Yesterday it was announced that the EU would indeed open a new chapter with Turkey as planned, despite Merkel's electioneering and the reluctance of many European politicians to provide a boost to a government that in recent weeks has licensed its security forces to use any means necessary to suppress peaceful protests.
Mixed feelings abound.
I have long been fervently in favour of Turkish accession, and until recently, my sympathy for those embroiled in the no doubt tortuous negotiations on the Turkish side was unmitigated.
The EU has been inconsistent, and failed to make good on its pronouncements and promises. It has shown cowardice and prejudice, and continued to treat Turks as second-class citizens. It has allowed the discussion to focus on Islam, detracting attention from the fact that countries such as Bulgaria and Romania acceded when much work remained to be done in terms of rooting out corruption, raising standards of democracy, legal reforms, and so on.
After witnessing the astonishing events in recent weeks, however, and the comments and rhetoric which have accompanied them (as far as I can glean with my still severely limited grasp of Turkish), I have had to reconsider this position. Perhaps the EU negotiators also deserve a measure of sympathy. They are, after all, apparently dealing with some of the most uncompromising, arrogant, insincere politicians to be found in the ranks of any ruling class in Europe today (stiff competition, admittedly).
For those blissfully unfamiliar, here's a quick intro to some of the main characters in the motley crew...
First of all – the king of the hill, numero uno – Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan. The list of outrageous, untrue, inflammatory, polarizing, and
slanderous statements he has made since the protests began would take all day
to get through. So here’s a recent example. Despite the many shocking and
unprovoked incidents of police brutality during the protests (here’s a taste),
which have been well documented by both the protesters themselves and the press
(who were often targeted themselves), Erdoğan, not big on nuance or
sensitivity, attended a graduation ceremony at Ankara’s police academy on Monday and described their actions as “heroic.”
Then
there is Egemen Bağış, the EU Minister. Who routinely makes statements which
sound kind of reasonable, before adding something totally insane. For instance,
the time when he made the perfectly legitimate point that Merkel ought not to
use Turkey to score points at home, followed by an absolutely absurd threat,
typical of the kind of delusional neo-Ottoman overconfidence displayed by the
whole gang.
"If Ms. Merkel
is looking for domestic political material for her elections, that material
should not be Turkey," Bagis told reporters on Thursday. "If Ms.
Merkel takes a closer look, she will see that those who mess about with Turkey
do not find an auspicious end." (read full article here)
But wait – there’s
more. Mr. Bağış also shared this absolutely mental video – in
which an ominous and incredibly dishonest voiceover contends that a
humble Belgrade-based NGO which provides information about
As
a bonus, this is also the guy who said everyone who set foot in Taksim Square after crackdown #3 would be treated as a terrorist.
Next up, Melih Gökçek, Mayor of Ankara. In fairness, I’d been well warned about this one before. A well-known “character” – read crackpot – he seems unanimously despised and yet has been the mayor of the capital for as long as it’s existed – or thereabouts. Gökçek is a keen twitter user, and likes to use it to share his wacky ideas and to slander people and put their safety at risk by inciting others against them – or at least that’s what happened last week when he singled out BBC Turkish report Selen Girit and accused her of being – get this – a spy and an agent for England. In response, the BBC issued a statement expressing concern about the intimidation of its journalists in Turkey. Gökçek was undeterred, and then turned his tweeting crusade to CNN. Wired to the moon, or just stuck in the 1960s – I leave it up to the reader to decide.
Then there’s world champion liar, president of the lying society of filthy liars, pathological and compulsive teller of untruths Istanbul Governor Hüseyin Avni Mutlu. He says things like: the police would “never touch Gezi Park and the protesters,” before sending police into the park.
Or things like: Those people in white coats helping injured people are not real doctors (I’m paraphrasing, but barely.)
Special
mention to Mehmet Simsek who said that not a single journalist was in prison for doing journalism, but that they were murderers and bank robbers (let’s remind ourselves that this is country with the most journalists in prison in the world,
and with a press freedom record that lags behind russia’s)
All
the above examples seem too much like political satire to be believed, yet it’s
just a small sample of what we’ve seen in recent weeks.
This
rhetoric is not only shockingly unsatisfactory as a response to the clear
demands laid out by the protesters, it's also irresponsible and dangerous. Lying
about what the police will do makes people unable to make clear decisions about
the risks they’re willing to take. Singling individuals out as traitors puts
their lives at risk. Stoking up tensions between people in society with
different opinions is bound to cause friction and violence. It is no surprise
at all that during the recent “peoples' assemblies” (at which people have
gathered in parks across the city to discuss the protests and share ideas), on several
occasions armed groups of thugs have showed up to cause trouble and attack those gathered. There have also been cases of such gangs of vigilantes
roaming the streets, targeting people who look like protesters.
The
discourse being wheeled out by the prime minister, unabashedly using an “us”
and “them” dichotomy, leads to the kind of polarization Turkey has seen before,
when people were killing each other in street for being rightist or leftist,
for drinking at the wrong coffee-house, or any such nonsense, after the
military coups of the last few decades.
If
these tensions boil over into outright violence that causes serious harm or
loss of life, Erdoğan will have everything to answer for.
Aside from these immediate risks, it is the discourse of a leadership that is failing
woefully the aspirations of many Turks, who are open-minded,
multi-lingual, enthusiastic and fully qualified to become fully-fledged European citizens
In a recent interview with HDN, MEP Andrew Duff, for someone in favour of Turkish accession on the whole and with a head more or less screwed on correctly - made some pretty amazing and depressing comments and the prospects for Turkish membership, including that it had gone more or less as far as it could go under the current leadership, questioning Egemen Bagis's motivations, and even saying that Erdogan did not really understand what the EU actually is.
Though these points may all be accurate, it would be totally unjustifiable to punish the Turkish citizens as a whole for the obstinacy of their leaders. The EU process is, and always has been, about compromise and mutual engagement. So it was absolutely right to open the chapter, though of course the fact that Erdoğan is likely to take it as an endorsement is a bit of a tough one to swallow.
And
yet there is something strangely familiar about Erdoğan’s discourse, trying to
drive a wedge between the protestors and the rest of society who stays at home,
who aren't personally affected and might not be too sure what to make of it all. I've heard this somewhere before. I heard it in 2003, when around a million people marched through central London in an attempt to get the government to back down
from its plans to invade Iraq. The main message, carried on placard after
placard, was “not in our name.” Following this mass mobilisation, Tony Blair
appeared on the news saying “when you see those people in the streets, remember
that something something something.” I soon forgot his actual message. But I will
never forget the casual and confident way in which he shrugged off a million
citizens who cared enough about something to trudge through the streets, in an attempt to influence a decision they would not be consulted about. Nor the way he addressed the people watching him on television as if the
people in the streets were outsiders, as if they were illegitimate, and somehow threatening
and manipulative. When in fact they were us.
As
far as commendable reactions to protests go – the recent unrest in Brazil have
provided a shining example from the country’s President Dilma Roussef, who
said:
“The streets are telling us that the country wants quality public services,
more effective measures to combat corruption... and responsive political
representation, [...] We all must, without exception, understand these signals
with humility and accuracy.”
Perfect.
But it remains to be seen of course, whether this message from the streets will
be acted upon, once it has been heard.
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