From our friend in Turkey (Mute) Last Tuesday, the police (under government orders) cleared Taksim Square. During the week, it looked like Tayyip Erdoǧan (the PM) could be looking for a way to back down from his indefensible project to rebuild an Ottoman barracks in Gezi Park, then last night the Park was suddenly cleared by the police with the now-usual quota of brute force (teargas, water cannon, rubber bullets), and with Erdoǧan adding 'traitors' to the long list of deaf insults he has called the protesters. All of which bodes ill for dialogue in Turkey, which seems to have gone from a being a country with a bandaged fracture between the supporters of the AKP (the Justice and Development Party, the party founded in 2001, principally by Erdoǧan, and the more moderate and conciliatory Abdullah Gül the president and Bülent Arınç the Vice PM) and much of the rest of the country, to being a country split down the middle.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2013/jun/13/steve-bell-recep-tayyip-erdogan-cartoon Steve Bell 14.6.2013 Of course in a way Turkey is 'an electoral democracy' (though a 10% threshold for entering parliament is not in the least democratic, it's designed to maintain the status quo, to prevent the development of new and minority parties, and in particular to limit the representation of the Kurdish minority), but this electoral democracy can also be viewed as an electoral dictatorship (or perhaps more accurately, an electoral autocracy) where half the country dominates the other half through the most intolerant and uncompromising (and I would say fundamentally anti-political) of prime ministers. Democracy is about a multiplicity of 'checks and balances', about continuous consultation with the citizens, about dialogue, about listening to and respecting minorities and minority views, about listening to the people who didn't vote for you, about a mass-media which is free to criticise and comment, about human rights, about the right to peaceful protest, about pluralism, about secularism (which obviously does not mean being against religious practice and organisation), about an economy free from monopolies, cronyism and corruption, about an independent legal system, about a professional civil service & military, about an effective parliamentary opposition, about allowing disagreements and debate within the governing (a better word than ruling) party, about the freedom to protest peacefully, and much else besides. None of these qualifications apply well in Turkey, and it seems that in the end either Erdoǧan will be pushed out in a backroom coup by the moderates in the AKP or he will bring the country to the verge of breakdown. Democracy also is part of a quite fundamental choice about being European. I think one of Atatürk's smartest moves was to push for Turkey to be an integral part of Europe (I'm a staunch believer in the wisdom of Turkey joining the EU). Being part of Europe (for me a political and cultural concept, not a geographical one) means being democratic in a European way (especially the good practice of those European democracies which are more profoundly democratic - say Germany or Finland - rather than more superficially - say Hungary or Italy). The other kind of democracy is a nominal one, a superficial, lip-serving one (like Putin's Russia), and it seems that that's the one which Erdoǧan wants, because it suits him (not the country) and it suits his desire for almost total power (even if well-intentioned - based on the hubristic belief that his way is the right way, that he knows best, that he's riding a wave of history, that he's setting right the wrongs of Kemalism), with only the minimum of nominal, restricted checks and balances. I think that the saddest aspect of contemporary Turkey is the ineptitude of the opposition - there are three opposition parties in parliament - the CHP (the Republican People's Party), the inheritors of Kemalism, nominally social-democratic, but in practice a rather corrupt, bigoted and fragmented mess of nostalgic nationalists, led by the sadly pathetic (but much better than his immediate predecessor Deniz Baykal) Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who's been quite positive about the Gezi Park protests while railing derangedly at the government for having the vision and courage to try to solve the Kurdish conflict; the MHP (the Nationalist Movement Party), who are Kemalist ultras about whom I can't find anything good to say - essentially they're neo-fascists; and the pro-Kurdish BDP (the Peace and Democracy Party), who are the only party I find possible to agree with on most of their policies except that they're still closely linked to the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers' Party, 'the Kurdish IRA') who are not in the slightest democratic. Their British equivalents are the Tories (AKP), the Labor Party (CHP), UKIP crossed with EDL (MHP), and the Greens and Liberals crossed with Sinn Féin (BDP), but none of these comparisons are satisfactory, especially because it doesn't seem that any of the Turkish parties have the same understanding of the democratic game (a game partly serving the interests of international capitalism and superpower world order, but still a lot more desirable than Turkey's version) as their British equivalents - nor do the Tories rely like the AKP on religion for their appeal (nor could they of course because religion in Britain is anyway nowadays more associated with liberalism than conservatism and nationalism). In general, the Turkish parties seem to be stuck in ideological ways of thinking which their British equivalents have partly abandoned for a more pragmatic way of imagining politics. And ideology is a father of force. But the miserable state of the opposition doesn't let Erdoǧan off the hook, and doesn't spare him or the country from the consequences of his intransigence. He understands very well how weak and divided the political opposition is, and he uses that weakness to perpetuate his and his government's position. The Gezi Park demonstrations have revealed a hidden democratic strength in Turkey, and, instead of being a source of pride and celebration, it unnerves him. His reaction is bluster and aggression. The consequences of which we have seen in the last two weeks, he could of and should of backed down, but, like an enraged lion with his back to the wall, he refuses to. At a certain point (I would rather say always but now's already a worst case not a best one) politicians have to let go of their egos and think what's best for the country, for the people as a whole, not what's best for themselves, not even what's best for their party (though moderation would be anyway much better for the AKP than polarisation). At a certain point (which should be always but usually is not) politics, certainly democratic politics, is about dropping the inflexibilities of ideology and the corruptions of self-interest, and all the other intoxications of power. It would be wonderful if Erdoǧan could find the intelligence and humility to do that now, but there's no sign that he will. postscripts an interesting piece from Open Democracy comparing Putin and Erdoǧan http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/igor-torbakov/europe’s-twin-sisters film of the clearing of Taksim last Tuesday which conveys what it's like to be teargassed http://webtv.radikal.com.tr/Turkiye/3850/bariscil-kalabaliga-orantisiz-gaz.aspx film of a protester at the beginning of the mass protests being shot with a teargas gun at close range by a policeman, the fallen man, Ethem Sarısülük, died in hospital 3 days ago brining the total number of deaths to 5 (4 protesters and 1 policeman) http://webtv.radikal.com.tr/Turkiye/3809/ethem-sarisuluk-sorusturmasinda-savcidan-polise-bilirkisi-vetosu.aspx -- ---> A living - breathing - thriving networked neighbourhood - proud of free culture - claiming it with others ;) Other reviews,articles,interviews http://www.furtherfield.org/reviews.php Furtherfield – online arts community, platforms for creating, viewing, discussing and learning about experimental practices at the intersections of art, technology and social change. http://www.furtherfield.org Furtherfield Gallery – Finsbury Park (London). http://www.furtherfield.org/gallery Netbehaviour - Networked Artists List Community. http://www.netbehaviour.org http://identi.ca/furtherfield http://twitter.com/furtherfield _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
