They are so touchy, these malignant narcissists!

ISTANBUL –  Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday again dismissed street protests against his rule as actions organized by extremists, described them as a temporary blip and angrily rejected comparisons with the Arab Spring uprisings.

AP.  “Violence flares on Day 4 of anti-government protests in Turkey.”  Via Fox blog, June 3, 2013.

The least little bit of citizen action, like that of the loose crowd gathered to protest the commercial development of a beloved old urban park, and they — lump all autocrats together for a moment — go off.

Where I live, a few police, a paddy wagon, and plastic cuffs and, perhaps, muscle enough for lifting the limp bodies of peaceful protesters would have been enough.  Instead, with perhaps the degree of “firmness” chosen inversely correlated with true state confidence installed in the leadership, out come the water canons and pepper spray, first thing.

This hails from the reblog posted previously:

But the police arrived with water cannon vehicles and pepper spray.  They chased the crowds out of the park.

In the evening the number of protesters multiplied. So did the number of police forces around the park. Meanwhile local government of Istanbul shut down all the ways leading up to Taksim square where the Gezi Park is located. The metro was shut down, ferries were cancelled, roads were blocked.

Will Erdogan, whose Administration may have “blacked out” the media, according to the same reblogged post, slip down the slope the way of Bashar al-Assad, and knowing what is in his own heart and what he wishes to project to others assume the same psychology surrounds him in that portion of constituents who might have nerve for more than the defense of a few old trees?

If the dimension I promote with “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy (FBPS)” applies in Erdogan’s Turkey, the president may be expected to rebuff or refuse all criticism of his tenure and, as have others more fixed in power have done before him, overreact to mild provocation.

The Fox article cited at the top of this post goes on to report 800 Turkish citizens detained in the protests to date.

In another article, published while I was snoozing, an academic seems to have chirped to a reporter:

“Erdogan does not listen to anyone any more,” said Koray Caliskan, a political scientist at Istanbul’s Bosphorus University. “Not even to members of his own party. But after the protests this weekend, he will have to accept that he is the prime minister of a democratic country, and that he cannot rule it on his own.”

Letsch, Constanze.  “Social media and opposition to blame for protests, says Turkish PM.”  The Guardian, June 2, 2013.

With Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe ever haunting this underlying political theme, which one might call “the rise of the dictator”, I’m not sure the personality involved believes “he cannot rule it on his own.”

Most of the type, I believe, believe they have no choice but to rule their roosts with absolute unquestioned authority, which is expressive of their problem.

Additional Reference

AP.  “Turkish president defends people’s right to protest.”  The Guardian, June 3, 2013.

Tisdall, Simon.  “Turkey protests expose anxiety over Erdogan’s growing autocratic ambitions.”  June 3, 2013.  Excerpt: “Particular concern centres on Erdogan’s ill-disguised, Putin-esque plan to swap the prime minister’s office for that of the president in elections due next year. But first he wants to enhance the executive powers of the presidency – hence the divisive and so far inconclusive effort to forge a new constitution. He must also somehow push aside the incumbent, Abdullah Gul, a loyal crony who has become less subservient.”

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