The Istanbul protests – XII

Image credit: Femen France

It’s not looking good in Turkey. Not at all. PM Erdoğan, acting ever more the dictator, manifestly believes his intransigence can bring the protest movement to heel and he may not be wrong. EHESS postdoc and Turkish politics specialist Benjamin Gourisse had a pessimistic op-ed in Libération last week, “L’AKP ou l’impossible alternance,” in which he argued that the AKP has effectively taken over the Turkish state apparatus over the past decade and that this has major implications for the country’s political future. The AKP has placed its men in all key positions in the state administration, brought to heel the judiciary—not to mention the military—, and thereby controls the totality of public institutions in the country. In the process, it has created a large electoral clientele—including the business community—, thereby insuring that it will not suffer what in French is called the usure du pouvoir. The AKP is as entrenched in power as was the Daley machine in Chicago in the 1960s (my analogy) and with almost no realistic possibility of an alternation of power anytime soon. So no matter how badly Erdoğan behaves, he’ll likely be able to ride out the storm.

As for taking Abdullah Gül’s place in the Çankaya Köşkü next year, on n’en est pas là…

In another Libé op-ed, “Taksim: la Turquie polarisée,” Nora Seni of the Université Paris-VIII discusses the heavy symbolism of Taksim Square as a lieu de mémoire of the Kemalist legacy, an historic rallying point of political and social contestation, and in the heart of the part of Istanbul that most incarnates lifestyles antithetical to those of the AKP electorate. Thus Erdoğan’s fixation on transforming the square and the area around it.

One factor that may be contributing to Erdoğan’s confidence—though he could probably live without it—is the knowledge that Turkey is currently an “indispensable partner” for the West—and particularly on Syria—, as Deutsche Welle, quoting the Carnegie Endowment’s Sinan Ülgen, reports on its website.

Even if this weren’t the case, Erdoğan would have little to worry about from that corner, in view of the Obama administration’s realpolitik and EU’s spinelessness.

Claire Sadar has a good analysis on her Atatürk’s Republic blog of “The Prime Minister’s speech” last Sunday, in which she cites an equally good op-ed in Today’s Zaman by Brooklyn College historian Louis Fishman, “The Gezi Park protests, the Middle East and the secular-religious divide.”

Michael Koplow of the Ottomans and Zionists blog, in a post examining the “Master Linguist” Erdoğan’s rhetoric and the apparent strategy behind it, wonders if the Turkish PM “has completely lost his mind or if this is a deliberate strategy, but no matter what the answer is, the Turkish government is looking more foolish and unhinged by the hour.”

The Istanbul-based Turkey specialist Gareth Jenkins had a worthwhile essay last week in The Turkey Analyst, “The Turkish protests and Erdoğan’s disappearing dreams.”

In an NYT op-ed that probably everyone has seen by now, “Turkey’s false nostalgia,” Boğaziçi University historian Edhem Eldem critiqued those in the opposition who hark back to a supposed Kemalist golden age that was not so golden.

In a piece in Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse, Ankara-based journalist Tulin Daloglu says that “Women will decide the extent of Turkey’s religiosity.”

Finally, take a look at academic Jim Meyer’s “Three questions re Turkey” on his interesting Borderlands blog.

À suivre.