Raging Erdogan: tear gas on mobs
Il Giornale, June 17th, 2013
Capulcu means looter in Turkish. In the past few days Turkish Prime Minister Tayyp Erdogan repeatedly used this term to dismiss protesters that actually belong to all the political spectrum, religions, ethnic groups, age. Yesterday, after being savagely beaten up and chased away from Taksim square during the night, they dared once again to take to the streets defying police which had manifestly been ordered a heavy-handed crackdown on protesters. It is worth reminding that the military in these days has never appeared to the streets joining the police repression.
Yesterday, two rallies took place in Istanbul, namely Erdogan’s supporters, apparently one million, and the anti-government protesters. The latter however, which had been given the ultimatum to clear out Taksim square for Erdogan’s AKP the ruling party since 2002, came back defiant of fears, even of death. Already in the afternoon 788 wounded were reported. A member of the parliament got injured in his face with a helmet and Claudia Roth,co-chair of Germany's Greens party was intoxicated by tear gas; it has been repeatedly reported that the water fired by violent fire hydrants caused protesters awkward skin burns. Women, old people, children, physicians who had treated those injured at Ramada Hotel, close to the big square, the scene of the major clashes, were detained, and in the hospitals medical records listing serious head and eyes injuries were hard to get for the journalists. Also Ankara saw demonstrations and brutalities; even a funeral procession was attacked. Protest initiatives have largely been reported by phone calls also in other minor towns. Journalists, long targeted and in dozens detained by Erdogan, are dismissed by government sources as foreign spies and agitators.
Currently, Erdogan is holding on to power by the constant use of force,; although his electoral strength is large, the mass of protesters is clamoring for his resignation. Meanwhile, abroad he has by now become a lame duck; hardly will he be able to present his most positive image, i.e. the mediator capable to provide the West with a relationship with moderate Islam. His approach to Islam, has not been moderate: on the contrary, his terms saw the increasing suffering and fears of secular people, journalists, students, emancipated women, young people who wished a now banned little beer, homosexuals, greens, religious minorities like Curds and Alavis, not to mention the very few Jews left, terror-stricken by the anti-Semitic hatred of the government. Erdogan surely relies on the solid support of the votes he already gained in three elections which made him him Prime Minister; thirty percent nonetheless does not equal hundred percent, and we have been able to notice these days his profoundly oppressive, unbearable, extremist approach to the re-Islamization of his country.
The protest movements unusually gathering with the same protest shield are a good 166 now, and they don’t seem to be willing to go back home. It is hard to predict whether Erdogan will be smart enough to separate them attracting some of these groups, but at least from the outside this is per now not in sight. It is amazing that groups with strong ideological, religious, and ethnic differences join the same fight; usually the Middle East pits people not perfectly identifying with their neighbors against each other. This did not happen this time. Among protesters: religious non-Sunni religious Muslims, exhausted by the attempts to indoctrinate all non-Sunni Muslims in schools and mosques from a very early age, lit camp fire and raised barricades together with young people playing American music and fighting for freedom.
We might have easily spotted more than the simple delusion in Erdogan’s and his Foreign Minister’s style. We now feel guilty for not having brought Turkey closer to Euope. Today, while the Iranian – Syrian front benefits from Erdogan’s weakening, we really would need Turkey to be that legendary, wished for bridge between the East and the West. But, it is not, and in order for this to happen,Turkey needs to regenerate.