Financial Times – “Erdoğan: Türk ulusunu bölen adam” * Erdogan, the man who divides the Turkish nation

(DHA) — Başbakan Erdoğan’ın cesur bir reformcudan hırçın bir otoritere dönüşür göründüğü ifade edilen yazıda Gezi protestolarının 10 yıl önceki Türkiye’yi ne büyük ölçüde değiştirdiğine dikkat çekildi.

Boulton, yazısında şu ifadeleri kullandı:

“Yüzleşmenin iki baş karakteri var: daha zengin, bir bakıma daha protesto eğilimli, orta sınıf ve ülkenin ilk son 10 yıldır demokratik seçimle iş başına gelen tek partili hükümeti. Kısmen Erdoğan’ın başarısı. Mirasının diğer unsurları, evler, yollar ve herkese ücretsiz sağlık hizmeti ile hala bu popüler politikacı, önümüzdeki yıl ki seçimleri kazanmayı garanti ediyor.”

Son Türkiye ziyaretinde 10 yıl öncesine göre Erdoğan’a olan ilginin değiştiğini gözlemediğini belirten Boulton, 10 yıl önce ona kollarını açarak karşılayan Türklerin şimdi Başbakan’a karşı yabancılaştığını düşündüğünü ifade ederek bir liberalin ‘onun demokrat olduğunu düşünmüştük ama o despot biri haline geldi’ açıklamasını aktardı.

Boulton ayrıca, Erdoğan’ın demokratik olmayan tutumunun partinin kurucuları arasında yer alan Cumhurbaşkanı Abdullah Gül ve Başbakan Yardımcısı Bülent Arınç’tan bile itirazlar yükseldiğine dikkat çekti.

“Erdoğan bilinmeyen sulara yöneliyor

Gazetenin Türkiye muhabiri Daniel Dombey ise kaleme aldığı “Erdoğan bilinmeyen sulara yöneliyor” başlıklı yazısında, Türkiye’nin bir geçiş süreci ile karşı karşıya olduğunu dile getirdi.

Geçtiğimiz ekim ayında Erdoğan’ın Asya ile Avrupa’yı birbirine bağlayan ilk kıtalararası deniz altı tünelini hizmete açtığını bunun da şehrin ve yeni Türkiye’ye hizmetle ilgili çok sayıdaki değişimden biri olduğu yorumunu yapan Dombey, şöyle devam etti:

“Erdoğan’ın inşaa ettiği Türkiye bu. 81 ilin bir çoğunda onun hırslarının elle tutulur bir biçim aldığını görebilirsiniz. Bir sürü göz, yabancı ve yerli, dünyanın fırsatı, Avrupa, Asya, Afrika ve Ortadoğu arasında 76 milyonun yaşadığı 800 milyar dolarlık gıpta edileceği bir yer.”

“Erdoğan’ın amacı 2023 yılına kadar Türkiye’yi dünyanın en büyük 10. ekonomisi haline getirmek. Bu da yılda yüzde 15 büyüme gerektirir, erişilemez gibi görünüyor” diyen yazar, bu seneki Gezi olaylarının Türkiye’nin siyasi öngürülemezliğini gösterdiğini savundu.

Yazar, protestolardan sonra insanların öfkelerinden biraz yatışmış olabileceğini ancak bu anlaşmazlığın hatıralarının ise geçmeyeceği yorumunu yaptı.

Dombey, yazısının sonunda şunları kaydetti:

“We have a one-man show and he is all over the place,” says one veteran western observer of Turkey. The only question is “how big the bill will be”, agrees a Turkish entrepreneur.

Both were referring to Mr Erdogan’s heavy-handed response to protests in Turkish cities this year, followed by attacks on everything from an “interest rate lobby” to co-educational student housing.

The demonstrations, sparked by the prime minister’s project to bulldoze Istanbul’s small Gezi park and reconstruct an Ottoman-era barracks, showed just how much Turkey has changed in the decade since I left in 2003.

The confrontation’s two protagonists – a more prosperous, somewhat more protest-prone, middle-class and the country’s first democratically elected single-party government in decades – are partly his achievement. Other elements of his legacy, including housing, roads and free healthcare for all, ensure this still popular politician is likely to win elections next year.

Yet, I was struck on a recent visit by how Mr Erdogan has alienated even Turks who, a decade ago, welcomed him with open arms, rather than those who wished the former Islamist firebrand could somehow be stopped from taking office. “We thought he would be a democrat but he has become a despot,” says one liberal.

At the Hamsi restaurant in Kadikoy fish market one recent Saturday lunchtime, previous supporters of the prime minister celebrated as a small triumph for democracy the blocking of one of his allies from becoming chairman of Fenerbahce football club.

Turkey was and still is a tribal place, prone to conspiracy theories. Ask finance minister Mehmet Simsek, whom I first met when he was a thoughtful analyst at Merrill Lynch, 15 years before he spearheaded a campaign against a foreign media “conspiracy” behind the protests. Declaring that conspiracy theories are not always “ridiculous”, he refers to recent revelations that the US and UK spied on their allies. “Edward Snowden [who leaked material suggesting the UK government bugged the telephones of allied governments, including Mr Simsek’s] was spot on.”

As the minister points out, the absence of an effective opposition is not the fault of the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP). Democratic culture is under developed after a succession of weak coalition governments left real power to the military and business people such as Aydin Dogan, a media magnate whose other business interests were advanced by politicians’ fear of his newspapers.

But Mr Erdogan’s undemocratic reflexes have raised objections even within his own AKP, including two of the party’s co-founders, President Abdullah Gul and Bulent Arinc, deputy prime minister.

In negotiating with Kurds, of which Mr Simsek is one, Mr Erdogan has shown potential for greatness. Yet he is no Nelson Mandela and his increasingly erratic behaviour – whether in building a mosque intended to be visible from all over Istanbul, or in talking about himself in the third person – resembles that of a man in a hurry.

Turkish media have speculated that Mr Erdogan, who not only faces elections next year, has cancer. When the press found out about a first operation in 2011, a statement was issued about a “digestive tract” operation involving the removal of polyps. In the absence of western-style bulletins on the prime minister’s health, reliable information is scarce, although Mr Erdogan did deny in a media interview that he had cancer.

The EU bears a big share of the blame for the current state of affairs in Turkey. Although acceptance of Ankara as a full candidate for membership in 1999 probably spared Turkey a coup when the AKP came to power in 2002, the EU smashed the fragile compass that would have kept Turkey on a steadier course. Declarations by then French president Nicolas Sarkozy that Muslim Turkey could never join the union undermined the soft power of EU accession talks.

“Supporters of the EU process felt and feel very alone,” says Umit Boyner, a businesswoman who was ironically awarded the Légion d’honneur by France this month. “Integration into Europe was not an economic issue for Turkey. We needed this for political reasons, to improve the rule of law and human rights.”

Less democratic Turks, who warned at the outset that the AKP was not to be trusted, feel vindicated. For others, events in Egypt are a reminder that things could be worse.

“Democracy is very young in our country,” says Ali Sabanci, the chairman of Pegasus Airlines who is also the son-in-law of Mr Dogan. “But it’s also relative. Look at the neighbours, they help us out.”

Mr Sabanci takes a dim view of the “soft coup” that ousted Turkey’s first elected Islamist government in 1997.

“This was called fine-tuning of democracy, but it bothers me that I had to live through this. Democracy is not somebody’s monopoly.” *2*

——————————————-

The writer was FT Turkey correspondent 1998-2003

*1* http://www.cnnturk.com/2013/guncel/11/28/financial.times.erdogan.turk.ulusunu.bolen.adam/732465.0/index.html