Ottoman Turkey Reborn

"Erdogan's reforms have broadened the middle classes and, as perhaps an unintended consequence, made young generations increasingly sensitive to post-materialist concerns like human rights, freedom of choice, respect for minorities and the environment.
"So if Mr. Erdogan does not regain the prudent style of leadership he demonstrated prior to 2011, in which he was attentive to sensitivities, he may have reached the beginning of the end of his political career."
Sahin Alpay, Zaman

A protester plays The Beatles’ “Let It Be” and the Italian partisan song “Bella Ciao” on the piano to 

a crowd that includes riot police in Taksim Square the evening after riot police moved to retake the 

square the night before in Istanbul, Turkey on June 12, 2013. After 11 days of protest and occupying

Gezi Park adjacent to Taksim Square, riot police firmly took control of Taksim Square with street 

battles on back streets occurring until the early hours of the morning and a few hundred demonstrators

continuing to camp out in the adjacent Gezi Park.

You've got to love the humanity and the humour in it. Amidst the regime's brutal crackdown, with tear gas and water cannons, rubber bullets and a Turkish Prime Minister who bellows his rage at the impudence of Turkish citizens who criticize his imperial decrees against their collective wishes, a piano is hauled into Taksim Square and a pianist puckishly entertains the thousands gathered there, emphasizing in an inimitable manner the power of the people determined to have their say.

They have seen their country advance from a state of impoverishment a decade ago to the point where it is the economic powerhouse that three-times-elected Recep Tayyip Erdogan guided it toward, but while they may certainly appreciate that poverty has been reduced and their country remains a democracy however abraded by the imprisonment of journalists and the introduction of Islamism, they do not appreciate being ruled by a benevolent tyrant.

Benevolent, that is, as long as the population heeds his directives. This is a man accustomed to being obeyed and readily roused to hot anger when he is not. Noisy demonstrations and signage urging that "Erdogan resign", do not resonate kindly with this man; he does not stoop to appease anyone. Not long-time neighbourly peace partners when he disagrees with their national policies, and not his own citizens who care about nuisance matters like the environment in which they live rather than harking back to an Ottoman past.

Middle class Turks who have gained much while Mr. Erdogan's Justice & Development Party has been in power, heartily dislike the man who, they feel, positions himself like a "sultan". "He is telling Turkish people, 'I will do what I want'", said one of his detractors with unmitigated scorn. Reciprocating the scorn that he and his ilk are on the receiving end of, through their prime minister's reproaches against the protests that have been occurring and re-occurring over his plans to raze a green space and raise a mosque and a monument to the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey has lived with secular politics under Ataturkism for the last 90 years, a Muslim country that keeps its religious convictions for the private sphere and likes it just fine that way. A fear of fanatical Islamism worming its way into the country's politics and social life has enraged many who see just that occurring under Recep Tayyip Erdogan's rule. The once-banned headscarf has made its return; originally on Mr. Erdogan's wife's head, and now more widespread.

Oddly enough the AKP is intent on economic success, on modernizing its social infrastructure and in the process bypassing environmental concerns. Such as those raised with the proposed new airport to be the largest in the world despite fears that it and another bridge to link Turkey with Europe will destroy forests and disrupt Istanbul's water supply. The push toward building more shopping malls, highways and industrial projects like the 22 dams and 19 power plants proposed for the near future threatens to displace towns, villages and thousands of families.

Since coming to power in 2002, Mr. Erdogan has engaged in increasing levels of volatile belligerence and growing Islamism, offending great swaths of the Turkish population, despite his huge support among traditionalist Islamists. Like Vladimir Putin who now glorifies Soviet Russia and its excesses in human rights abuses, and who expresses admiration for Joseph Stalin, Mr. Erdogan celebrates the great victories of the Ottoman Empire and its sultans.

"He has become increasingly Putinesque and Turkey today is an extremely divided country. As many people back Erdogan in elections as dislike him", explained John O'Brennan, director of the National University of Ireland-Maynooth's Centre for the Study of Wider Europe, commenting on Prime Minister Erdogan's virulent dislike of those who oppose him, like civil society groups who value their secular Turkish society.