Turkey erupts
The new young Turks
Protests against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his ham-fisted response,
have shaken his rule and his country
Jun 8th 2013 | ISTANBUL |From the print edition
IT BEGAN with a grove of sycamores. For months environmentalists had
been protesting against a government-backed plan to chop the trees
down to make room for a shopping and residential complex in Istanbul’s
Taksim Square. They organised a peaceful sit-in with tents, singing
and dancing. On May 31st riot police staged a pre-dawn raid, dousing
the protesters with jets of water and tear gas and setting fire to
their encampment. Images of the brutality – showing some protesters
bloodied, others blinded by plastic bullets – spread like wildfire
across social media.
Within hours thousands of outraged citizens were streaming towards
Taksim. Police with armoured personnel carriers and water cannon
retaliated with even more brutish force. Blasts of pepper spray sent
people reeling and gasping for air. Hundreds were arrested and scores
injured in the clashes that ensued. Copycat demonstrations soon
erupted in Ankara and elsewhere. By June 3rd most of Turkey’s 81
provinces had seen protests. A `tree revolution’ had begun.
In fact these protests are not just about trees. Nor is Turkey really
on the brink of a revolution. The convulsions are rather an outpouring
of the long-stifled resentment felt by those – nearly half of the
electorate – who did not vote for the moderately Islamist Justice and
Development (AK) party in the election of June 2011 that swept Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s combative prime minister, to a third term.
The most popular slogan on the streets was `Tayyip Resign’. Millions
of housewives joined in, clanging their pans in solidarity and belying
government claims that the protests had been pre-planned rather than
spontaneous.
Rainbow nation
It took 24 hours for Mr Erdogan to respond – whereupon he called the
protesters `louts’ who were acting under orders from `foreign powers’.
The wave of unrest evidently caught his government off guard. `The
limits of its power have now been drawn,’ said Kadri Gursel, a
columnist for the daily Milliyet. By June 5th at least three people
had died and thousands of others had been hurt; students referred to
their bruises as `Erdogan’s kiss’. The Istanbul Stock Exchange fell by
as much as 12% on June 3rd, before recovering slightly the next day.
Barack Obama’s administration expressed `serious concerns’.
Who are the protesters who have created the biggest political crisis
in a decade of Mr Erdogan’s rule? Many are critics of Turkey’s huge
urban-development projects, favoured by a government that wants to pep
up the slowing economy with infrastructure spending. The schemes
include a third bridge over the Bosporus that will entail felling
thousands of trees (and was to have been named after an Ottoman sultan
who slaughtered thousands of Alevis); a huge new airport for Istanbul;
and a canal joining the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara.
Environmentalists are appalled.
But, contrary to Mr Erdogan’s efforts to portray the protesters as
thugs and extremists, they cut across ideological, religious and class
lines. Many are strikingly young; but there are plenty of older Turks,
many secular-minded, some overtly pious. There are gays, Armenians,
anarchists and atheists. There are also members of Turkey’s
long-ostracised Alevi minority, who practise a liberal form of Islam
and complain of state discrimination in favour of the Sunni majority.
Each group added its grievances to the litany of complaints.
What unites them is a belief that Mr Erdogan is increasingly
autocratic, and blindly determined to impose his views and social
conservatism on the country. The secularists point to a raft of
restrictions on the sale of alcohol, liberals to the number of
journalists in jail, more than in any other country. Thousands of
activists of varying stripes (mainly Kurds), convicted under Turkey’s
vaguely worded anti-terror laws, are also behind bars. `This is not
about secularists versus Islamists, it’s about pluralism versus
authoritarianism,’ commented one foreign diplomat.
Mr Erdogan’s peevish reaction to the tumult vindicated his critics. He
accepted that the use of tear gas had been overdone, and told police
to withdraw from Taksim Square. This let thousands gather peacefully a
day later. But as the protests gained momentum across the country he
poured oil on the flames. The national spy agency would be
investigating the mischief, he vowed. He lashed out at social media,
especially Twitter. These, he said, were `the greatest scourge to
befall society’ (in the city of Izmir, on the Mediterranean coast, 29
people have been arrested on the grounds that their tweets incited
violence).
The Taksim project would go ahead, Mr Erdogan insisted. He made only a
small concession, saying it might house a museum not a shopping
arcade; scenting the mood, many retailers are anyway pulling out of
the plan.
As for claims that new restrictions on alcohol constituted an
infringement of freedom, he dismissed them as nonsense. The measures
were for the public good. Besides, `anyone who drinks is an
alcoholic’, he said, `save those who vote for AK.’ In reply, someone
tweeted that if drinking alcohol makes you an alcoholic, then being in
power makes you a dictator. To many, Mr Erdogan sounded like the
Turkish generals who used to meddle because they knew what was best
for the people.
Divide and rule
That wasn’t all. When the main opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu
of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), called on Mr Erdogan to
resign, he threatened to unleash `a million of my people’ against CHP
supporters. He was `suppressing them with the greatest of difficulty’.
His departure on June 3rd, on an official visit to north Africa, left
some AK party officials sighing with relief. In his absence Bulent
Arinc, the deputy prime minister, acknowledged on June 4th that the
police had used `excessive force’. `I apologise to the environmentally
conscious people who were subjected to violence,’ he added, the first
hint of regret from the government (but which appeared not to extend
to protesters with other motives). Abdullah Gul, the president, had
already declared that, in a democracy, every citizen’s view deserved
respect.
Mr Erdogan’s response was a perfect example of the polarising manner
in which he has governed in recent years. Buoyed by three successive
election victories, in 2002, 2007 and 2011 – his AK party taking a
rising share of the vote – Mr Erdogan has elbowed all rivals aside. He
has also managed to neutralise most potential checks on his power,
including the army, the judiciary and the media, which he has
intimidated into self-censorship.
Erdogan’s image: as frayed as his temper
Hints of his intolerance came during his first term, when he tried to
criminalise adultery. Faced with a popular outcry (and rebukes from
the European Union), he was forced to back down. But during most of
his early years, he inspired hope. Sticking to the IMF prescriptions
that he inherited, he rescued the economy from the meltdown it
suffered in 2001. In the past ten years GDP per person has tripled,
exports have increased nearly tenfold and foreign direct investment
has leapt. Turkey is now the world’s 17th biggest economy.
Turkey’s robust banks are the envy of their beleaguered Western peers.
Although income inequality is worryingly wide, wealth that was once
concentrated in the hands of the Istanbul-based elite has spread to
the Anatolian hinterland, leading to the rise of a new class of pious
and innovative entrepreneurs who are powering growth. Hundreds of new
hospitals, roads and schools have dramatically improved the lives of
the poor.
The OECD, a rich-country think-tank, and the IMF, say Turkey needs
more labour-market and other reforms, not least to boost the
employment rate among women. Secular Turks might argue that what the
country needs is more opera houses and public sculpture. But the
majority have never had it so good. This rising prosperity helped to
give Mr Erdogan’s government broad nationwide approval.
In his first term Mr Erdogan also embarked on sweeping domestic
reforms that, in 2005, persuaded the EU to open membership talks with
Turkey. He began by neutering the country’s traditionally meddlesome
generals. Their influence over institutions such as the judiciary and
the National Security Council, through which they barked their orders,
has ended. Meanwhile hundreds of alleged coup-plotters caught up in
the so-called Ergenekon and Sledgehammer cases – including many generals
and a former chief of the general staff – are in jail, awaiting trial.
All this means that Mr Erdogan has been Turkey’s most effective and
popular leader since Kemal Ataturk, who founded the secular republic
on the ruins of the Ottoman empire. And he is not only popular at
home. Unlike most of his predecessors, and supported by the foreign
minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, he has embraced Turkey’s Arab neighbours,
opening new markets for Turkish contractors and drawing in Gulf Arab
investors. Mr Erdogan has also struck an alliance with Iraq’s oil-rich
Kurds, a move that has helped pave the way for his bold and ambitious
effort to make peace with Turkey’s own Kurds.
The downside
Alas the problems, some of them of Mr Erdogan’s own making, have been
mounting. Critics say the judicial reforms that were approved in 2010
have given the government a worryingly big say over the appointment of
judges. They point to the Ergenekon case, which has put nearly every
serving admiral behind bars. The trial has been dogged with
allegations of fabricated evidence. Prosecutors have at times seemed
more interested in exacting revenge than justice.
Turkey’s foreign policy is falling apart, victim to Mr Erdogan’s
hubris. Even if his salvoes against Israel have pleased the Arab
street, they have raised eyebrows in Washington and deprived Turkey of
a useful regional partner. His overt support for rebels fighting to
topple Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, whom he wrongly predicted
would quickly fall, is growing more unpopular. In May twin car-bomb
explosions ripped through the town of Reyhanli on the Syrian border,
killing 51 people. Turkey said Syria’s secret service was responsible;
Syria denies this. But most Turks believe that Mr Erdogan risks
dragging their country into war. In the ultimate irony, the Syrian
government has warned people not to travel to Turkey, declaring it
`unsafe’.
The economy, too, is lacklustre. Growth has fallen to 3%, and
unemployment is stubbornly high (see chart). A large current-account
deficit makes Turkey vulnerable to a shift in market sentiment that
might easily follow the present unrest.
Mr Erdogan seems unfazed by all this. Surrounded by sycophants, he is
out of touch. Liberals who once supported him are defecting. Secular
Turks are incensed by what they see as the steady dilution of
Ataturk’s legacy. The introduction of Koran classes for primary-school
pupils and the revival of Islamic clerical training for middle schools
are examples of creeping Islamisation, they say. For some secularists
the planned new restrictions on booze – it cannot be sold in shops
between 10pm and 6am, and producers can no longer advertise – were a
tipping point.
What angered them most was Mr Erdogan’s reference to `a pair of
drunks’. `Why are their laws sacred and one that is ordered by
religion [Islam] deemed objectionable?’ he asked in parliament. He was
assumed to be referring to Ataturk and his successor as president,
Ismet Inonu. `How dare he insult our national hero? Without Ataturk
there would have been no Turkey,’ said Melis Bostanoglu, a young
banker among thousands marching in Baghdad Avenue, a posh secular
neighbourhood on Istanbul’s Asian side.
Politics a la Turca
The protests show that Turkey’s political fault lines have shifted.
Scenes of tattooed youths helping women in headscarves stricken by
tear gas have bust tired stereotypes about secularism versus Islam.
Many protesters were born in the 1990s – reflecting the bulge of
teenagers and twenty-somethings in the population. As many women as
men were among them.
These people have no memory of the bloody street battles pitting left
against right before the army took power in 1980, nor of the inept and
corrupt politicians who drove the economy into the ground in 2001.
Their views are shaped by Twitter and Facebook; they have higher
expectations than their parents. `Being respected is one of them,’
said Fatmagul Sensoy, a student. Mr Erdogan `tells us how many
children to have [three], what not to eat [white bread] and what not
to drink,’ Ms Sensoy complained.
Her generation cares as much about animals and the environment as
about smartphones. They set up hotlines for stray cats and dogs
injured in the clashes and cleared litter after each protest. They
fended off vandals who sought to hijack the events. And they marched
alongside `anti-capitalist Muslims’, an umbrella group for devout
young Turks disgusted by the government’s pursuit of commercial gain
at the expense of the environment, and, worse, of its Islamic
credentials.
To all of them, Mr Erdogan’s grip seems as unshakable as it is
stifling. This is because AK has no credible opponents. The struggle
between old-style Kemalists and modernisers led by Mr Kilicdaroglu (an
Alevi) continues to hobble the CHP. This may explain the perverse
dismay the opposition felt when the government embarked on a peace
process with the Kurds, who pose the only serious challenge.
The slavish media have nurtured Mr Erdogan’s sense of infallibility.
Eager to curry favour, media bosses continue to fire journalists who
criticise the government. The craven self-censorship plumbed new
depths when the protests broke out. The mainstream news channels chose
to ignore them, broadcasting programmes about gourmet cooking and
breast enlargement instead. Infuriated protesters marched on the
offices of Haberturk, a news channel. `Sold-out media,’ they shouted,
as ashen-faced reporters peered out of the windows.
Mr Erdogan intends to stick around. He has long wanted to succeed Mr
Gul as Turkey’s first popularly elected president next year (hitherto
incumbents have been chosen by parliament). Not only that: he wants to
enhance the powers of the post `a la Turca’, as he puts it, enabling
the president to dissolve parliament and appoint the cabinet. The
protests have put a damper on what was already a fading prospect.
The grove where it all began
They may also hobble the effort to create a new democratic
constitution, in place of the one written by the generals after the
1980 coup. Crucially, the new document might guarantee the rights of
the Kurds. A parliamentary commission has made little progress,
because the opposition parties keep throwing up new hurdles – objecting
to the removal of references to Turkish ethnicity, for example, and to
education in Kurdish. Even before the protests there were signs that
Mr Erdogan would defer the constitutional question until after local
elections next March. He will now be even warier of alienating his
nationalist base by mollifying the Kurds.
Such stalling might jeopardise peace. Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned
leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has been
co-operative, renouncing demands for independence, declaring that the
days of armed conflict are over and calling on the PKK to withdraw to
Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Organised Kurdish groups have been
glaringly absent from the protests, a sign that they do not want to
put the peace talks at risk. But their patience may wear thin. This
week there were reports of clashes with the army on the Iraqi border,
the first since the PKK announced a ceasefire in March.
Erdogan’s move
For the first time since he came to power, Mr Erdogan looks
vulnerable. This may encourage Mr Gul to make a bid for his job: under
AK party rules Mr Erdogan cannot run for the premiership again. It is
no secret that he would prefer a more malleable ally for the post, to
retain his control over AK and the country after he leaves it.
The protests continued as The Economist went to press. But, when they
end, there will be many uncertainties. What if Mr Gul decides to stand
for a second term as president? Both the CHP and the far-right
Nationalist Action Party would support his candidacy, as would
Turkey’s most influential cleric, Fethullah Gulen. If he did, and
stayed on, Mr Erdogan would be left with neither of the top jobs.
Mr Erdogan may be a natural autocrat but he is also pragmatic. Time
and again he has pulled back from the brink. The Taksim rebellion is
his biggest challenge so far. If he can swallow his pride and make
real amends, Mr Erdogan could yet repair much of the damage. But
polarising the country is in his nature. If that continues, a decade
of economic and political stability under the AK party may yet come to
a pitiful or even tragic end.
>From the print edition: Briefing
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21579005-protests-against-recep-tayyip-erdogan-and-his-ham-fisted-response-have-shaken-his-rule-and