Two and half years ago I argued President Erdogan of the Republic of Türkiye (as the country is now called) was a dictator in all but name ( see article below). Over this period there has been nothing in his behaviour that has suggested I was wrong. There are now authoritative commentators that are more knowledgeable than me, who are coming to the same worrying conclusion.
This was in The Economist on 19th Jan 2023:
Turkey could be on the brink of dictatorship President Erdogan could tip his country over the edge
Turkey has nato’s second-biggest armed forces. It plays a crucial role in a turbulent neighbourhood, especially in war-scorched Syria. It exerts growing influence in the western Balkans, in the eastern Mediterranean and more recently in Africa. Above all, it is important in the Black Sea and in Russia’s war in Ukraine; last year it helped broker a deal to let more Ukrainian grain be shipped to a hungry world. So outsiders should pay attention to Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections, which Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested this week will be held on May 14th. All the more so since, under its increasingly erratic president, the country is on the brink of disaster. Mr Erdogan’s behaviour as the election approaches could push what is today a deeply flawed democracy over the edge into a full-blown dictatorship.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/01/19/turkey-could-be-on-the-brink-of-dictatorship
11th July 2020:
Hagia Sophia Museum is turned into a mosque: a case for rational argument
Not long after I wrote my blog about JK Rowling: Shaming, Cancel Culture and Groupthink?, where I argued there needed to be rational argument not just shouting at those whose opinions you disagreed with, I became subject to a ‘vitriolic yell’. On my Facebook page (a pretty esoteric bubble, with just over 120 followers) I posted a criticism of the Turkish Government’s decision to turn the Hagia Sophia Museum in Istanbul back into a mosque. I went on to accuse the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of being a dictator who wished Turkey to be a theocratic state and revive the Ottoman Empire which I described as repressive and backward. As evidence of Erdogan's repressive regiment I mentioned that there are “more than 120 journalists imprisoned in Turkey, which is a global record.”
Someone I don’t know responded with this comment:
Fucking liar, There are no arrested journalists in the jail, there are some terrorist in the jail who call themself journalist.. How do you call someone dictator who comes up with democracy and is elected by vote. Can dictator be elected by vote and come with democracy? YOU FUCKING IDIOT JUST GO PLAY IN A SANDPIT, DONT TALK ABOUT WHAT IS BIGGER THAN YOUR BRAIN
Let me practise what I have preached and, in a rational manner with evidence, look at both my arguments and the response from my critic.
First, would Mustapha Kemal (Ataturk) have disapproved of returning the Hagia Sophia from a museum to a mosque? He introduced secularism (or laïcité) in a 1928 amendment of the Constitution of 1924, which removed the provision declaring that the "Religion of the State is Islam". To quote The Times newspaper of 10th July, “In one hour yesterday, the monument’s status as a museum was revoked, overturning a decree signed in 1934 by Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern republic”.
The next accusation I made was that President Erdogan was a dictator. Erdogan has held the presidential office since 2014. He has abolished the position of Prime Minister and designated the President as both head of state and government, effectively transforming Turkey from a parliamentary regime into a presidential one. To quote The Guardian newspaper (19th April 2018) “Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: a dictator in all but name seeks complete control. Turkey’s president is unlikely to lose an election that will make him more powerful than Atatürk”. Since then he has tightened his grip on the army, education and the judiciary; as I write this blog, Associated Press reported (11th July 2020), “Turkey’s parliament passed controversial legislation amending laws governing attorneys and bar associations on Saturday, despite protests from critics who say the move could limit the independence of lawyers and reduce the professional associations’ clout. The new law, submitted by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party, was passed after days of heated debate and following scuffles between police and lawyers protesting the legislation.”
Well, my critic claims you can’t call someone who has been elected through a democratic vote, a dictator. Even if you disregard Amnesty’s claim that the last elections in Turkey took place “in a climate of fear”, we know from modern history that leaders can get elected and then turn into dictators: from Adolf Hitler to Nicolas Maduro, from Mussolini to Vladimir Putin.
On Tuesday, February 13th 2018 The Times newspaper reported that President Erdogan “asserted that “modern Turkey is a ‘continuation’ of the Ottoman Empire—a direct contradiction of [Mustafa Kemal] Ataturk’s ideology, which cast the Imperial era as backwards, stale, and to be discarded and forgotten rather than celebrated.” Like all empires, positive and negative arguments can be made but the Ottoman Empire is particularly notorious for his harsh treatment of its subjects from the burning of Bulgarians in churches to the genocide of the Armenians (which despite overwhelming evidence is still denied by the Turkish state).
What about my claim over journalists being imprisoned. On November 19, 2019, Reuters published this article “More than 120 journalists are still being held in Turkey’s jails, a global record, and the situation of the media in the country has not improved since the lifting of a two-years state emergency last year, a global press watchdog said…”
Difficult to argue that they are all terrorists when they are vouched for by the International Press Institute.
Finally, let Amnesty International have the last word on Erdogan’s Turkey:
Turkey 2019
The crackdown on real or perceived dissent continued in 2019, despite the end of the two-year-long state of emergency in July 2018. Thousands of people were held in lengthy and punitive pre-trial detention, often without any credible evidence of their having committed any crime recognizable under international law. There were severe restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly and people considered critical of the current government – in particular journalists, political activists and human rights defenders – were detained or faced trumped-up criminal charges. The authorities continued to arbitrarily ban demonstrations and use unnecessary and excessive force to disperse peaceful protestors. There were credible reports of torture and enforced disappearances. Turkey forcibly returned Syrian refugees, while continuing to host more refugees than any other country.
I hope I have proved my case but no doubt I will be shouted at again and I, along with all my sources, will be branded as ‘liars’.
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