks…

Turkeyhas already gone through 21 days of mass protests, gas attacks, arrests of activists of Gezi Park movement, Edogan’s tough talk, and no less fierce opposition of the street. Why has prosperous and rapidly growing, until recently, Turkey burst out in protest? This is the question asked by so many these days…

Over the past 11 years of the rule of the moderate Islamist Party of Justice and Development the country hasn’t experienced such political upheavals, government crises, and coalition decay. It might seem that Turks had everything they needed and, according to many, should be happy. Recep Tayyip Erdogan eliminated corruption at the grassroots level exceptionally fast, the small business in the period between 2003 and 2008 did not just increase, but blasted off. GDP per capita has quadrupled, reaching 14,000 US dollars at PPP. What do Turks want? Who are those people protesting? Why do authorities react so violently? What do Gezi Park and several dozens of trees have to do with this?

The answer to this question can be understood, if you try to understand the soul of modern Turkey. The face of today’s protest – the students of universities in five to six major cities and people who advocate for voting against all at the elections. They are not responsible for the strict secular innovations and the “rules” of the 20th century – a ban on wearing of the hijab and the persecution of the clergy. They do not welcome the military take-over of power, they don’t shout abusive slogans “We do not want the first lady in a headscarf,” they do not urge the army to “fulfill their duty by hanging Islamists.” Erdogan hasn’t seen the advent of this generation of the future Turkey on the political arena.

The face of today’s protest is the generation of social networks, of free student exchange with the European countries, with laptops in public transport and headphones in their ears. That is, in the full sense of the word, the young generation of the 21st century. Erdogan, representing the past and the present of Turkey, has, in fact, faced the future Turkey – the type of country it intends to be and has all the potential to become soon, in some 10-20 years.

At first, the government tried to attribute the organization of the protests to the main opposition party – Republican People’s Party, the Kemalists. But when it became clear that the protesters did not allow on their stage even members of the RPP, “a song about revenge-seekers” was replaced with the external conspiracy. The government named all kinds of enemies of Erdogan’s stability policy, including “percentage” lobby and personally George Soros; Angela Merkel, because the third airport in Istanbul is like a stick in gizzard for her, since it takes away a piece of the air pie from Lufthansa, London because it opposes the construction of a third bridge over the Bosphorus and, therefore, allegedly, looses control over the Straits…

The fact is that each of these paranoid messages has some truth in it. Competition has not been canceled by anyone, as well as the non-competitive wrestling, but Erdogan has not yet realized, and rather hasn’t admitted, that the people were driven to the streets by his actions and decisions, because for the past six years the prime minister personally did everything to bring people out on the streets and cause protests that would reconcile the implacable enemies. Erodgan has done something that would otherwise be considered impossible: he united all people in one protest – never before did “gray wolves” stand next to Kurds, adherents of the “Besiktas” with Galatasaray and Fenerbahe fans, the LGBT community with Islamic anti-capitalists. Everyone has his own reason for participating in the protests, and all of them together have one in common.

The Kurds deserve special mention. The government of the “fair and advanced” managed to put an end to the terror by striking a deal on the eve of Nowruz with the prisoner of the Imrali island, Abdullah calan, who is serving a lifetime sentence for terrorist activity as a leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, has de facto been recognized as a party in the negotiations. But the Kurdish political elite do not intend to yield in political negotiations to the sultan in exchange for a mystical equality of the Kurds in the united Turkish family. The Kurds need fair elections – easing the draconic prohibitive barrier for parliamentary elections (10 percent in Turkey) and a realistic view of the future autonomy. And in general, the Kurds are not prepared to face the rising Caliph one on one.

In the field of religion, Erdogan started accumulating anger against his secularized opponents a long time ago. Back in 2004 his party for the first time explored the lie of the land by trying to make amendments to the criminal code by adding an article of marital unfaithfulness. At the time, the ruling party killed the bill – it was too diverse initially, uniting both conservatives and liberals. Erdogan merely launched an exploratory attack, but he continued to experiment moving “in the direction of Anatolian values in the mode of a warm bath.” Dozens of progressive decisions in the economic and social spheres were marred by occasional reactionary decisions in the field of religion. For a time being, society turned a blind eye to these in view of the obvious socioeconomic successes. But then there was an attempt to outlaw abortions and C-section; religious education was essentially incorporated in the system of secular schools; strict oversight was instituted over TV channels and the clothes of TV presenters were made subject to “soft” censorship. At time, it led to ridiculous cases such as when computer graphics was used to cover the naked areas of actresses wearing low-necked dresses in the movies produced in the 1970s and the 1980s. But Turkish society was able to tolerate this for moral reasons: secular oppositionists of the older generation had nothing to counter with because their feeling of guilt over oppressing the religious part of society was too strong…

The premier acted in a cunning and cool-blooded manner, always with a ready argument: we are doing things like in Europe. His opponents tried to show the much-debated law curbing the sale of alcohol in retail in the light of a new sign that the Sharia laws are advancing, but it turned out to be softer than similar Russian, Belgian, and Swedish laws.

Suddenly Taksim Gezi Park came to hand. The only green zone of the ancient bohemian district of Istanbul, Beyoglu, became an object of the prime minister’s personal desire. Erdogan announced that he would restore in this place the Ottoman Artillery Barracks which were demolished in the 1940s by local authorities. It was decided to combine the restoration of historical justice with the business project of a shopping mall construction. Neither environmentalists’ reasoning, nor lawsuits have been able to stop the prime minister. The leader’s stubbornness and removal of several tents of ecologists on May 27-28 became the spark that set fire to the “Istanbul grill.” Some disliked Erdogan’s attempt to act as elected municipal authorities, others – the loss of the park, whereas the rest got involved in the battle just to fight Erdogan.

May 31 marked the beginning of the Turkish revolution which took place in the minds of the Turks. According to Millyet journalist Can Dndar, “the power perpetrated a massacre.” Thousands of policemen fired tear gas and water cannons at the unarmed people. The night on June 1 can be called a great battle, which resulted in 4,000 wounded people, whereas tens of people were deafened and blinded, and later four young men at the least were killed in clashes.

The “sultan” escaped the country for four days to Maghreb countries, and his political-macho posturing had to be sorted out by crisis managers of the Islamists: President Gl and Vice Prime Minister Arin. Erdogan returned to the applause of his adherents whose number is naturally no smaller than the number of his opponents. However, he returned not as a sultan, but as an ordinary prime minister who failed to become the leader of all Turks. The following massacres and even removal of the tent city late on June 15 could not change anything. The Turks fear no more, and the arrests have only fueled the protests now joined by artistes, film directors, Turkish diaspora, et al. Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, world renowned star Tarkan, Venice Lion winner Fatih Akin, Italian maestro Ferzanzpetek, Eurovision winner Sertab Erener, and oligarch Hans Boner… Everyone who created the image of Turkey not only as an all-inclusive resort and manufacturer of good-quality textile, but also as an intellectual and creative country was ready to put on the mask of “apulcu” (riffraff).

According to the last version, the government lays all the blame for the events on Facebook and Twitter networks. The social networks have brought the people from cyber-space to real projects and squares. But unlike the Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, here the so-called “hamsters” turned out to be more resistant to gas and water. Four large, nearly military attacks in Gezi Park, tens of similar actions in Kizilay, Ankara, cruel actions suppressing peaceful protests in Antalya, Eski  ehir, and Hatay have failed to calm down the opponents of the prime minister. It turned out that the power of Turkey of the Future caught him unawares.

In recent days, in every new speech before his adherents Erdogan has been revealing the reasons of inadequate cruelty to the peaceful protests. The following are the words Erdogan said at the latest party meeting of June 18: “Out of all supporters of Gezi 76 percent voted for CHP (Kemalists), 16 percent – for the Kurd Party, 1.2 percent – for the ruling Party of Justice and Development, and 1.2 percent – for nationalists. These are machinations of the opposition.” Erdogan turned out to be impossible to accept doubts in his uniqueness. He has gotten accustomed to defeating any “anti-Erdogan” before the latter came to power. For decades Erdogan was prepared for this role in the milieu of political Islamists founded by late Necmettin Erbakan. All of a sudden there emerged an “anti-Erdogan,” but apparently it is impossible to come to agreement with him, intimidate him, set up a sex scandal like in the case with Deniz Baykal or seize the business and turn out of the country, like it happened to Cem Uzan.

Those who were “against all” in Turkish society have not been able to find their politicians in recent years. Now 15 percent of those who did not vote have realized that their political and intellectual snobbery may end if not in Iranian, then in a Malayan version of Turkey’s deformation. And now those who refused to vote previously will for sure go to elections. Apart from that, according to simply demographic data, the number of Kurds is rising, and even if Ankara does not concede on the issue of election threshold, it is a matter of time for Kurd party (or parties) to overcome the 10-percent threshold. Considering this data in the overall electorate background and taking into account that 50 percent of the country’s populace, according to the data of H      rriyet portal, support the protests, already at the next elections, even disregarding the rise in political activity of those who did not vote before, Erdogan will lose 8 percent of votes. This is a small loss. Based on the voting results of 2001, when the AKP gained 49 percent, even a 41-percent result will secure the first place, but now it will be insufficient for one-party government, moreover, it will be too small a number for amending the Constitution via a referendum, moving to the presidential form of government, and meeting the Republic’s centennial in Ataturk’s chair.

By Osman PASHAYEV, staff correspondent for ATR TV channel in Istanbul, special to The Day