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A SOPHISTICATED spin doctor person will advise his client not to get involved in a dispute over criticism, as this gives the critic lots of free publicity, apart from making people curious about the initial allegation. And if the criticism comes in the form of satire, it’s an even bigger mistake to take issue with it.
But it seems that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not well advised where image-building is concerned. Witness his ham-handed efforts to persuade the German government to get a TV channel to drop a satirical song mocking the Turkish president’s autocratic ways. The refrain is “Erdowi, Erdowa, Erdogan”, and the lyrics lampoon the way he has locked up journalists, cracked down on protesters, and prefers the militant Islamic State group to his own Kurdish citizens. Thanks to the Turkish protest, it has been viewed over five million times on YouTube.
Having recently returned from a five-day trip to the United States, his security detail had made headlines there by scuffling with the dissidents. In one well-publicised incident, one of Erdogan’s guards kicked a Turkish journalist; another abused an academic outside the Brookings Institution. Hardly the way to make friends and influence people. If this was supposed to be an image-building exercise, it has been a disaster thus far.
In the question and answer session following his speech, the Turkish president was asked about his ongoing crackdown on the media. He insisted that those arrested had been accused of terrorism-related cases, and he had proof, he added, waving a dossier at his audience. If publishing an investigative report, backed by photos, about the arms allegedly given by Turkish intelligence to Islamic extremists is tantamount to supporting terrorists — the charge the Cumhuriyet editor-in-chief and the daily’s Ankara bureau chief are facing — then clearly, the free press is in acute danger in Turkey.
In fact, there are some 1,800 cases pending in courts across Turkey against journalists, academics and ordinary citizens for criticising the president. Asif Ali Zardari must be envious of his erstwhile Turkish counterpart for these sweeping powers to curb the media.
So sensitive has Erdogan become to anything that seems to be remotely critical that he is prepared to fire a salvo at anybody crossing him. Thus, at a hearing of the case against the Cumhuriyet journalists, he strongly rebuked the diplomats who were in the court to report on proceedings. Now it is a common practice for diplomats to follow the cases of a political nature, so for the Turkish president to tell them the trial was none of their business was to display a deep ignorance about diplomatic duties. A selfie taken by a British diplomat with one of the two journalists on trial particularly infuriated Erdogan.
I suppose if you live in a 1,000-room palace in Ankara built at an estimated cost of a billion dollars, you might be excused for beginning to think you are an Ottoman emperor, and thus above criticism. But the rest of the world has moved on: it would be unthinkable for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to have a satirical song removed from the airwaves just because it had given offence to Erdogan. This is especially true right now as she is already under criticism across Europe for her seemingly excessive generosity towards Turkey in the recent deal over Syrian asylum-seekers. Turkey has agreed to act as a gatekeeper in exchange for six billion euros, visa-free access to the Schengen area and fast-track negotiations over entry into the European Union.
But Erdogan’s prickly ways and belligerent policies in Syria have not endeared him to his Nato allies, leave alone a resurgent Russia that is now positively antagonistic towards its neighbour. And US President Barack Obama had signalled that he would not be seeing Erdogan separately on his trip to Washington to attend the nuclear security conference. This, of course, would have been a clear snub, so a last-minute meeting was organised. And even if it just lasted a few minutes, it was enough to assuage Erdogan’s ego. Nevertheless, the Americans are privately furious about the war Turkey is waging against the YPG, the Kurdish group in northern Syria that has been the most effective fighting force combating the IS.
Currently, Turkey is fighting diplomatic and military fires along many of its borders. The sad reality is that many of these fires were lit by Erdogan’s impulsive behaviour, and have more to do with his own insecurities than any calm analysis of Turkey’s best interests.
Often, autocrats believe that other leaders enjoy the same sweeping powers over the opposition and the media that they have arrogated to themselves. They have not grasped that tolerance of criticism lies at the heart of any democratic dispensation. And ultimately, this misunderstanding on Erdogan’s part is likely to scuttle Turkey’s bid to full membership in the EU. His crackdown on the media is being watched with horror in Western capitals, but he dismisses all criticism by declaring that shutting down newspapers and TV channels, and locking up journalists, is nobody’s business but Turkey’s.
Cynics see a pattern in Erdogan’s attacks against Kurds: by painting them as terrorists, he expects to delegitimise the HDP, the pro-Kurdish party that has gained entry into parliament for the first time in last year’s election. If the HDP is banned as a result, by-elections would have to be held to replace its unseated MPs. And this would give Erdogan the opportunity to finally nail down the two-thirds majority he needs to amend the constitution to transform his office into an executive presidency with unprecedented powers.
This, many fear, would turn Turkey into an autocratic state with an emperor at its head.
Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2016
