Does anyone have a better analysis of what’s going on in Turkey than this rambling thing from Josh Marshall? (Here’s the Guardian and the Times). From what I’ve gathered from my vantage point of ugly American indifference and ignorance, Erdogan is not secular enough, cracks down too hard on the press, and is generally disliked by urban Turks.
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Shortstop
The American coverage of this has been particularly awful: lots of descriptions of protests and Erdogan’s heavy hand, almost no discussion of why people are protesting.
Valdivia
Two good links:
http://hughpope.com/2013/06/01/a-ringside-seat-as-istanbul-protests/
http://hughpope.com/2013/06/02/istanbuls-demonstrators-celebrate-victory-in-istiklal-and-taksim-square/
Baud
I just assumed they were upset about John McCain’s visit to Syria.
Valdivia
@Shortstop:
I agree. The two links I provided I saw linked yesterday on twitter, they’re from someone on the ground with pretty good local grasp of policy issues. So generally better than anything i have read so far.
max
the Erdogan is not secular enough, cracks down too hard on the press, and is generally disliked by urban Turks.
He’s kind of a Turkish Ronald Reagan. (Or maybe Woodrow Wilson.)
max
[‘The Owners are asserting their primacy worldwide.’]
mistermix
@Valdivia: Thanks
Todd
I’m a little nervous – wife and youngest daughter are headed there next month.
Steeplejack
Dude, if you’re gonna go with that headline, you need an apostrophe at the end:
aimai
We were there two years ago. Istanbul is an amazing city but the Turks we met see it as a vanishing, crushed, city that is turning into a dystopian megalopolis. The parts tourists see, including Taksim square, are at the heart of a gigantic, ever expanding, almost inhumane landscape of thrown up new buildings with very little green space or communal space. The rural areas are depopulating–have been for years–with people going first to Germany as Gastarbeiter and would be immigrants and then returning and not wanting their children to be stuck as impoverished farmers. So everyone moves into the city and needs housing, electricity, food, water, and jobs.
I don’t know about this particular riot but i think its very signficant that it seems to have been sparked by the commercialization and destruction of a lone piece of greenery at the center of a very old and entirely commercial hill at the center of the city. Basically: if you want to build a modern mall in such a crazy quilt of buildings–some dating back to the 13th and 14th century–you are going to need to appropriate the public space because there’s no other way of getting a swatch of land that is big enough. On the other hand, this is exactly where developers want to situate their developments because no one (no tourist) is going to go out to where the land is cheaper and the city less historic. Why would you? It sounds like this is part of the attempt to Disney-fy Taksim square and one of the old parts of the city (btw this area is extremely commercial as it is, being the ingtersection of a number of streets that are entirely given over to restaurants and shops aimed at the tourist trade and young turks.
thruppence
As usual, Juan Cole seems to have the best overview.
BGinCHI
Erdogan is acting like a jive turkey.
aimai
My grandfather was dying in the hospital during Tianamin square, I remember him telling me “the protests won’t end until the students from outside the capital have had a chance to come in and protest in the capital. Everyone will want to be a part of this.” This piece from the blog Valdivia posted reminded me of his (correct) observation:
GregB
Has John McCain called for an American boots on the ground intervention yet?
Baud
@GregB:
No blood for rugs!
Professor
Is it Not the same as in the USA where the Rural areas vote Republican and the Urban area generally vote Democratic? The rural areas are more Religion orientated than the urban areas!
maya
Turkey is not the place you’d want to prison shower in.
sparrow
@Todd: I would not be nervous, assuming they are going to Istanbul and not Eastern Anatolia. I spent a month there last year, and my aunt lives there now.
The situation is complex so it doesn’t fit America’s media by soundbite tradition. The secularists are basically synonymous with the military, and are what we would consider nationalists and authoritarians (just not religious ones). This is all part of the legacy of Attaturk, who was a brilliant leader and a war criminal at the same time, but more or less single handedly unified turkey and made it secular. There are young and urban people who very much like the country being secular and pro-western ( and pro-business), and these are the main body of protesters, who don’t like the democratically-elected Erdogan who is a right-wing religious conservative. He is somewhat analogous to a tea-party/religious right type politician here, In that he has strong pressure from the military/secularists to keep things secular, peaceful, and pro-western (I.e. pro-investment) but his ‘base’ of conservative, poor, and religious Turks want a religious/conservative government. The troubling thing is the recent moves by Erdogan which seem to suggest he is trying to make a go at becoming president-forever, thereby hijacking the democratic process.
All that said, Istanbul is the safest city I have ever lived in. The urban Turks, at least, are not violent, crime is extremely low, and unless things really change I see no threat to westerners even with the protesters. The only downside is that youll have to avoid the protest areas which are the best shopping/dining areas. But I really liked the Turks, they are warm Mediterranean type people.
BGinCHI
@aimai: A film to recommend if you’re interested in Turkish cinema (and culture). “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” is a brilliant film, very hard to describe. Highly recommend.
nancydarling
Bob Wright had a good discussion with Turkish journalist, Mustafa Akyol. Sounds like it started out a tempest in a teapot and government heavy-handedness/police brutality turned it into something bigger.
http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/18502
It’s just over a half hour.
Lee Rudolph
@aimai: God, how I miss your grandfather’s work.
Amir Khalid
As described in the media, the protests remind me somewhat of the Bersih 2.0 and 3.0 rallies here in Kuala Lumpur, except that the Turkish protests are more spontaneous. But at its most significant, Juan Cole notes that this thing is still only a matter of national Turkish politics. Is even John McCain stupid enough to argue for some sort of US intervention?
MomSense
@Valdivia:
Excellent links, thank you.
Amir Khalid
@maya:
“Do you like Turkish prison movies?”
— Airplane!
the Conster
It’s not a thing until Sully picks a color for his blog.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Captain Clarence Oveur and Joey
Suffern ACE
@Amir Khalid: is Obama intervening? Well then yes, we should be intervening and the lack of intervention shows how weak we are.
Have you not been paying attention to how our politics has been running the past five years?
Suffern ACE
@maya:The prisons in turkey have showers now?
Valdivia
@mistermix: @MomSense:
:) so welcome
Mike in NC
@Amir Khalid:
Yes. But first he wants to take sides in the civil war in Syria, as he explained to his BFF Bob Schieffer a few minutes ago: create a no-fly zone, crater the runways, knock out the air defenses, work closely with the Israelis to undermine the Syrian government, arm the rebels, etc. What could possibly go wrong there? We’ll be greeted as liberators, right?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Valdivia:
Thank you for making me aware of an excellent blog. I have been fascinated by Istanbul since reading Ian McDonald’s The Dervish House.
maya
@Suffern ACE: Actually, Turkey has many hot springs. On a NATO maneuver in 1965 near Izmir took a 5 mile hike through godawful dust to one large hot springs stream. Very refreshing. Then 5 miles back through the dust kind of negated the experience.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Mike in NC:
There’s no situation so complex that John McCain can’t reduce it to ordnance. Interesting that meeting with a couple of kidnapping thugs in no way diminished his credibility with the chattering class.
Violet
Speaking of John McCain, turned on my TV to check on something. Happened to be on CBS and Face the Nation was on and there was John McCain (of course). Did anyone watch it (I didn’t) and see if Bob Schieffer asked McCain about his pallin’ around with kidnappers?
maya
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Didn’t you know, John McCain is being held captive in the infamous Sunday morning Beltway Hilton? Without showers!
Beauzeaux
Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul not Constantinople
Been a long time gone
Old Constantinople’s still has Turkish delight
On a moonlight night
Evr’y gal in Constantinople
Is a Miss-stanbul, not Constantinople
So if you’ve date in Constantinople
She’ll be waiting in Istanbul
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it, I can’t say
(People just liked it better that way)
Take me back to Constantinople
No, you can’t go back to Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks’
Now that bloody song will be in my head all day.
MomSense
It is times like these when the chattering classes and the usual suspects like McCain are beating the war drums, I am so glad that we took a chance on “that one” in 2008. They are not talking about how this is related to the Iraq war–heaven forbid they take responsibility for being so wrong about Iraq and the consequences in the region.
And I would love to know what a villager has to do to lose credibility. Why isn’t McCain shunned at this point for being so wrong so much of the time?
JPL
@Violet: It’s always amusing to find out who will have John McCain on their Sunday show, but I don’t actually watch the Sunday shows. Hopefully Jason Linkins at Huff Post will update us, on what Gramps McCain had to say. I saw on mediate that Rand Paul nailed McCain for his photo-op with kidnappers, during a speech. Even if Schieffer asks McCain, I bet there are no follow ups.
JPL
@MomSense: Gosh, did you know that McCain was a POW!
Highlow
This gives solid context and background.
Xenos
@Beauzeaux:
NOT a song to be sung around my in-laws. There are several million people who are very much still pissed off about Constantinople becoming Istanbul. The Greek Orthodox Church is still headquartered there, where they can look at the minarets on the Hagia Sophia.
Tom Levenson
No real insight, but here’s an on-the-scene blog post I had forwarded to me this a.m.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Xenos:
Curiously enough, the rigid orthodoxy of one of the later Byzantine emperors was responsible for the empire’s loss of support in Egypt and Syria among other places. There were large numbers of Christians there whose form of Christianity was viewed as heretical. Their alienation led them to support the rising Islamic empire. At that time the Muslims were tolerant of Christians. Their only demand was that non-Muslims pay a head tax.
Chris
@MomSense:
It’s better to be wrong in a socially acceptable context than to be right in a way that pisses off the Village.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Chris:
Preach it! Look what happened to the editorialists who were wrong about the Iraq war versus what happened to those who were right about it.
Ramiah Ariya
I have a different take on this – not on the protests themselves, but American coverage of it. My recollection was that during the Gaza flotilla incident, Turkey was involved and the neocons and the Israel-Firsters in the US media suddenly turned their focus on Turkey as another Iran. Slowly a set of negative articles started appearing on Turkey including those pushed through several respectable outlets. I followed this for some time, and so did others.
So, I think American media would probably NOT focus on the reason for the protests. They would simply spin it as another color revolution; and soon you will probably see a few declarations of support (“We are all turkish now”) and calls for American “action”. They would not go as far as calling for bombing, particularly if the protests don’t get worse. But it will be a steady stream of negative news that may help later, in a potential issue between Israel and Turkey.
WereBear
Support President Obama.
MomSense
@Chris:
That is so depressing and so true. Whether it is support for the Iraq war, climate science denial, or support for Austerity it doesn’t matter how many times the villagers are wrong, they are never called on it and still referred to as experts.
I am beyond angry with our media. They constantly enable the stupid and dangerous.
Jebediah
@Beauzeaux:
Coincidentally, that song was already in my head before I turned on my computer and saw this post.
Now maybe somebody can put up a post about Triangle Man.
Jebediah
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Did you still have to pay the tax if you weren’t getting any?
sparrow
@Xenos: I visited the patriarchate in constantinople. The Sunday service is still being held… all of 4 people in attendance (including myself and my boyfriend). This is the church where this happened:
[Patriarch Gregory V] was taken out of the Patriarchal Cathedral on Easter Sunday, 1821, directly after celebrating the solemn Easter Liturgy, and hanged (in full Patriarchal vestments) for three days from the main gate of the Patriarchate compound by order of the Sultan; his body was then taken down and delivered to a squad of Jews who dragged it through the streets and finally threw it into the Bosphorus.
That’s just one bad memory out of centuries for the Greeks.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Jebediah:
Great; I just shot half a bottle of ale out of my nose.
burnspbesq
@Amir Khalid:
Never, ever bet against John McCain becoming more stupid.
priscianus jr
What I find interesting is that the city management issues involved in the park protest would not seem to have any particular connection with Islam at all. They seem to have to do with the appropriation of the commons (valuable public property) in sweetheart deals, something any American can identify with. In this country our postal service, public education, public libraries, you name it, are being sold out from under our noses for the benefit of hedge funds and real estate “developers”.
It does remind me of the support of the religious right for the most rampant forms of capitalism. But the religious arguments for that are not very convincing in Christianity, even less so in Islam as I understand it.
Jebediah
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Sorry, but my inner 14 year old would not be denied!
maye
I was in Istanbul right after Erdogan came to power. I had a political conversation with a young woman who was as depressed about her new leader as I was after GWB got reelected in 2004. She viewed his religiosity as a threat to Turkey’s civil society.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Jebediah:
At this point in time any laughter I can muster is most welcome. I can get more ale.
cdw
Urban centers are secular and Istanbul in particular more European, but the majority of people are Sunni Muslims and more fundamentalist in rural areas. Turkey reined in it’s Muslim influences because of it’s desire to join the EU. But the Turkish economy has been doing well and the need to join the EU is fading, which gives Erdogan the freedom to tilt his politics to the majority Sunni factions. If I remember correctly Erdogan cannot run for PM again. In any case, he’s planning (plotting?) to convert to a strong presidential system with him as president.
Xenos
@sparrow: Unfortunately, the Greeks proceeded to murder tens of thousands of Turkish and Jewish women and children in the years that followed. Tripoli, in the Peloponnese, saw 40,000 civilians murdered. The only Jewish community left in Greece was in Salonica, and only because the Turks held on to it for a few decades. Then the Nazis came in and finished the job.
Mnemosyne
@Ramiah Ariya:
I am sorry to say that I think you’re right. Turkey has been our ally for at least as long as Israel has (perhaps even longer), but for some politicians in the US, Israel is our crazy, abusive girlfriend and we have to alienate everyone else in our lives if that’s what we think she wants, even when the people we’re alienating are some of our oldest and most loyal friends.
Yatsuno
@Mnemosyne: Turkey is in NATO. Israel is not. Israel could stand to be reminded of that fact every now and again.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Yatsuno:
True, that. Turkish intervention in the Syrian civil war from the north and Israeli intervention from the south, for completely different reasons, may place our administration in a tough spot. I think that there’s considerable enmity between the two nations and having them both slinging destruction in the same arena seems to me to be an invitation to disaster.
Svensker
@Ramiah Ariya:
Yes, I agree.
My Greek relatives are all screaming that the Greek riots were not covered here sympathetically while the Turkish protests are and how obviously anti-Greek the Western media is. But the Greeks were protesting the banksters, which is not viewed with favor here, while the Turks are protesting a Muslim guy who doesn’t bow down to the hegemony of People We Like.
eemom
@Xenos:
My mother says there was a Jewish community in Xania, Crete, where she grew up….until the Nazis.
Russ
The main complaint of many Turks is that this new PM has numerous women he associates with, wear their heads and faces covered and dress with clothing that exposes a minimum of skin. Yet when they are inside out of view of the public dress like Madonna onstage. One of my friends is Turkish and she told me this this morning when watching RT News on PBS.
cleek
mistermix is not aware of all internet traditions.
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/05/22/country-first-5/#comment-2598977
Chris
@cdw:
I don’t think the need to join the EU is fading so much as too many Europeans have made it clear that Lousy Stinking Hajjis are not welcome as far as they’re concerned. “Okay, fuck you too!” is a natural response.
I wanted them in the EU precisely for this reason, incidentally, because the prospect of Turkey drifting back in the other direction after being rejected didn’t appeal to me. But oh well.
Chris
@Russ:
Is there an “All Fundies Are Hypocrites” tag? There oughta be.
the Conster
A Turkish college student made this YouTube to explain why, and why today. They’re fed up of being afraid of their arbitrary government clamping down on freedoms. Just like it ever was.
Sgaile-beairt
amazing foto from foz meadows,
http://fozmeadows.tumblr.com/image/51959418196
and a manifesto & article from pharyngula
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/world/europe/despite-protests-turkey-vows-to-push-ahead-with-plans-for-square.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2013/06/turkishdeclaration.jpg
the text seems to come from a handout given to OWs
http://occupywallst.org/forum/this-is-not-about-a-park-occupy-gezi-diren-istanbu/
and there is more context herefor the other issues
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/islamization-istanbul-turkey.html
mclaren
My sense is that this is one of those periodic climaxes of tension twixt the secular-but-extremely-high-handed-and-quasi-authoritarian segment of the government, and the political forces that are more traditionally Islamic. Turkey has a long tradition of paramilitary government style by its elected leaders, ever since a military leader took over the country by a peaceful coup (Kamal Attaturk) and then resigned to let a democracy flourish.
Turkey is the most secular of all the Islamic countries in the middle east so there are plenty of tensions there. I’m guessing it’s not quite as serious as it looks to outsiders. But that’s just my guess.
The protesters aren’t calling for systemic changes in the government, AFAIK, only for a change in the current leadership. Very different from the protests in Egypt, Syria, etc.
Matt McIrvin
The guy I know online who’s been talking about the situation a lot keeps identifying Erdogan as an American puppet and claiming the US is behind Islamist government in Turkey. But I don’t know how widespread a perception that actually is; dude’s also a 9/11 truther.