Long Read:
Letter from Istanbul
7 June 2013
¶ The Web log Fikir Mahsulleri Ofisi generally posts entries in Turkish, but every now and then something really insightful appears in English. Such a one is Alper Yagci’s entry, posted today: “Understanding the Protests in Turkey.” Last week, at our sister site, we had occasion to reflect on the importance of a loyal opposition in any democratic scheme; Yagci’s analysis adds a further dimension to the discussion. The regime of Tayyip Recip Erdoğan has come to be called “majoritarian” — a positive-sounding way of saying that minority views are ignored at best. We see that it is the role of the loyal opposition to counter majoritarian urges in an effective manner. But the regime’s opponents are too fractured to mount an opposition.
The very diversity of the people attending the ongoing protests, although a welcome sign that Turkish people have got better at coexisting in diversity, is also the reason that they are not likely to come together behind a single electoral vehicle. The main opposition party—the secularly-oriented Republican People’s Party (CHP after its Turkish initials) cannot expect to form an alliance with the Kurdish party (Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP after its Turkish initials) without alienating the Turkish nationalists in its own electoral base, and it is also far from doing enough to invite to its ranks the groups currently standing outside somewhere to its left. The creative, youthful, non-violent yet irreverent tactics of the current protests may inspire the party leadership to energize their followers in similar ways and expand their appeal, but this is yet to be seen. The ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), on the other hand, stands closer to JDP itself than to any other political organization. And the military, until not long ago a cornerstone of every analysis of Turkish politics, is now non-existent as a political actor, having been decisively sent back to the barracks through a series of political and legal moves by the JDP government over the last decade. This political landscape would mean that the protests are probably not heralding an end to the JDP era in the predictable future, but aspiring to mark the upper limit of the JDP’s power. Erdogan and his party had ridden a wave of almost uninterrupted political triumphs, collecting accolades domestically and internationally for eleven years. Their power seemed to be destined to increase. A cross-class, non-partisan collective of common people have now raised their voice to put a halt to this trend for now.
We have to say that the Taksim Gezi Park crisis has considerably dampened our enthusiasm for President Erdoğan.