Undoubtedly a cruel authoritarian with a badly trimmed moustache, a forehead wider than all of Anatolia, and a vague resemblance to Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, Erdoğan, the President of Turkey, is slowly dragging his own country through the dirt. That is, more acutely worded, Erdoğan, a man who will never be the man his mother is, whose status as a lazy canine animal is located somewhere in the middle of his name, is turning the wonderful nation of Turkey inside out, and crushing the ones who are trying to stop him.
Given that I am no Jan Böhmermann, a German satirist whose mocking of the Turkish President faced direct criticism from Chancellor Merkel at the behest of Erdoğan, I will move onto discussing exactly why Erdoğan is the slime of Turkey. Last week, a video shot in front of the Turkish American embassy showed US police struggling to protect protesters, and two Turkish bodyguards being briefly detained after an incident in which they violently assaulted protesters. A few days later, a much more revealing video showed clearly Erdoğan mouthing orders for the assault to one of his henchman out of his car, who then passed it down the line and engaged in the “quelling” seconds later.
That incident wasn’t the first during an Erdoğan visit. Last year a fight erupted outside a nuclear security summit in Washington attended by Erdoğan. Since then, American senators have threatened lawsuits if the bodyguards responsible were not properly prosecuted. In a nation where as many as 800 families of the deceased from September 11 pursued lawsuits against the entire nation of Saudi Arabia, such a threat should not be taken lightly. In addition, Lindsey Graham threatened “potential implications for assistance to Turkey” if the bodyguards were not properly prosecuted. In the event, the two detained were set free and returned to Turkey. The behaviour of Erdoğan’s thugs directly, and quite obviously, breach American laws protecting free speech and the right to assemble.
Instead of delivering a rationally formed apology, the Turkish response has been, instead, to employ a strange gaslighting policy, similar to a physically abusive husband accused of domestic violence. Instead of apologising for what even an infant could make out to be an ordered attack, Turkey summoned the American ambassador on Monday to protest what it called “aggressive and unprofessional actions” by American security personnel. Turkey didn’t specify the actions by US security officials it deemed inappropriate. The statement was interpreted as a much needed reaction to the public and national reaction of the videos spreading online, but was horribly done and thus merely resulted in another wave of criticism.
Turkey’s reputation is being destroyed slowly but surely by Erdoğan. The country has long been considered by some to be part of Europe, given its geographical location in Eastern Thrace and continental Europe. Formerly known under the auspices of the Ottoman Empire as ‘The Sick Man of Europe’, it was a man of Europe none the less. Turkey was one of the fi rst members of the Council of Europe in 1949, and its current position as a member of NATO has marked it as one of the few nations that was at once part of the western and middle eastern international community. Turkey’s ability to avoid being partitioned among western powers and to form its own sovereign nation on its own terms, unlike the rest of the Middle East, was not only admirable, but marked a future of social and economic progression. Guided by the policies of Ataturk, Turkey joined the international community gracefully. Now, while the attacks on protesters by Erdogan’s thugs might seem like an isolated incident, the perception of Turkey in the international community is shifting, to a country that is determined to shut down and eliminate freedom of speech within its borders. Leaders like Erdogan panhandle the idea of an obtusely strong executive, exclaiming admiration for absolutist dictators of the past.
Remember this is a man who, at a televised press conference, stated that he believed a presidential system was possible in a unitary state, and cited Nazi Germany as an empirical example for his proposition. And where are we now? Last month the disastrous constitutional referendum, which faced electoral fraud of astounding proportions, cemented Erdoğan’s iron grip and established the presidential system that he was daydreaming about in the press conference. I often urge people to avoid sliding into marking everything they disagree with as “literally Hitler.” But one should often how far the comparison is required to go until a logical equivalence is actually reached, as Erdoğan continues to actively deny the Armenian genocide, censor and jail journalists en masse, and violently crack down on opposition movements.
Unfortunately, Erdoğan’s influence in Turkey has its very real effects on the West, not just by nature of geographical proximity, but also by a disturbing cultural effect. There is an increasing fetishisation of autocrats like Erdoğan and Putin in the West, which is reflected in a growing support for power consolidating bureaucrats masquerading as benevolent dictators. In Hilary Term, the former 13-year editor of The Economist, Bill Emmott, delivered a speech on his new book, The Fate of the West, in which he discussed a number of issues facing western democracies, and democracy in general. He mused on the toxic combination of self-proclaimed admiration for leaders like Putin by western politicians, and the simultaneous McCarthyist fear mongering of the Russian state. When Erdoğan was questioned about the previous comment he made in admiration of the Third Reich, he stated that he was simply admiring the strong executive of the Nazi regime. So, in this country, when the words ‘strong and stable’ seem to have such great effect, we should only naturally be disturbed.
Erdoğan is coming very close to single-handedly destroying the legacy of Ataturk and the status of a secular and democratic Turkey. Sozcu, a Turkish opposition newspaper and staunch supporter of the legacy of Ataturk, published their most recent issue completely blank, citing a mixture of protest and a genuine inability to publish more material following the recent arrest. Various websites continue to face censorship, while according to the highly respected organization Reporters Without Borders it is not China, but Turkey, that is “the world’s biggest prison for journalists”. To this degree, I stand firmly for the freedom of expression of Turkish journalists, and violently condemn the actions of the slime of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
