HOW THE WAR IN SYRIA HAS HELPED TO INSPIRE TURKEY’S PROTESTS
The anti-Erdogan protesters in Turkey have many grievances – but the
prime minister’s record of support for the Syrian rebels may turn
out to be the most explosive.
BY SOPHIA JONES | JUNE 11, 2013
ISTANBUL – The names of the dead are taped to Sycamore trees in
Istanbul’s Gezi Park: Fatma Erboz, age 3. Ahmet Uyar, 45.
These trees — threatened by government redevelopment plans that have
in turn inspired mass protests around Turkey — have been transformed
into memorials for the more than 50 people who died in twin car
bombings last month in Reyhanli, a Turkish town on the border of Syria.
On Tuesday morning, police attempted to drive protestors out of the
park with water cannons and tear gas — perhaps signaling an end to
the popular and mostly peaceful demonstrations that have spread across
Turkey over the past two weeks. But the issues that have fueled the
turmoil — from complaints over the Islamist government’s conservative
social policies to demands for greater democracy — are not likely to
dissipate so quickly. And that is particularly true of one issue that
has inflamed many protesters’ anger at Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan: The government’s stance on the war ravaging Syria,
which has now claimed over 80,000 lives.
The war in Syria is polarizing Turkey. According to a recent study
by MetroPOLL Strategic and Social Research Center, based in Ankara,
only 28 percent of the Turkish public supports the prime minister’s
policies on Syria. Since the start of the conflict, the government has
strongly condemned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. From early on,
Erdogan has vocally supported the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the rebel
group battling the regime, and has urged the United States to supply
them with weapons and to establish a no-fly zone.
Turkey is crucial for the rebels. It offers refuge for their families
as well as a safe zone where they can plan and launch attacks over
the border. Turkish businesses supply the rebels with everything
from medicine to uniforms to cigarettes. But many Turks have long
worried that this would make them subject to retaliation by the Syrian
government — a fear that, for many, was confirmed by the attacks
in Reyhanli. The leader of Turkey’s main opposition has repeatedly
confronted Erdogan over his pro-rebel policies, accusing the prime
minister of supporting Syrian “terrorists.”
Indeed, protests against the government’s Syria policy actually
predate the broader demonstrations of the past two weeks. Thousands
of enraged residents took to the streets in Reyhanli in the days
after the bombings, citing what they perceive as a growing lack of
security and a job market now favoring Syrian refugees willing to
work for less than Turks.
Among those demonstrating in the southern city of Antakya is Nil
Esen, an engineer who is struggling to find work. “Because of the
Syrian rebels, there is lots of bankruptcy,” he wrote in a private
Twitter message. “Antakya’s economy is very, very bad now.” Recent
polls show that 66 percent of Turks want their government to turn
away Syrian refugees. And around 52 percent of those polled oppose
the government’s policy of housing Syrians in refugee camps in Turkey.
There are currently hundreds of thousands of Syrians living in more
than a dozen refugee camps on Turkish soil. Reyhanli has experienced
a population increase of 50 percent since the war began, thanks to
a flood of FSA fighters, refugees, and humanitarian aid workers.
Even those who were once sympathetic to the refugees’ dilemma are
now finding the war in Syria to be quickly encroaching on their
own security and economic stability. “Turkey already had economic
problems,” said Huseyin Kikis, who works at a restaurant in Istanbul.
“And then the Syrian people started to come and try to find jobs. Now
you can see Syrian women begging on the street.”
Cross-border shelling and car bombs have become common fixtures
in both Turkish and Syrian life in the border region. As a result,
many Turks now feel that the war on the other side of the border is
coming too close for comfort.
The Turkish government blamed the Reyhanli bombings on the Syrian
secret police, declaring that the perpetrators would “sooner or later
pay the price.” Syria responded by pinning the blame on the rebels,
whom it decries as terrorists, and harshly criticized Ankara for
supporting them. Some opposition groups in Turkey have mirrored the
Damascus government’s response, labeling the attack as the work of
Jabhat al-Nusra, an al Qaeda-affiliated extremist rebel group fighting
in Syria.
A government-supported media blackout following the Reyhanli bombings
and a failure to provide a complete list of either the deceased or
of those who had been detained for carrying out the attacks has only
perpetuated widespread confusion and panic. The government’s eagerness
to discourage coverage of the bombings has led some Turks to see the
attacks as part of an official conspiracy, a ploy to elicit stronger
support for the rebels. (What the conspiracy theorists don’t explain,
of course, is why the bombings have had exactly the opposite effect.)
When Istanbul’s Gezi Park protests reached Antakya, a Turkish city near
the Syrian border, complaints among the protesters were overwhelmingly
focused on Syria. Many Syrians in the border region, in turn, have
responded to the recent protests with fear and anger. “In Antakya, we
try to hide ourselves and avoid going outside during the protests,”
said Razan Shalab al-Sham, a well-known Syrian activist who is now
based in Antakya. “Syrians who are with the revolution are against
the Turkish protests. Turkey treats Syrians better than Lebanon or
Jordan. We trust in Erdogan. We started a revolution to get freedom,
not to make trouble in Turkey.”
Not all opponents of Erdogan’s Syria policy are motivated by concerns
about economics or security. Some secular Turks are staunch supporters
of Assad, whom they see as a bulwark against Islamism. One female
protestor in Taksim (who asked to remain anonymous) told me that,
while she agrees with the government’s stance on admitting Syrian
refugees, her loyalties remain with Assad. “Our government supports
terrorists here, like the Syrian rebels.”
Such sentiments are especially widespread among Turkish Alawites
(Alevis), adherents of the same sect who are a crucial part of Assad’s
power base. With a population of around 10 million, Turkish Alawites
make up 15 percent of the population. (Some estimates put the number
as high as one-third.) One of their most prominent members is Kemal
Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the main opposition party, the Republican
People’s Party (CHP), who has long been one of the harshest critics of
the prime minister’s Syria policy. Though Kilicdaroglu denounces the
Syrian president as a “dictator,” he also allowed a delegation from his
party to pay an official visit to Assad in Damascus three months ago.
So far Syria has not been a driving factor behind the protests in
Turkey. But its significance is likely to grow as long as the civil
war across the border continues, potentially aggravating political,
economic, and religious problems within Turkey itself.
BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
SUBJECTS: POLITICS, TURKEY, DEMOCRACY, SYRIA, DEMOCRACY LAB
Sophia Jones is a freelance journalist based in Cairo. Follow her on
Twitter @sophia_mjones.
From: A. Papazian
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/11/how_the_war_in_syria_has_helped_to_inspire_turkeys_protests?page=full