America’s Dark View of Turkish Premier Erdogan
1.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, center, has surrounded himself with “an iron ring of sycophantic (but contemptuous) advisors,” according to US diplomatic cables.
The US is concerned about its NATO ally Turkey. Embassy dispatches portray Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a power-hungry Islamist surrounded by corrupt and incompetent ministers. Washington no longer believes that the country will ever join the European Union.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the most important Muslim ally of the United States. On coming into office he promised a democratic Islam — a vision that could have become a model for other countries in the region.
But if the US dispatches are to be believed, Turkey is far from realizing that vision. Erdogan? A power-hungry Islamist. His ministers? Incompetent, uneducated and some of them corrupt. The government? Divided. The opposition? Ridiculous.
US diplomats have sent thousands of reports from Ankara to Washington in the past 31 years. Recent documents, though, are merciless. They convey an image of Turkey which is at odds with almost everything the US government has officially said about the country.
First and foremost, the US distrusts Erdogan. A dispatch dated May 2005 says that he has never had a realistic worldview. Erdogan, the document says, thinks he was chosen by God to lead Turkey and likes to present himself as the “Tribune of Anatolia.”
US diplomats claim that Erdogan gets almost all of his information from Islamist-leaning newspapers — analysis from his ministries, they say, is of no interest to him. The military, the second largest among NATO member states, and the secret service no longer send him some of their reports. He trusts nobody completely, the dispatches say, and surrounds himselves with “an iron ring of sycophantic (but contemptuous) advisors.” Despite his bravado, he is said to be terrified of losing his grip on power. One authority on Erdogan told the Americans: “Tayyip believes in God … but doesn’t trust him.”
The US is concerned about its NATO ally Turkey. Embassy dispatches portray Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a power-hungry Islamist surrounded by corrupt and incompetent ministers. Washington no longer believes that the country will ever join the European Union.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the most important Muslim ally of the United States. On coming into office he promised a democratic Islam — a vision that could have become a model for other countries in the region.
But if the US dispatches are to be believed, Turkey is far from realizing that vision. Erdogan? A power-hungry Islamist. His ministers? Incompetent, uneducated and some of them corrupt. The government? Divided. The opposition? Ridiculous.
US diplomats have sent thousands of reports from Ankara to Washington in the past 31 years. Recent documents, though, are merciless. They convey an image of Turkey which is at odds with almost everything the US government has officially said about the country.
First and foremost, the US distrusts Erdogan. A dispatch dated May 2005 says that he has never had a realistic worldview. Erdogan, the document says, thinks he was chosen by God to lead Turkey and likes to present himself as the “Tribune of Anatolia.”
US diplomats claim that Erdogan gets almost all of his information from Islamist-leaning newspapers — analysis from his ministries, they say, is of no interest to him. The military, the second largest among NATO member states, and the secret service no longer send him some of their reports. He trusts nobody completely, the dispatches say, and surrounds himselves with “an iron ring of sycophantic (but contemptuous) advisors.” Despite his bravado, he is said to be terrified of losing his grip on power. One authority on Erdogan told the Americans: “Tayyip believes in God … but doesn’t trust him.”
Accusations of Corruption
Erdogan took office as prime minister in 2003, two years after having founded his party, the Islamic-conservative AKP. During the campaign Erdogan announced his intention to tackle corruption.
Since 2004, however, informants have been telling US diplomats in Turkey of corruption at all levels, even within the Erdogan family. None of the accusations have been proven — it could be that the informants merely want to denigrate the premier. But their reports help shape the Americans’ image of Turkey — and as such they are devastating.
The rumors sound outrageous. A senior government advisor is said to have confided to a journalist that Erdogan enriched himself from the privatization of a state oil refinery. Furthermore, a source within the Ministry of Energy told the US that the prime minister pressured the Iranians to ink a gas pipeline deal with a Turkish company owned by an old schoolmate of his. The deal surprised observers: the company builds ports, but has little experience in the energy business. Two unnamed US sources claim that Erdogan presides over eight Swiss bank accounts.
Erdogan’s party, the AKP, vehemently denies all allegations. And the premier says he acquired his wealth in the form of gifts presented by guests at his son’s wedding. Furthermore, he says, a Turkish businessman is paying for his four children to study in the US. The American Embassy sees such explanations as “lame.”
Erdogan took office as prime minister in 2003, two years after having founded his party, the Islamic-conservative AKP. During the campaign Erdogan announced his intention to tackle corruption.
Since 2004, however, informants have been telling US diplomats in Turkey of corruption at all levels, even within the Erdogan family. None of the accusations have been proven — it could be that the informants merely want to denigrate the premier. But their reports help shape the Americans’ image of Turkey — and as such they are devastating.
The rumors sound outrageous. A senior government advisor is said to have confided to a journalist that Erdogan enriched himself from the privatization of a state oil refinery. Furthermore, a source within the Ministry of Energy told the US that the prime minister pressured the Iranians to ink a gas pipeline deal with a Turkish company owned by an old schoolmate of his. The deal surprised observers: the company builds ports, but has little experience in the energy business. Two unnamed US sources claim that Erdogan presides over eight Swiss bank accounts.
Erdogan’s party, the AKP, vehemently denies all allegations. And the premier says he acquired his wealth in the form of gifts presented by guests at his son’s wedding. Furthermore, he says, a Turkish businessman is paying for his four children to study in the US. The American Embassy sees such explanations as “lame.”
A ‘Lack of Technocratic Depth’
Erdogan, though, apparently knows how to score points at the grass roots level. According to US dispatches, when his AKP suffered a painful defeat in the Trabzon mayoral election of 2004, he allegedly installed his close friend Faruk Nafiz Özak as the head of the local Trabzonspor football club. In accusations which have not been proven, informants told the US Embassy that Erdogan sent Özak millions of dollars from a secret government account. Özak was to use the money, states a dispatch dated June 2005, to buy better players in an effort to overshadow the mayor. Erdogan did not respond to SPIEGEL efforts to contact him, but said on Monday that the credibility of WikiLeaks was questionable.
According to US Embassy analysis, he has transformed the AKP into a party which works almost exclusively on his behalf. Many top AKP leaders including Erdogan and President Abdullah Gül are said to be members of a Muslim fraternity.
There is generally a “lack of technocratic depth” in the government, criticized US Ambassador Eric Edelman back in January 2004: “While some AK appointees appear to be capable of learning on the job, others are incompetent or seem to be pursuing private … interests” or those of their religious congretations. “We hear constant anecdotal evidence … that AK appointees at the national and provincial levels are incompetent or narrow-minded Islamists.”
Many high-ranking state officials have told the Americans they are appalled by Erdogan’s staff. Erdogan, one such official told US diplomats, appointed a man exhibiting “incompetence, prejudices and ignorance” as his undersecretary. Another informant told the US that Women’s Minister Nimet Çubukçu, an advocate of criminalizing adultery, got her job because she is a friend Erdogan’s wife, Emine. Another minister is accused of nepotism, links to heroin smuggling and a predeliction for underage girls.
Getting Off the Train
Erdogan and the AKP are revered by the electorate. The prime minister is a “natural politician,” US diplomats wrote in one dispatch from early 2004. He “possesses a common touch,” is “charismatic” and has “street-fighter instincts.” The prime minister grew up in Kasimpaa, a rough port district of Istanbul, and became involved in a radical Islamist organization as a young man before joining the conservative Order of the Nakibendye. Before entering government, he said: “Democracy is like a train. We shall get out when we arrive at the station we want.”
As a young man he met Abdullah Gül, with whom he later orchestrated the rise of the AKP. A deep-seated rivalry now exists between the two. Again and again Gül has stirred up trouble against Erdogan, particularly when the prime minister is traveling abroad. In a report from March 2005 when Gül was Turkish foreign minister, US diplomats described this as Gül’s attempt to undermine Erdogan’s policies and gain more power in the party. Unlike Erdogan, Gül speaks English, say the diplomats, and presents himself as moderate and modern.
In truth, however, the US sees Gül as more ideological than Erdogan and anti-Western, according to embassy dispatches based on statements from those close to Gül. Gül uses almost every opportunity to make Erdogan look bad, the documents claim, even talking badly about him in front of state visitors. Gül worked for a long time to become president and therefore Erdogan’s equal. Erdogan tried to prevent his rise — without success. In the summer of 2007 Gül took up residence in the presidential palace in Ankara.
‘Murky’ and ‘Muddled’
US diplomats are likewise unflinching when it comes to Erdogan’s advisor and foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. They say he understands little about politics outside of Ankara. They see this as unfortunate, because they want to see Turkey join the EU — but they don’t believe it will ever happen. In order to make progress toward EU accession, the US ambassador wrote, the government must “hire a couple thousand people skilled in English or other major EU languages and up to the bureaucratic demands of interfacing with the Eurocrats.” The AKP, write US diplomats, had thus far employed mostly confidants from the Sunni brotherhoods.
Some AKP politicians, according to a US assessment, support Turkish membership in the EU for “murky” and “muddled” reasons, for example because they believe Turkey must spread Islam in Europe. A US dispatch from late 2004 reports that a member of a leading AKP think tank said that Turkey’s role is “to take back Andalusia and avenge the defeat at the siege of Vienna in 1683.”
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu largely shares this viewpoint and the Americans are alarmed by his imperialistic tone. In a summary of a speech by Davutoglu delivered in Sarajevo in January 2010, the US ambassador wrote: “His thesis: the Balkans, Caucasus and Middle East were all better off when under Ottoman control or influence; peace and progress prevailed. Alas the region has been ravaged by division and war ever since…. However, now Turkey is back, ready to lead or even unite. (Davutoglu: ‘We will re-establish this (Ottoman) Balkan’).”
US diplomats are likewise unflinching when it comes to Erdogan’s advisor and foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. They say he understands little about politics outside of Ankara. They see this as unfortunate, because they want to see Turkey join the EU — but they don’t believe it will ever happen. In order to make progress toward EU accession, the US ambassador wrote, the government must “hire a couple thousand people skilled in English or other major EU languages and up to the bureaucratic demands of interfacing with the Eurocrats.” The AKP, write US diplomats, had thus far employed mostly confidants from the Sunni brotherhoods.
Some AKP politicians, according to a US assessment, support Turkish membership in the EU for “murky” and “muddled” reasons, for example because they believe Turkey must spread Islam in Europe. A US dispatch from late 2004 reports that a member of a leading AKP think tank said that Turkey’s role is “to take back Andalusia and avenge the defeat at the siege of Vienna in 1683.”
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu largely shares this viewpoint and the Americans are alarmed by his imperialistic tone. In a summary of a speech by Davutoglu delivered in Sarajevo in January 2010, the US ambassador wrote: “His thesis: the Balkans, Caucasus and Middle East were all better off when under Ottoman control or influence; peace and progress prevailed. Alas the region has been ravaged by division and war ever since…. However, now Turkey is back, ready to lead or even unite. (Davutoglu: ‘We will re-establish this (Ottoman) Balkan’).”
Of Rolls Royce and Rover
Davutoglu’s hubris and his neo-Ottoman vision is cause for US concern. Turkey has “Rolls Royce ambitions but Rover resources,” reads the same 2010 cable. According to embassy dispatches from 2004, Defense Minister Mehmet Gönül warned of Davutoglu’s Islamist influence on Erdogan. He is “exceptionally dangerous” Gönül told the US.
Under Erdogan, relations with Israel have dramatically deteriorated. The two governments are at odds over the war against Hamas in late 2008 and early 2009 and over the attack on the Gaza fleet earlier this year. The Israeli ambassador to Ankara, Gabby Levy, claimed in October 2009 that Erdogan was behind the cooling of relations: “He’s a fundamentalist. He hates us religiously,” Levy was quoted as saying in a confidential US embassy dispatch from October 2009.
The Americans are watching with concern as Erdogan distances NATO member-state Turkey further and further from the West. They are concerned about the country’s stability. “Every day is a new one here, and no one can be certain where this whole choreography will fall out of whack,” James Jeffrey, then the US ambassador in Turkey, wrote in late February 2010. “Then, look out.”
Translated from the German by Josie Le Blon
By Maximilian Popp
REUTERS
ΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΕΤΑΙ ΣΤΟ '' www.anixneuseis.gr '' 15/6/2013
ΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΕΤΑΙ ΣΤΟ '' www.anixneuseis.gr '' 15/6/2013
2.
Από την αρχή της προεδρικής του θητείας, ο Αμερικανός ηγέτης επέλεξε την Τουρκία του Ταγίπ Ερντογάν ως τον πλέον στενό σύμμαχο της υπερδύναμης, παρασυρόμενος από συνεργάτες του, που στο παρελθόν υπήρξαν έμμισθοι απολογητές της Αγκυρας μέσα από «δεξαμενές σκέψης». Θα είναι αμείλικτοι οι ιστορικοί όταν γράψουν τα υπέρ και τα κατά, τα σωστά και τα λάθη της προεδρίας Ομπάμα. Η επιλογή να καταστήσει τον Ταγίπ Ερντογάν ως «μόνο φίλο» του, εις βάρος της παραδοσιακής σχέσης με το Ισραήλ, θα καταγραφεί ως το μεγαλύτερο του λάθος. Ούτε ο ίδιος σαν Πρόεδρος ούτε οι Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες είχαν το παραμικρό κέρδος από αυτή την «ανάρμοστη σχέση», που έφτασε να αγγίξει και τις οικογενειακές τους υποθέσεις. Σύμφωνα με την ομολογία του κ. Ομπάμα, ο πρωθυπουργός της Τουρκίας αναδείχθηκε και «σύμβουλος» του για την ανατροφή των θυγατέρων του. Ας ελπίσουμε ότι δεν θα τις δούμε και με …τσαντόρ.
Μην έχετε την παραμικρή αμφιβολία ότι τα προβλήματα του κ. Ερντογάν, ιδιαίτερα αυτές οι φρικιαστικές σκηνές απαράδεκτης αστυνομικής βίας, προβλημάτισαν τον Αμερικανό πρόεδρο, διότι από τη φύση του είναι ένας πολύ δημοκρατικός άνθρωπος. Δεν ανέχεται τη βία, αν και σαν Πρόεδρος έχει αναγκαστεί να εγκρίνει δολοφονικές επιθέσεις εναντίον των εχθρών, υπαρκτών και ανύπαρκτων, της Αμερικής. Ακόμα και αν ξεπεράσει αυτή την κρίση ο κ. Ερντογάν, το μέγα πρόβλημα για τον ίδιο αλλά και τον κ. Ομπάμα, είναι η εξαφάνιση κάθε ίχνους αξιοπιστίας, που απέκτησε με τη συνδρομή του Λευκού Οίκου.
Οι Αμερικανοί διπλωμάτες που πέρασαν από την Αγκυρα και την Κωνσταντινούπολη, έχουν προειδοποιήσει άπειρες φορές ότι ο Τούρκος πρωθυπουργός δεν είναι αυτός που δείχνει. Εχουν καταγράψει ένα οξύθυμο και προβληματικό Ερντογάν, έντονα αυταρχικό με ψυχολογικά προβλήματα, ο οποίος έχει προσωπική ισλαμική ατζέντα. Ολα αυτά που πληροφορήθηκε η διεθνής κοινότητα μετά την έκρηξη του λαού στην Κωνσταντινούπολη, την Αγκυρα και άλλες πόλεις, ήταν γνωστά στην Ουάσιγκτον. Οταν τα γνωρίζουμε οι δημοσιογράφοι είναι δυνατόν να τα αγνοεί ο Πρόεδρος της Αμερικής; Αποκλείεται. Αλλωστε, στη μαζική διαρροή μέσω του στρατιώτη Μάνιγκ, πολλά από τα τηλεγραφήματα δημοσιοποιήθηκαν και ΔΕΝ διαψεύστηκαν.
Είναι γεγονός βέβαια ότι μετά την επίσκεψη του κ. Ερντογάν στην Ουάσιγκτον, ο κ. Ομπάμα «κρύωσε» όταν ο Τούρκος ηγέτης απέρριψε όλα του τα αιτήματα και απαίτησε επίσημο δείπνο με σεβασμό στις ισλαμικές παραδόσεις. Ομως, ο Πρόεδρος της Αμερικής ελέγχεται επειδή κατέστησε τον κ. Ερντογάν ως τον πλέον αξιόπιστο συνομιλητή του διεθνώς, παραβλέποντας τα μηνύματα των Αμερικανών διπλωματών από την Αγκυρα και τις συμβουλές του σοφού αντιπροέδρου Τζόζεφ Μπάϊντεν, που γνωρίζει καλύτερα από τον καθένα την αναξιοπιστία των Τούρκων πολιτικών διαχρονικά. Ο κ. Ομπάμα έπαιξε όλα του τα πολιτικά «λεφτά» στο χαρτί του κ. Ερντογάν και όπως έδειξε η απάνθρωπη βία που επέδειξε η φασίζουσα αστυνομία της Τουρκίας, θα τα χάσει…
Τα πράγματα είναι πολύ σοβαρά όταν ο αρχηγός της CIA ενημερώνει τον Ομπάμα για την Τουρκία
Οταν οι αρχηγοί των αμερικανικών μυστικών υπηρεσιών επιλέγουν να θέσουν στην ημερησία διάταξη της ενημέρωσης του Προέδρου Μπάρακ Ομπάμα ως πρώτο θέμα συζήτησης μία χώρα, τότε τα πράγματα είναι πάρα πολύ σοβαρά για την κυβέρνησή της. Αυτό συνέβη και την περασμένη Παρασκευή όταν ξεκίνησαν τα επεισόδια στην Κωνσταντινούπολη, και το Σαββατοκύριακο όταν ο κ. Ομπάμα προτίμησε μία παρτίδα γκόλφ με τους φίλους του. Η κατάσταση στην Τουρκία ήταν το βασικό θέμα στην προεδρική ατζέντα.Από την αρχή της προεδρικής του θητείας, ο Αμερικανός ηγέτης επέλεξε την Τουρκία του Ταγίπ Ερντογάν ως τον πλέον στενό σύμμαχο της υπερδύναμης, παρασυρόμενος από συνεργάτες του, που στο παρελθόν υπήρξαν έμμισθοι απολογητές της Αγκυρας μέσα από «δεξαμενές σκέψης». Θα είναι αμείλικτοι οι ιστορικοί όταν γράψουν τα υπέρ και τα κατά, τα σωστά και τα λάθη της προεδρίας Ομπάμα. Η επιλογή να καταστήσει τον Ταγίπ Ερντογάν ως «μόνο φίλο» του, εις βάρος της παραδοσιακής σχέσης με το Ισραήλ, θα καταγραφεί ως το μεγαλύτερο του λάθος. Ούτε ο ίδιος σαν Πρόεδρος ούτε οι Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες είχαν το παραμικρό κέρδος από αυτή την «ανάρμοστη σχέση», που έφτασε να αγγίξει και τις οικογενειακές τους υποθέσεις. Σύμφωνα με την ομολογία του κ. Ομπάμα, ο πρωθυπουργός της Τουρκίας αναδείχθηκε και «σύμβουλος» του για την ανατροφή των θυγατέρων του. Ας ελπίσουμε ότι δεν θα τις δούμε και με …τσαντόρ.
Μην έχετε την παραμικρή αμφιβολία ότι τα προβλήματα του κ. Ερντογάν, ιδιαίτερα αυτές οι φρικιαστικές σκηνές απαράδεκτης αστυνομικής βίας, προβλημάτισαν τον Αμερικανό πρόεδρο, διότι από τη φύση του είναι ένας πολύ δημοκρατικός άνθρωπος. Δεν ανέχεται τη βία, αν και σαν Πρόεδρος έχει αναγκαστεί να εγκρίνει δολοφονικές επιθέσεις εναντίον των εχθρών, υπαρκτών και ανύπαρκτων, της Αμερικής. Ακόμα και αν ξεπεράσει αυτή την κρίση ο κ. Ερντογάν, το μέγα πρόβλημα για τον ίδιο αλλά και τον κ. Ομπάμα, είναι η εξαφάνιση κάθε ίχνους αξιοπιστίας, που απέκτησε με τη συνδρομή του Λευκού Οίκου.
Οι Αμερικανοί διπλωμάτες που πέρασαν από την Αγκυρα και την Κωνσταντινούπολη, έχουν προειδοποιήσει άπειρες φορές ότι ο Τούρκος πρωθυπουργός δεν είναι αυτός που δείχνει. Εχουν καταγράψει ένα οξύθυμο και προβληματικό Ερντογάν, έντονα αυταρχικό με ψυχολογικά προβλήματα, ο οποίος έχει προσωπική ισλαμική ατζέντα. Ολα αυτά που πληροφορήθηκε η διεθνής κοινότητα μετά την έκρηξη του λαού στην Κωνσταντινούπολη, την Αγκυρα και άλλες πόλεις, ήταν γνωστά στην Ουάσιγκτον. Οταν τα γνωρίζουμε οι δημοσιογράφοι είναι δυνατόν να τα αγνοεί ο Πρόεδρος της Αμερικής; Αποκλείεται. Αλλωστε, στη μαζική διαρροή μέσω του στρατιώτη Μάνιγκ, πολλά από τα τηλεγραφήματα δημοσιοποιήθηκαν και ΔΕΝ διαψεύστηκαν.
Είναι γεγονός βέβαια ότι μετά την επίσκεψη του κ. Ερντογάν στην Ουάσιγκτον, ο κ. Ομπάμα «κρύωσε» όταν ο Τούρκος ηγέτης απέρριψε όλα του τα αιτήματα και απαίτησε επίσημο δείπνο με σεβασμό στις ισλαμικές παραδόσεις. Ομως, ο Πρόεδρος της Αμερικής ελέγχεται επειδή κατέστησε τον κ. Ερντογάν ως τον πλέον αξιόπιστο συνομιλητή του διεθνώς, παραβλέποντας τα μηνύματα των Αμερικανών διπλωματών από την Αγκυρα και τις συμβουλές του σοφού αντιπροέδρου Τζόζεφ Μπάϊντεν, που γνωρίζει καλύτερα από τον καθένα την αναξιοπιστία των Τούρκων πολιτικών διαχρονικά. Ο κ. Ομπάμα έπαιξε όλα του τα πολιτικά «λεφτά» στο χαρτί του κ. Ερντογάν και όπως έδειξε η απάνθρωπη βία που επέδειξε η φασίζουσα αστυνομία της Τουρκίας, θα τα χάσει…
Του ΜΙΧΑΛΗ ΙΓΝΑΤΙΟΥ
www.anixneuseis.gr
10-6-2013
3.
The police removed the inoffensive tree-huggers in a surprise dawn raid, using violence so disproportionate and sadistic — and unfortunately for the police, so filmed — as to set off enraged demonstrations around the country. These, in turn, provoked even more psychotic retaliation from the police. Every story you’ve read of the brutality the cops inflicted on peaceful protesters is true, and more. I saw it. I’ve been seeing it with my own eyes for weeks, but by far the worst took place on Tuesday, when the police descended in the early morning to retake Taksim Square, directly after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had lulled the protesters with promises to meet them the next day to listen to their concerns.
The surprise attack began at 7.30 a.m. Black smoke quickly rose over the square, and tear gas enveloped the entire neighbourhood. Then the water cannon arrived, half a dozen, followed by another burst of gas. While at least six cameras from Taksim were feeding this scene live to the entire country, Istanbul Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu assured the public, on Twitter, that ‘some protestors used materials that release fog and smoke. We should all know that their purpose is making the impression that the police used excessive gas.’ It didn’t occur to him, I suppose, that it is not just fog and smoke that indicates the presence of a lachrymatory agent. He also promised the protesters that only Taksim itself would be ‘cleaned’. The protesters and the park, he swore, would ‘never’ be harmed.
Three hours later, protesters formed a human chain around the park to prevent the police from recapturing it, but the cops shot rubber bullets, beat up journalists, and detained not only countless protesters, but their lawyers — 79 lawyers, according to the Istanbul Bar Association. The government is now dropping hints about an ‘operation’ against ‘provocateurs’ on Twitter — not an idle threat, for many have already been detained for writing ‘misinformation’, which apparently encompasses, among other things, tweeting the phone numbers of physicians on duty. A Turkish journalist reports that prosecutors have obtained warrants to seize any mobile phone they require. I have not yet been able to confirm this, but it wouldn’t in the least surprise me.
But this was just the beginning. After an afternoon of calm, on a lovely summer evening, some 30,000 people returned in force to Taksim Square — their square, after all, as it has always been. The police responded with an even more vicious strike, blanketing the massive crowd with a cumulonimbus cloud of gas accompanied by sound grenades. Terrified and choking, the crowd — students, street vendors, women in dresses and summer sandals — stampeded into the surrounding streets. Parents were separated from their young children. Someone tweeted frantically that her sister had fallen and the panicked crowds had run right over her. The police shot water cannon at a man in a wheelchair who had been brandishing the Turkish flag.
Writing blood types on their arms, volunteers ferried the injured to a makeshift field hospital. Chanting gangs of extremist opportunists (who bore little resemblance to the peaceful demonstrators in the park) taunted police in the streets leading toward the Golden Horn, drawing tear gas and water cannon through the whole of Istanbul’s old Pera district. International reporters, who have become accustomed of late to police crackdowns, described this as the worst in recent memory.
After a fortnight of clashes, four deaths have so far been confirmed; an untold number have suffered severe brain injuries; and at least ten young people have lost an eye after being shot by plastic bullets. Reports of injuries are coming in fast, but they are hard to confirm. The Turkish Human Rights Foundation is now placing the number at some 5,000, based on hospital reports. But keep in mind that not everyone who is wounded goes to the hospital. A gas grenade to the leg can cause a great deal of injury, but for those who can’t afford medical bills, it’s a hell of a hassle to go to an already overflowing state emergency ward — not least because the cops have been chasing protesters right into those very wards and gassing them there, too.
Moreover, many doctors, presumably under state pressure, don’t record ‘clashes with police’ as the cause of injury, but report instead that the victim has ‘had an accident’. (It is also possible that doctors are trying to protect their patients from subsequently being arrested as ‘rioters’.) I obtained records, however, from the hospitals in my neighbourhood, which is close to Taksim Square. I was stunned by what I read: each hospital listed hundreds of injuries — ‘A 22-year-old male has lost his left eye due to a plastic bullet … a 19-year-old male is being watched closely with a subdural haematoma diagnosis … trauma in the testicle … trauma of the left eye … has lost all eyesight … maxillo-facial trauma … brain haemorrhage … life-threatening condition…’ The reports went on for pages, and the doctors were quite firm that these were not ‘accidents’.
Perhaps the most painful part of the whole thing so far was the glimpse of peace we enjoyed for several days in Taksim Square and Gezi Park in the lull between the attacks. That was when we saw, all too briefly, what this city could be.
Last Friday was peaceful — despite Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strenuous effort to aggravate the situation by making speeches so unrepentant and inflammatory that the benchmark Istanbul Bourse tumbled with every word that came out of his mouth. One speech, in particular, caused the stock exchange to tank by 7.5 per cent. (I leave it to the mathematicians to calculate the per-word cost of that speech to the nation’s GNP.)
Nonetheless, somehow the command seemed to have come down from above — from where, no one knows — to call off the dogs for the day. Several days earlier, Erdogan, thank God, had scuttled out of the country to attend some exceedingly urgent North African pourparler, leaving his beleaguered underlings to handle the chaos. Within hours of his departure, the police withdrew from Taksim, leaving only their burnt-out vans as mementos. And for a few days, Taksim and Gezi Park became the City of Evet.
Let me explain. In 1978, Jan Morris — to my mind one of the century’s greatest travel writers — visited Istanbul. She wrote a superbly observed essay titled ‘City of Yok’, which would be loosely translated as ‘City of No’, but ‘No’ doesn’t quite capture the entirety of it. ‘I don’t speak Turkish yet,’ she wrote, ‘but yok appears to be a sort of general purpose discouragement, to imply that (for instance) it can’t be done, she isn’t home, the shop’s shut, the train’s left, take it or leave it, you can’t come this way, or there’s no good making a fuss over it.’ The opposite of yok is evet — meaning yes, and it has no analogous counter-associations, which tells you something right there.
But on Friday night, I strolled through Taksim and Gezi Park, and for the first time in the decade I’ve lived in Istanbul, I found myself in the City of Evet. It felt like a free country. I have never seen anything like this before in Turkey. I walk through Taksim all the time, and it is always full of cops, uniformed and plain-clothed. Don’t misunderstand me: they are there for a very good reason. In 2010, I narrowly missed a suicide bomber dispatched to Taksim by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, a splinter group of the terrorist PKK. The bomb went off at 10.34 in the morning. Were it not for my laziness — I had slept in — my limbs would have joined all the others splattered across the square’s pavement. The PKK and its affiliates have attacked Taksim four times since 1995.
Taksim and Gezi Park, last weekend, were different, and the most obvious difference was the absence of that special gloom imparted by the sight of phalanx upon phalanx of heavily armed coppers giving every passer-by the hairy eyeball. And it was glorious — a huge innocent carnival, filled with improbable (I would have hitherto thought impossible) scenes of nationalist Turks mingling amiably with nationalist Kurds, the latter dancing to some strange ghastly species of techno-Halay, the former pumping their fists in the air and chanting their eternal allegiance to something very nationalist, I’m sure. Balloons lit with candles sailed over the sky; hawkers sold every species of Gezi souvenir, and the only smell of pepper in the air came from the grilled meatballs served in hunks of fresh bread and sprinkled with chilli powder.
Among the protesters’ grievances was the prime minister’s imperious effort to pass restrictive new laws on alcohol sales, so in a gesture of special defiance, entrepreneurial protesters — or maybe just entrepreneurial Turks — sold ice-cold beer from coolers. (I’ve never before seen anyone sell beer from coolers in the streets of Istanbul.)
There were commies and pinkos of every species sharing that beer with right-wing whackjobs of every stripe — groups that in the 1970s fought gun battles here, drenching the streets in blood and leading to the 1980 coup. The communists didn’t seem the sort to worry about — when people complained that the price of beer had risen in response to demand, they shrugged: ‘What can we do? If people want to sell it, we can’t stop them.’
There were trade unionists and doctors and ordinary yuppies and, mostly, college kids; there were gays, Alevis, Sufis and yogis; there were impromptu skits — all making fun of the government, and some of them very funny but untranslatable both linguistically and culturally; there was impromptu dancing (innocent and sexless by western standards), barkers enjoining the crowd to jump up and down for the liberation of the park (and everyone did), a stall that advertised itself as the park’s new free lending library, and vast crowds of people smiling in a silly, carefree way that grave Istanbullus, serious people, people who dress in dark colours and worry terribly about what the neighbours will think, rarely do.
Imagine Glastonbury, perhaps, without so much as a whiff of weed. I know that’s an oxymoron, but it’s the best I can do. These (mostly) kids were nothing like the Occupy Wall Street crowd; they had no idea what they were doing, politically — no leaflets, none of that creepy human microphone stuff, no idea who Saul Alinsky is, no one using the streets as a urinal. Everyone was happy. Everyone was doing precisely as they pleased. For once, I could see what Turkey would be like if it could only get its damned omnipresent, omni-meddling, always-watching, always-listening state off its back.
But by Tuesday night, the City of Evet was long gone. Scores of those silly, innocent tree-huggers have been hospitalised, and the casualty count is appalling.
The worst of it is that no one has any idea why this happened. Erdogan has doubled-down on his insistence that the protests represent a complex conspiracy against his person, cooked up by foreigners and terrorists and what he has termed ‘financial institutions, the interest-rate lobby and media groups’. (I leave it to the reader to ponder and parse the historical significance of these references to conspirators who control the banks and the media.) Officials in his own party are publicly asking him if he’s trying to start a civil war.
On Wednesday morning there was an uneasy calm in Taksim Square, but there was and will be no return of the City of Evet. Istanbul is once again the City of Yok.
15 June 2013
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8934351/turkeys-agony-the-view-from-taksim-square/
www.anixneuseis.gr
10-6-2013
3.
Turkey’s agony – how Erdogan turned a peaceful protest into a violent nightmare
The view from Taksim Square
Istanbul
By now, everyone has heard of the brutal suppression of protests all over Turkey, which began with a peaceful sit-in in Istanbul to protect a hapless apology for a park from demolition. Right by the city’s unofficial centre, Taksim Square, Gezi Park had been slated to become yet another one of the ruling AKP’s signature Ottoman-cum-Disneyland construction projects. It was hardly much of a park, by London standards, but it was one of the last remaining places in the area with a few trees and a bit of room to stroll around. The protesters found the idea of losing that tiny refuge from Istanbul’s urban chaos unbearable.The police removed the inoffensive tree-huggers in a surprise dawn raid, using violence so disproportionate and sadistic — and unfortunately for the police, so filmed — as to set off enraged demonstrations around the country. These, in turn, provoked even more psychotic retaliation from the police. Every story you’ve read of the brutality the cops inflicted on peaceful protesters is true, and more. I saw it. I’ve been seeing it with my own eyes for weeks, but by far the worst took place on Tuesday, when the police descended in the early morning to retake Taksim Square, directly after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had lulled the protesters with promises to meet them the next day to listen to their concerns.
The surprise attack began at 7.30 a.m. Black smoke quickly rose over the square, and tear gas enveloped the entire neighbourhood. Then the water cannon arrived, half a dozen, followed by another burst of gas. While at least six cameras from Taksim were feeding this scene live to the entire country, Istanbul Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu assured the public, on Twitter, that ‘some protestors used materials that release fog and smoke. We should all know that their purpose is making the impression that the police used excessive gas.’ It didn’t occur to him, I suppose, that it is not just fog and smoke that indicates the presence of a lachrymatory agent. He also promised the protesters that only Taksim itself would be ‘cleaned’. The protesters and the park, he swore, would ‘never’ be harmed.
Three hours later, protesters formed a human chain around the park to prevent the police from recapturing it, but the cops shot rubber bullets, beat up journalists, and detained not only countless protesters, but their lawyers — 79 lawyers, according to the Istanbul Bar Association. The government is now dropping hints about an ‘operation’ against ‘provocateurs’ on Twitter — not an idle threat, for many have already been detained for writing ‘misinformation’, which apparently encompasses, among other things, tweeting the phone numbers of physicians on duty. A Turkish journalist reports that prosecutors have obtained warrants to seize any mobile phone they require. I have not yet been able to confirm this, but it wouldn’t in the least surprise me.
But this was just the beginning. After an afternoon of calm, on a lovely summer evening, some 30,000 people returned in force to Taksim Square — their square, after all, as it has always been. The police responded with an even more vicious strike, blanketing the massive crowd with a cumulonimbus cloud of gas accompanied by sound grenades. Terrified and choking, the crowd — students, street vendors, women in dresses and summer sandals — stampeded into the surrounding streets. Parents were separated from their young children. Someone tweeted frantically that her sister had fallen and the panicked crowds had run right over her. The police shot water cannon at a man in a wheelchair who had been brandishing the Turkish flag.
Writing blood types on their arms, volunteers ferried the injured to a makeshift field hospital. Chanting gangs of extremist opportunists (who bore little resemblance to the peaceful demonstrators in the park) taunted police in the streets leading toward the Golden Horn, drawing tear gas and water cannon through the whole of Istanbul’s old Pera district. International reporters, who have become accustomed of late to police crackdowns, described this as the worst in recent memory.
After a fortnight of clashes, four deaths have so far been confirmed; an untold number have suffered severe brain injuries; and at least ten young people have lost an eye after being shot by plastic bullets. Reports of injuries are coming in fast, but they are hard to confirm. The Turkish Human Rights Foundation is now placing the number at some 5,000, based on hospital reports. But keep in mind that not everyone who is wounded goes to the hospital. A gas grenade to the leg can cause a great deal of injury, but for those who can’t afford medical bills, it’s a hell of a hassle to go to an already overflowing state emergency ward — not least because the cops have been chasing protesters right into those very wards and gassing them there, too.
Moreover, many doctors, presumably under state pressure, don’t record ‘clashes with police’ as the cause of injury, but report instead that the victim has ‘had an accident’. (It is also possible that doctors are trying to protect their patients from subsequently being arrested as ‘rioters’.) I obtained records, however, from the hospitals in my neighbourhood, which is close to Taksim Square. I was stunned by what I read: each hospital listed hundreds of injuries — ‘A 22-year-old male has lost his left eye due to a plastic bullet … a 19-year-old male is being watched closely with a subdural haematoma diagnosis … trauma in the testicle … trauma of the left eye … has lost all eyesight … maxillo-facial trauma … brain haemorrhage … life-threatening condition…’ The reports went on for pages, and the doctors were quite firm that these were not ‘accidents’.
Perhaps the most painful part of the whole thing so far was the glimpse of peace we enjoyed for several days in Taksim Square and Gezi Park in the lull between the attacks. That was when we saw, all too briefly, what this city could be.
Last Friday was peaceful — despite Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strenuous effort to aggravate the situation by making speeches so unrepentant and inflammatory that the benchmark Istanbul Bourse tumbled with every word that came out of his mouth. One speech, in particular, caused the stock exchange to tank by 7.5 per cent. (I leave it to the mathematicians to calculate the per-word cost of that speech to the nation’s GNP.)
‘They do say that on a clear day you can see a doctor.’
Let me explain. In 1978, Jan Morris — to my mind one of the century’s greatest travel writers — visited Istanbul. She wrote a superbly observed essay titled ‘City of Yok’, which would be loosely translated as ‘City of No’, but ‘No’ doesn’t quite capture the entirety of it. ‘I don’t speak Turkish yet,’ she wrote, ‘but yok appears to be a sort of general purpose discouragement, to imply that (for instance) it can’t be done, she isn’t home, the shop’s shut, the train’s left, take it or leave it, you can’t come this way, or there’s no good making a fuss over it.’ The opposite of yok is evet — meaning yes, and it has no analogous counter-associations, which tells you something right there.
But on Friday night, I strolled through Taksim and Gezi Park, and for the first time in the decade I’ve lived in Istanbul, I found myself in the City of Evet. It felt like a free country. I have never seen anything like this before in Turkey. I walk through Taksim all the time, and it is always full of cops, uniformed and plain-clothed. Don’t misunderstand me: they are there for a very good reason. In 2010, I narrowly missed a suicide bomber dispatched to Taksim by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, a splinter group of the terrorist PKK. The bomb went off at 10.34 in the morning. Were it not for my laziness — I had slept in — my limbs would have joined all the others splattered across the square’s pavement. The PKK and its affiliates have attacked Taksim four times since 1995.
Taksim and Gezi Park, last weekend, were different, and the most obvious difference was the absence of that special gloom imparted by the sight of phalanx upon phalanx of heavily armed coppers giving every passer-by the hairy eyeball. And it was glorious — a huge innocent carnival, filled with improbable (I would have hitherto thought impossible) scenes of nationalist Turks mingling amiably with nationalist Kurds, the latter dancing to some strange ghastly species of techno-Halay, the former pumping their fists in the air and chanting their eternal allegiance to something very nationalist, I’m sure. Balloons lit with candles sailed over the sky; hawkers sold every species of Gezi souvenir, and the only smell of pepper in the air came from the grilled meatballs served in hunks of fresh bread and sprinkled with chilli powder.
Among the protesters’ grievances was the prime minister’s imperious effort to pass restrictive new laws on alcohol sales, so in a gesture of special defiance, entrepreneurial protesters — or maybe just entrepreneurial Turks — sold ice-cold beer from coolers. (I’ve never before seen anyone sell beer from coolers in the streets of Istanbul.)
There were commies and pinkos of every species sharing that beer with right-wing whackjobs of every stripe — groups that in the 1970s fought gun battles here, drenching the streets in blood and leading to the 1980 coup. The communists didn’t seem the sort to worry about — when people complained that the price of beer had risen in response to demand, they shrugged: ‘What can we do? If people want to sell it, we can’t stop them.’
There were trade unionists and doctors and ordinary yuppies and, mostly, college kids; there were gays, Alevis, Sufis and yogis; there were impromptu skits — all making fun of the government, and some of them very funny but untranslatable both linguistically and culturally; there was impromptu dancing (innocent and sexless by western standards), barkers enjoining the crowd to jump up and down for the liberation of the park (and everyone did), a stall that advertised itself as the park’s new free lending library, and vast crowds of people smiling in a silly, carefree way that grave Istanbullus, serious people, people who dress in dark colours and worry terribly about what the neighbours will think, rarely do.
Imagine Glastonbury, perhaps, without so much as a whiff of weed. I know that’s an oxymoron, but it’s the best I can do. These (mostly) kids were nothing like the Occupy Wall Street crowd; they had no idea what they were doing, politically — no leaflets, none of that creepy human microphone stuff, no idea who Saul Alinsky is, no one using the streets as a urinal. Everyone was happy. Everyone was doing precisely as they pleased. For once, I could see what Turkey would be like if it could only get its damned omnipresent, omni-meddling, always-watching, always-listening state off its back.
But by Tuesday night, the City of Evet was long gone. Scores of those silly, innocent tree-huggers have been hospitalised, and the casualty count is appalling.
The worst of it is that no one has any idea why this happened. Erdogan has doubled-down on his insistence that the protests represent a complex conspiracy against his person, cooked up by foreigners and terrorists and what he has termed ‘financial institutions, the interest-rate lobby and media groups’. (I leave it to the reader to ponder and parse the historical significance of these references to conspirators who control the banks and the media.) Officials in his own party are publicly asking him if he’s trying to start a civil war.
On Wednesday morning there was an uneasy calm in Taksim Square, but there was and will be no return of the City of Evet. Istanbul is once again the City of Yok.
15 June 2013
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8934351/turkeys-agony-the-view-from-taksim-square/