Category Archives: Turkey

Erdogan – Turkey : Jobbik – Hungary — Amplifying the Politics of Division

25 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Politics, Psychology, Regions, Turkey

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The prime minister has repeatedly and constantly defied criticism leveled against the police for brutality against protesters during the Gezi Park unrest, despite the fact that the excessive use of police force during the unrest in the country since May 3 has resulted in the deaths of three protesters and one police officer and the injury of nearly 5,000 people.

Gunes, Erdem. “Two wise men refuse to attend meeting with Turkish Prime Minister because of Gezi unrest.”  Huriyet Daily News, June 25, 2013.

While the world should not mistake accommodation, compassion, compromise, and kindness for weakness, the fear that a part of it may would seem to propel the opposite: the want of an iron fist.

Turks who may read about Prime Minister Erdogan in Huriyet have been delivered the impression of an autocrat, and one may expect further amplification and cleaving along that seam.  On one side: a dangerous nationalism and the rise of a “strong man” in the too familiar vein, the kind that references “the interest rate lobby” without intending to refer to the Chinese (to whom the world’s largest bank belongs); on the other, a more compassionate, comprehending, and more inclusive humanity, the kind that with Moses and the Jews becomes the “mixed multitude” that leaves Pharaoh and abandons him to his fate.

Turks have grown disgruntled over the headstrong prime minister’s increasingly autocratic leadership and the opaque decision making of a powerful centralized state that is unresponsive to the needs of Turkish citizens, especially those outside Erdogan’s nationalist and Islamic coalition.

Phillips, James and Andrew Scarpitta.  “Turkish Protests Undermine Erdogan and His Foreign Policy.”  The Foundry, blog, Heritage Foundation, June 24, 2013.

What Erdogan may represent is not only Erdogan’s problem.

This comes by way of another front, this one European:

After dark, the respectable mask slipped. While a Jobbik official watched, I was slapped in the head by a reveler annoyed that “Jews” were at his festival. He then poured a beer over my head. Although irritating and sticky, it could have been worse —I was in a forest at night surrounded by thousands of nationalists and stalls selling whips and axes.

Whelan, Brian.  “My Week With Hungary’s Far Right.”  Vice, May 2013.

Brian Whelan‘s clip on the Channel4News YouTube page (“The rise of the far-right in Hungary”):

“Jobbik” is “The Movement for a Better Hungary”.  The Wikipedia entry characterizes it this way:

“Jobbik has been described by scholars, different press outlets and its political opponents as fascist,[9] neo-fascist,[10] Neo-Nazi,[11] racist,[12] anti-Semitic,[13] anti-Roma[14] and homophobic.[15] Measured according to its representation in the European Parliament and the National Assembly, it is Hungary’s third largest party.”

Next to that Erdogan’s “Justice and Development Party (AKP)” enjoys on Wikipedia more gentle treatment, but even so, according to Wikipedia, “The core of the party was formed from the reformist faction of the Islamist Virtue Party.”

For compassionate liberals, no more signal than “Islamist Virtue Party” is needed, for it resonates worldwide today with police units formed around “the promotion of virtue and the elimination of vice”.  Moreover, in Islamic states, the same signals the room for maneuver given to venal “takfir” — those who accuse others of blasphemy, which in theocracies provides ever the accuser’s gateway to murder, theft, and revenge.

I feel inspired by the video featured on this post — fill in the blanks: “We have an internal problem that is ___________, and an external threat . . . the Jewish invasion . . . We know there is a global Zionist fund controlling the whole world, including the U.S. and the European Union . . .  It is thanks to them that ________ has become a mess since ________.”

It would seem the political imposition of purity standards — nationalist, racist, or religious — pernicious and divisive from any perspective.

In the larger politics and its psychology, growing Hungarian and Turkish nationalism would seem to share similar characteristics: deflection of responsibility (blame it on the “interest rate lobby” and similarly convenient foils; craving for a uniform cast and homogeneous society (please, no freethinkers, liberals, or Gypsies); want of power and strength by way of a demonstrated and punishing will altogether lacking in compassion, empathy, and love (such a monstrous character is what is most demonstrated by the arrest of doctors attending wounded at demonstrations).

Additional Reference

Arango, Tim.  “Turkish Liberals Turn Their Backs on Erdogan.”  The New York Times, June 19, 2013.

Hanley, Ken.  “Op-Ed: Turkish government to investigate doctors who treated protesters.”  Digital Journal, June 17, 2013:

The Turkish Health Ministry demanded a list of all doctors who had treated injured demonstrators. The Turkish Medical Association (TBB) reported the demand.

Nationalism Studies Network

National Movements & Intermediary Structures in Europe

Vogt, Jonas.  “Far-Right Terror in Hungary.”  Vice, June 2012.

Williams, Lonna Lisa.  “Turkish doctors protest by striking.”  Digital Journal, June 17, 2013:

“The doctors were only trying to help the protesters by giving them emergency medical aid in the clinic set up inside the Divan Hotel,” one witness told me. “The police marched right into the five-star hotel and arrested these doctors dressed in white lab coats. They were led off with their hand behind them, handcuffed.”

Syria’s Conflict Broadens, Confuses, Damns

23 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Lebanon, Middle East, Politics, Psychology, Regions, Syria, Turkey

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The dust resulting from the burning of cement leaves behind an emotion of a dusty fate. It leaves behind a feeling that the person is part of this burnt dust and that this is the color and smell of life.

al-Amin, Hazem.  “War approaches Lebanon.”  Al-Aribya, June 23, 2013.

Hazem al-Amin’s lyrical column in Al Aribya today tells a part of the psychology revolving around the horror in Syria and its creep into Lebanon, starting with the appearance and imposition of blocked roads.

If al-Amin’s captures the queasy zeitgeist of the Lebanese Everyman, AFP’s recent report on Hamas’s latest schizoid split takes it up a notch into the realpolitik attending Syria’s burning: “Syria’s civil war has caused a split within Hamas over whether to cling to Shiite backers Damascus, Tehran and Hezbollah or side with Sunni allies such as Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, analysts say” (AFP, “Syria’s sectarian war causes Hamas split: Analysts”, Ahram Online, June 21, 2013).

The protests ongoing in Turkish circles may have to do with more than the general drift of the state under Erdogan’s autocratic rule: on June 18 (2013), Erdogan met in Ankara with both “Hamas chief in exile” Khalid Mashaal and Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, yet another denting of Turkey’s once shining relationship with Israel (was that all only nine years ago?) and an equally objectionable foray into the worst and most virulent theater of the Islamic Small Wars.

Presumably, the three men whined together over Israel’s consolidation, development, and further establishment of its sovereign lands (Anatolia News Agency, “Turkish PM Erdogan meets Hamas leader Meshal and Gaza PM Haniyeh,” Huriyet Daily News, June 23, 2013).

Earlier this year, the conservative FrontPage Magazine noted the following in regard to Erdogan’s planting his boot in the middle east conflict:

Erdogan was rated as the second most influential Muslim leader of 2012, only behind Saudi King Abdullah. Despite his reputation as a “moderate,” Erdogan has said that Hamas is a “resistance” group, not a terrorist group. He has won the admiration of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who said, “Turkey’s support for the people of Syria and Palestine is unforgettable. My brother Erdogan, thank goodness God gave you so much. And you deserve it. You are also a leader in the Muslim world.”

Mauro, Ryan.  “Crowning Erdogan as the New King of Islamists.”  FrontPage, March 28, 2013.

The thing (the “Our Thing”) with Erdogan the Turk and Mashaal the Hamasnik in Exile is to walk on the Sunni side of the street down which the United States, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its sphere, and perhaps half of Hamas seem to have  aligned over Syria in opposition to the dictator Assad, Shiite Hezbollah involvement, and, alas, that Beleaguered But Ever So Crafty Bear Putin.

Bad wars make bad bedfellows, to play on an old saw, and what’s happening in Syria by way of its sectarian facet (“two wasps in a bell jar,” says I) seems to me incomprehensible in its absurdity.

Israel’s policy as articulated by Defense Minister Yaalon in Washington last week seems to remain “Do not intervene; do not interfere.”

Of course the Israelis cannot help themselves when it comes to making anything — Anything! — a little bit better, so now there is an advanced position Israeli field hospital Out There in the Golan, and it has taken in and repaired some injured by way of the combat in which it will not intervene.

From Jordan, Jamal Halaby reports, “900 U.S. Troops in Jordan to Boost Security in Wake of Syria Conflict” (Huffington Post, June 22, 2013).

Jordan’s King Abdullah has been dealing with his own unrest (e.g., al-Samadi, Tamer, “Precarious Calm Prevails Following Jordan Unrest,”  Al Monitor, June 6, 2013).

Two months earlier, a politico challenging King Abdullah of Jordan’s legitimacy noted this in The Jerusalem Post:

Recently, Abdullah met with Assad’s mentor, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Commenting on the king’s meeting with Putin, the Londonbased Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper reported the visit could be the sign of a “major shift in Jordan’s stance on Syria,” noting that the visit took place at the same time Jordan began supplying diesel and drinking water to Assad’s army and reporting that “the King’s intelligence department has been cooperating with Syrian intelligence for the last two months.”

Zahran, Mudar.  “Jodan’s king, Assad and Iran.”  The Jerusalem Post, April 3, 2013.

I have heard some say that Obama and Putin have set out to rearrange the middle east.  I don’t know if that’s so, but whatever their plans, the two between them have got the place churning.

Lest I leave anyone out, say Egyptian youth, for example:

He was young and bright, with an education from Egypt’s premier school of Islamic studies and lucrative job offers in the Gulf.

But Bilal Farag chose a different path, friends say, one that led him to die on a distant Syrian battlefield while fighting Shiite Muslims he regarded as infidels.

Ya Libnan.  “Radical Sunnis rush to join fight against Hezbollah, Iran in Syria.”  June 22, 2013.  (Possibly reprinted from The Washington Post).  Best quote, imho, the one that will wrap this up: ““The Middle East is shifting from a region that was dreaming of democracy to a battlefield between Shiite and Sunni,” Salah said. “It’s very dangerous.”  (The article identifies “Salah” as “Khaled Salah, editor in chief of the secular-minded Youm7 newspaper”).

Welcome the long, hot summer: indeed, the “Arab Spring” has become an Arab Muslim fire zone, and it seems from Ankara to Beirut to Cairo to Gaza (and beyond), sides have been chosen, and all are going to the bonfire in Syria — if it doesn’t come to them first.

Additional Reference

Gilbert, Ben.  “How the Syria conflict is spreading violence to Lebanon.”  NBC News, June 23, 2013.

Ray, John.  “Syria spillover violence threatens ceasefire with Israel.”  NBC News, June 21, 2013.

Turkey – A Fissure Has Opened in the Political Body

18 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Free Speech, Politics, Turkey

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Four protesters and one police officer have been killed during the protests and Turkey’s doctors association said an investigation was underway into the death of a fifth protester who was exposed to tear gas. More than 7,800 people have been injured; six remain in critical condition and 11 people have lost their eyesight after being hit by flying objects.

AP. “Turkey’s Erdogan vows to strengthen police powers as dozens detained in raids.”  The Washington Post, June 18, 2013.

Last week’s unrest, only quelled this week, has left Turkey a divided nation with President Erdogan’s voting majority AKP jubilant in its denial of its impact on all others.  With so many business and political rivals neutralized, generals sacked, and journalists jailed, Erdogan has proven he can muscle up an adoring crowd while his police go about battering and blinding those who dissent.

Here was a bellicose leader who dismissed overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrators as “looters” and “terrorists”, who railed against international media for their “disinformation” campaigns, and who criticised volunteer medics for treating injured protesters.

“The big loser (in the crisis), is the prime minister who is fighting for his political survival,” said Cengiz Aktar, a political science professor at Istanbul’s Bahcesehir university.

ZeeNews.  “Turkey PM risks political fallout after Gezi Park.”  June 18, 2013.

Here in my “Second Row Seat to History”, I am not part of any media conspiracy, government agency, anti-government organization, or strident political or religious movement.

I have only watched the footage.

“Unfortunately, we have been witnessing undesired attacks and provocations over the past few days.  We are once again experiencing the traps that were set in the past to threaten governments and create chaotic scenes to pave the way for interventions against democracy.”

Whose past, Mr. Erdogan?

To whose “interventions against democracy” have you referred?

May the reader wrap his mind around the Turkish President’s Orwellian rhetoric.

The open democracies of the other NATO states reject the tyranny of the majority, the state’s suppression of media and of the earnest and responsible journalists on whose mantles rest decency and integrity in reporting, and, every single one of them, deeply rejects the rejection of the popular criticism of ordinary constituents, whether aligned with a majority part or distant from it.

Protesters have accused Erdogan, who has been in power for a decade, of taking Turkey down the road of authoritarian and Islamist rule. Erdogan, who has triumphed with wide electoral majorities, has dismissed the protesters as militants and losers.

Johnson, Glen.  “Protester reported killed in Turkey amid days of unrest.”  The Los Angeles Times, June 3, 2013.

Last week, the Ataturk Society UK reported three dead, 4,785 injured.

President Erdogan’s own ham-handed behaviors in office have inspired the opening of a fissure in Turkey’s body politic, and it will not close.

From the album online, “Heartwarming Images from the Turkish Resistance (created two weeks ago)“.

"Three different ideologies side by side" (photographer unknown).

“Three different ideologies side by side” (photographer unknown).

Two weeks ago?

Has it been that long?

The Wikipedia entry “2013 Protests in Turkey” says it has (initial protest: May 28, 2013).

It feels like forever.

ISW – Comment on Saudi Arabia’s Heightened Profile in the Syrian Theater

17 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by in Asia, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Qatar, Regions, Religion, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey

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(Reuters) – Saudi Arabia, a staunch opponent of President Bashar al-Assad since early in Syria’s conflict, began supplying anti-aircraft missiles to rebels “on a small scale” about two months ago, a Gulf source said on Monday.

Bakr, Amena.  “Saudi supplying missiles to Syria rebels: Gulf source.”  Reuters, June 17, 2013.

For those who value stability in the middle east, the least honest and most ruthless appear to be winning.

As the above quote suggests, Big Sunni Money plus the cultivation across many years of strategic and trade relationships in Great Britain, Europe, and the United States have put King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia not only into the fight in Syria but remarkably behind the NATO wheel.

Of course, this recent news (surfacing in the news) isn’t news at all to the businesses and states involved in Syria’s civil war, and it should be apparent to all onlookers that this double-track, double-story business of telling the public one story while facilitating another in private has brought us to the brink of a NATO vs. Russia confrontation in which Russia may now present a devilish gambit: better Assad and the continuing misery to be imposed by the dictatorship than the expansion of either Al Qaeda or Wahhabi Islam and the certain diminishing of nascent democracy, human dignity, and secular values in Syria accompanied by the heightening of tensions in Lebanon and,somewhere in the future, with Israel and the Jewish People.

To offset that impression, King Abdullah may have to back up the money with some combination of reassuring mouth and evidence of cultural and social evolution toward the contemporary in the Kingdom, certain injunctions of the Quran either notwithstanding or interpreted or aligned with a more free and liberal and greater western world.

Outlook

For the moment, if Iran’s nuclear program and global ambitions are the true target of the conflict in Syria, then the conflict and the human suffering plus political confusion driven by it, have yet some months to years to go.

In fact, the focusing of issues in the Syrian theater of a great portion of the drivers of the Islamic Small Wars  — i.e., rivalries of various sort: Al Qaeda and Wahhabi Islam; Sunni and Shiite Islam; democracy, secular dictatorship and theocracy; Iranian and Saudi Arabian competition for greater spheres of influence; even Putin’s possible issues with aggrandizement, control, and wealth on one hand and his own humanity, moderation, and strength in restraint on the other– bodes ill for constituents — worldwide — whose concerns may be more with family, security, and employment scaled down to a common denominator in the common humanity than with the triumph of a king or an ayatollah.  

It has been said that with the onset of war, nobody wins, and nowhere else across the killing fields of the Islamic Small Wars does that cynical sentiment seem more likely to be proven true than in Syria this day.

Reference

Al Arabiya.  “Saudi King Abdullah cuts holiday short due to ‘events in the region’.”  June 15, 2013.

Chulov, Martin.  “Threat of sectarian war grows in Syria as jihadists get anti-aircraft missiles.”  The Guardian, June 15, 2013.

Deasy, Kristin.  “Al Qaeda in Iraq defies global leader over relationship with Syria’s Al Nusra: Reports.” Global Post, June 15, 2013.

Henderson, Simon.  “Bahrain Rounds Up Organizers of Antigovernment Violence.”  Policy Alert, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, June 14, 2013:

Initially emulating uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world, the protests quickly divided along sectarian lines, pitting members of the majority Shiite population against the Sunni ruling family’s security forces. Since then, February 14 members have apparently engaged in near-nightly clashes with police, resulting in more than 100 dead and 2,000 injured among civilians and security personnel.

Osborn, Andrew and Amena Bakr.  “Putin, Obama face off over Syria; rebels get Saudi missiles.”  Reuters, June 17, 2013.

Reuters.  “Russia says it will not allow Syria no-fly zones.”  June 17, 2013.

Starr, Barbara, Holly Yan, Chelsea J. Carter.  “Analyst: Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria now best-equipped of the group.”  CNN, June 17, 2013.

Wintour, Patrick.  “Syria: Putin backs Assad and berates west over proposal to arm rebels.”  The Guardian, June 16, 2013.

FNS – Erdogan and Demonstrations – Update

17 Monday Jun 2013

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After night fell, his security forces put these words into force. They used bulldozers to clear out Gezi Park, which had become a symbol of the resistance in recent days. They chased protesters and beat them down with clubs, and they shot tear gas into cafes and hotels as the people fled. Doctors who treated the wounded were arrested.

Popp, Maximilian and Mirjam Schmitt.  “‘Hateful’ Speech in Istanbul: Erdogan Throws Fuel on Flames.  Spiegel Online, June 17, 2013.

President Erdogan may mount pro-government demonstrations, but he has a way to go with regard to quelling anti-government unrest, and to judge both by the article in Spiegal Online and the balanced footage above, he’s inclined to do it with the heavy hand of a dictator.

The orchestration of his own AKP pro-government demonstration, which included busing fans to the location, while at the same time suppressing Taksim Square activity by clearing the streets with force and closing routes into the city reflects well the autocrat’s want to control without a lot of back and forth in the conference room or negotiating table.

Add:

  • Deflection of responsibility for his state’s spontaneous demonstrations to foreign influence (of some kind) and the international press;
  • Detention of lawyers sympathetic with demonstrators and the alleged arrests of doctors — that detail seems to be in the news today — attending those injured by government forces.

If preventing attention to the injured is a part of the governing ethic “over there”, that too speaks of the barbarian within and a reigning mentality not much different than that which has made a mess of Damascus.  The process doesn’t change: the greater and more extensive the repression, the more amplified the resentments and, when those surface, the response.

Describing Erdogan’s government as “despotic,” two main union blocs say they plan to march to Istanbul’s Taksim Square, which has been at the heart of more than two weeks of protests. It is the second time unions have called a strike to support the protest movement.

Penhaul, Karl, Ian Lee, Gul Tuysuz.  “Turkish unions call strike after weekend of street clashes.”  CNN, June 17, 2013.

Al Jazeera reports, “Labour groups representing doctors, engineers and dentists are also said to have joined the strike on Monday. The striking groups represent about 800,000 workers” (“Turkey threatens to deploy army to end unrest.”  June 17, 2013).

Reuters reports today 441 persons detained in Istanbul on Sunday, 56 in Ankara, and 5,000 injured and four dead over the span of the unrest.

Additional Reference

Burch, Jonathan and Daren Butler.  “Striking workers face off with police in Turkish capital.”  Reuters, June 17, 2013.

Letsch, Constanze and Ian Traynor.  “Turkey unrest: violent clashes in Istanbul as Erdoğan holds rally.”  The Guardian, June 16, 2013:

Erdogan inveighed against the international media, blaming the BBC and CNN for distorting the drama of the past three weeks in what he repeatedly alleged was an international plot to divide and diminish Turkey.

“You will make your voice heard so anyone conspiring against Turkey will shiver,” he told the crowd. “Turkey is not a country that international media can play games on.”

Waldman, Simon A. and Emre Caliskan.  “Erdogan’s aim: Suffocate the right to protest in Turkey.”  Haaretz, June 5, 2013.

CNN.  “Demonstrations in Turkey.”  Retrospective slideshow.  June 16, 2013.

Michaels, Sean.  “Turkish police confiscate piano used to serenade Taksim Square protesters.”  The Guardian, June 17, 2013.

Peterson, Scott.  “Erdogan’s supporters rally, dismissing Turkish protests as a ‘big game’ (+video).”  The Christian Science Monitor, June 16, 2013:

Using language that belittled the protesters as disrespectful and irrelevant, Erdogan appeared to point the finger of blame at everyone except himself and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), citing instead the party’s economic triumphs and democratic reforms.

While the title includes the term “video”, when I viewed the piece at about 9:17 a.m. EDT, there was none.

Reuters.  “Hundreds of thousands rally in Turkey for Erdogan.”  June 16 2013.

Sky News.  “Turkey: Erdogan Supporters Rally in Istanbul.”  June 17, 2013.

The Guardian.  “Taksim square: riot police evict protesters in Istanbul – video.”  June 16, 2013.

Reflection

Political cartooning has gotten an update in recent years (or days, considering the pace of media technology development and its broad distribution.  I thought this piece catchy (yes, I am chatyping like the old man I’ve become here) and while it doesn’t reflect my thoughts, which are so much more sober, the presentation would seem part of the zeitgeist of a dawning political era.

Referral

Al Jazeera’s running a “live blog” — sure glad it’s not a dead one — on Turkey’s unrest: http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/topic/turkey-protests-20176

Turkey’s ‘Woodstock’ Moment – A Concert at Taksim Square

13 Thursday Jun 2013

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Riot police looked on from the fringes as crowds mingled late into the night, some protesters chanting and dancing, others applauding a concert pianist who took up residence with a grand piano in the middle of the square.

Tattersall, Nick and Jonathon Burch.  “Turkish protesters party in square despite ruling party call.”  Reuters, June 12, 2013.

From the same article: “Erdogan has accused foreign forces, international media and market speculators of stoking conflict and trying to undermine the economy of the only largely Muslim NATO state.”

Setting aside that mouthful I call “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy (FBPS)”, which may deal too much with motivation and personality and too little with “cognitive style” I’m starting to think autocrats internally muddled, unable to deal with criticism, open processes — including for Taksim Square specifically, urban development and land use planning — and the possibility that they themselves are a little bit a part of larger political and social issues.

American analog – Erdogan / Taksim: Nixon / Woodstock.

The Turkish youth are okay, and perhaps so is the state’s middle class.

Additional Reference

BBC.  “Turkey protests: Erdogan in ‘final’ warning.”  June 13, 2013.

Hacaoglu, Selcan and Ben Holland.  “Istanbul Protesters Hear Piano Concert as Calm Returns.”  Bloomberg Business Week, June 13, 2012.

A Glance at RT’s Coverage of Turkish Protests

12 Wednesday Jun 2013

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“We were patient, we will be patient, but there is an end to patience, and those who play politics by hiding behind the protesters should first learn what politics means,” Erdogan said.

Protesters have accused Erdogan of becoming authoritarian during his 10 years in power and attempting to impose the Islamization of Turkey, which is currently governed by secular laws. Erdogan brushed off the accusations, calling himself a “servant” of his people.

RT.  “Turkey police crush protests, govt refuses to resign (PHOTOS, VIDEO)”.  June 10, 2013.

For his post-Kamalist autocratic methods, Erdogan makes an easy foil for the political opposition not only in Turkey but, opposite NATO (over Syria, lately), in Russia too.

As popular demonstrations attract everyone with a political bone to pick — or youthful and wild energy to expend — they can get out of hand to the point where authority (of any kind) must intervene with force.  So here one may ask: apart from the Turkish middle class and whatever known fringes may be familiar to the Turkish political scene, who else may have been in that crowd?

And who put them there?

Ah, the gate opens to wild speculations.

To trim that some, I thought we might look together at RT‘s coverage of the story.

“There is now a menace which is called Twitter,” Erdogan said on Sunday, dismissing the protests as organized by extreme elements. “The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society.”

RT.  “Turkish activists rail against media for ignoring protests, police brutality.”  June 5, 2011.

Turkish police have taken several dozen lawyers into custody for joining the ongoing protests. The arrests in Istanbul come as police launched a crackdown on protesters in the city’s Taksim Square.

RT. “Turkish police ‘attack’ protesting lawyers at courthouse, many arrests (VIDEO).”  June 11, 2013.

If you were the Russian autocrat, would you not wish to fan the flames beating at the bottom of the Turkish one?

Perhaps “yes”, but I’m not certain I would have to work hard, or even at all, to play up the drama, disrupt Erdogan’s Administration, and, just a jogging bit, shake the NATO tree.

RT has put up a live updates pate on the Turkish protests, but this last seems to feature the same timbre in headlining that seems to me also . . . fair:

“There are serious clashes in the small streets surrounding the square. They are running after each other tossing stones, bottles and smoke grenades there. It’s a real meat grinder in there,” reports RT’s Ashraf El Sabbagh.

RT.  “Turkish police oust Taksim protesters with tear gas as Erdogan cheers removal of ‘rags’.”  June 11, 2013.

Is the statement embedded in the RT article inflammatory or just plain good dramatic reporting?

My call: the latter.

Autocratic regimes or ones drifting in that direction — I would not write differently about Putin’s — do it to themselves.  The more they feel they control in their spheres — and control is what autocrats and “malignant narcissists” are all about, that plus themselves, their image, their glory — and the more they extend that control into the reasonable provinces of constituent life, the more resentment they sow and, over time, the more chaos too when those resentments surface from multiple constituencies, including those with whom they have dealt with a heavy hand.

Frankly, the story more prevalent in the news I’ve been encountering along the way seems to be the Turkish media’s blackout on the protests.

Additional Reference

Al Jazeera English.  “Turkey’s media: Caught in the wheels of power?”  June 8, 2013.

Oktem, Kerem.  “Why Turkey’s mainstream media chose to show penguins rather than protests.”  The Guardian, June 9, 2013.

The Voice of Russia.  “Turkey unrest: ‘Turkish spring’ or just a seasonal storm?”  June 2, 2013:

Tarasov also names the government-led soft Islamization as a possible reason. Some people didn’t like plans to demolish the Ataturk Cultural Center and build a mosque at the site, thus neglecting the heritage and legacy of the first President of Turkey Kemal Ataturk.

Remember: It’s Never the Narcissist: Erdogan Blames Woes on “Vandals and Terrorist Elements”

11 Tuesday Jun 2013

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Reference for the partial quotation in the above title:  Tattersall, Nick and Ayla Jean Yackley.  “Turkish riot police fire tear gas at Istanbul protest.”  Reuters, June 11, 2013.

*****

*****

Erdogan’s in moral and psychological trouble, and that trouble starts with denial and the convenient pointing of the finger elsewhere, but by the numbers, he’s not in political trouble.

The opposition currently appears too weak to play a significant role. The Republic People’s Party (CHP) of Kilicdaroglu is not expected to total more than 25 percent of the vote; the ultra-nationalist ‘Grey Wolves’ of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) are estimated at around 10 percent while the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party will probably total 6 percent of votes.

ANSAmed.  “Turkey: Erdogan has no rivals in 2014 presidential vote.”  July 17, 2013.

While I feel Erodan’s right to suggest protesters meet him at the ballot box, God knows how the autocrat has been working the ropes to rig them. He’s ditched a class of career military men and jailed or harassed publishers and journalists, for a start.

Ben Caspit writing for Al Monitor (“Erdogan’s Sin of Hubris”) last week noted the following:

Erdogan’s growing appetite has become truly swinish and planted in him the messianic belief that he was sent directly by the Divine Presence to return Turkey to its days of glory and rebuild the Ottoman Empire. This was viewed by many as the main source of Erdogan’s megalomania that is now absorbing a strong, unexpected blow from the masses in Istanbul’s squares, who call him “tyrant” and “dictator.”

Five days ago from Haberler.com:

Erdogan is no creator, nor a prophet, and has not been in heaven – only in North Africa here on earth. But he should take advantage of the deep faith of many Muslims and turn away from his intransigence against those who disagree with him, against awkward media and against his critics in Turkish society. Gül und Arinc have prepared the way. This is Erdogan’s last chance to break from his harsh policy.

Haberler.  “Opinion: Erdogan’s Last Chance.”  EN.Haberler.Com, June 6, 2013.

Does Erdogan read?

Does he know what he looks like to the free world — the world that hosts the United Nations, the Center for the Protection of Journalists, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and Haaretz?

Soon the square, home to days of protests over what demonstrators call an increasingly authoritarian government, was filed with chaos. Hugely loud bangs echoed through the area — likely the result of stun grenades. Thousands packed back into Taksim Square, surrounding a large bonfire that they were fueling with whatever they could pick ups.

Walsh, Nick Paton, Arwa Damon, and Gul Tuysuz.  “Tear gas, stun grenades, fire: Chaos overtakes Istanbul protests.”  CNN, June 11, 2013.

Once again, but differently then when the oldsters here first heard this chant: “The whole world is watching!”

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Slideshow: “Photos: Anti-government protests in Turkey.”  CNN, June 11, 2013.

You get the idea:  ” . . . vandals and terrorists . . . .” say the dictators, chief themselves among Vandals and terrorists.

(And sorry for putting up the Bobbies as Turkish footage — I need more powerful coffee to catch some who post footage from one context and past over it some immediately relevant headline.  That clip is gone, and all else seems to have come from Turkey in the last 24 hours or so).

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