Posted on 01/19/2011 7:36:17 AM PST by Siberian-psycho
In a span of a week, Turkey’s socio-political landscape featured the following examples of social engineering:
First, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on Israel to remove its foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who Mr. Erdoğan says poses an obstacle to Middle East peace. Mr. Lieberman is probably not the most qualified man for peace anywhere in the world, but he, like Mr. Erdoğan, is a democratically-elected politician. Mr. Erdoğan thinks it would be most appropriate if Mr. Lieberman were to be removed, but that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and the Hamas chaps stay in power – for peace!
Second, Turkey’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP-controlled, broadcast watchdog, RTÜK, has warned a television station “for not showing the necessary sensitivity toward the privacy of historical figures.” The airing of a soap featuring Süleyman the Magnificient could be halted for up to 12 different infractions if the channel does not comply.
Third, an apparently AKP-inspired school headmaster warned male and female students not to get physically closer than 45 cm to each other.
Fourth, Mr. Erdoğan has ordered a peace monument in Kars to be torn down because “it shadowed a mosque and the shrine of one of the leading Islamic figures of the 11th century.” He called the Turkish-Armenian friendship monument near the Turkish-Armenian border “freakish.”
Fifth, and in response to criticism for stricter alcohol bans, Mr. Erdoğan said that in Turkey “people could still drink spirits until they cough them out.”
Sixth, a stadium full of Galatasaray fans whistled and booed in protest of Mr. Erdoğan, the guest of honor at the inauguration of their new ground. The football club’s president pledged to hunt down the protestors and ban them from matches.
Seventh, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç praised the government’s economic policy by saying that “our national currency is, God be praised, far from the days when it was worth less than the currencies of African cannibals.”
Eighth, and finally, the Washington-based human rights organization Freedom House tagged Turkey as “a partly free country.”
By the way, between 2003 and 2008, the household consumption of alcohol in Turkey fell 34 percent, according to a study released in November by the Betam research center at Istanbul’s Bahçeşehir University (“Alcohol Hits Nerve in Turkey,” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 15, 2011). Another survey, released in 2009, supported by the Open Society Institute, found that around 300,000 households in Turkey stopped consuming alcohol between 2003 and 2008 “mainly due to social pressure.”
But in defense of the new alcohol bans, Mr. Erdoğan accused the drinkers of causing deaths in traffic accidents. Why would a prime minister present facts falsely? There may be a hundred reasons, but usually politicians twist facts when they wanted to hide a motive. Sometimes they excel at twisting facts, sometimes they look like they are hiding behind their own finger. Mr. Erdoğan’s pretext to fight the wine glass looks like a failure.
According to the Interior Ministry’s statistics, drunk-driving in 2010 was the 11th leading cause of road accidents. Other deaths? About 3 percent of Turks die of alcohol-related reasons. International statistics do not support Mr. Erdoğan’s argument either. Turkey, boasting about one-tenth of Europe’s per capita alcohol consumption, prides itself on Europe’s highest death toll from road accidents.
In a public speech, Mr. Erdoğan said his government has not in any way interfered with people’s choice in their private lives. To support that view, the prime minister said that in (EU candidate) Turkey “men and women were still able to travel in the same buses, women could still wear mini skirts and drinkers could drink until they cough it out.” And he wraps up his arguments with an emphasis on his party’s ideology, which he summarizes as “Muslim democrat.”
The heart of the matter is hidden in the mystery around the term Mr. Erdoğan invented –obviously inspired by Europe’s Christian Democrats – in order to defend his faith-based governance from liberal criticism. He is wholeheartedly sincere when he thinks he is a (Muslim) democrat!
If he chose the term “democrat/democracy” instead of “Muslim democrat/Muslim democracy” he would not have been able to defend what this column summarized in a few lines. In democracies, there is no place to say any one of the things there were listed above in headings one through to eight. But, yes, in Muslim democracies “these incidents” are/should be considered “facts of life.” They have nothing to do with autocracy or interfering in people’s private lives; they are just facts of life in a “Muslim democracy.”
I believe that Mr. Erdoğan was also absolutely sincere when he defended his understanding of democracy with the fact that men and women could still travel in the same bus, drinkers could still drink until they cough it out or women could still wear mini skirts. In his understanding, these are indications of his “tolerance” to the other, and the fact that his government still allowed “those sins” amounts to democracy.
He, in this role, is the benevolent Muslim democrat who tolerates even women and men traveling in the same bus. And naturally, he wholeheartedly believes he is being treated unfairly when the sinners accuse him of undemocratic rule. His anger during public speeches is not fake. He is angry because the sinners don’t appreciate his favors – that, for instance, there is not yet an altogether ban on alcohol consumption. Hence his humiliatory tone when he refers to drinkers: until they cough it out!
In democracies the right to sin is respected and must be vigorously safeguarded by the state. In Muslim democracies it is/must not. Simply because “Muslim democracy” is different than “democracy.” Otherwise it would simply have been called democracy.
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