Letter from Istanbul: Erdoğan is now backing Assad

Erdoğan’s AKP party, which brought him to power a year after it was founded, recently celebrated its 21st anniversary. This time, however, the celebrations lacked the earlier euphoria. There was no ovation interrupting Erdoğan’s speech, nor enthusiastic applause. But Erdoğan’s ability to turn reality into the opposite hasn’t diminished a grain. He concluded his speech, in which he summed up the 21 years as a great success story, with the words: “Anyone who puts their hand on their heart will admit that today’s Turkey is more democratic and free and equal opportunities compared to 21 years ago is embossed.”

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Erdoğan spoke as if the country in which, according to the 2022 country report by the Bertelsmann Foundation, democracy and the rule of law have declined the most in the last decade, is not Turkey. Or as if we didn’t live in the Turkey he was talking about, or as if he was talking about the thousand-room wonderland. A number of television channels broadcast Erdoğan’s speech live, including the following message in the news ticker: “The Istanbul chairwoman of the (largest opposition party) CHP, Canan Kaftancioglu, is being investigated for insulting Erdoğan because she said: ‘We will democratically appoint a dictator send to this country.’”

In a thousand room wonderland

In the week that Erdoğan painted a rosy picture of Turkey in his dream world, one new censorship decision, testing the limits of autocracy, followed the other. The fight against digital journalism has spilled over into the world of entertainment. After Deutsche Welle was banned, it was now the turn of digital platforms. An investigation has been launched against Spotify for disrespect towards “government figures” in playlists. You probably don’t have to explain who this is about. A YouTube channel with more than a million subscribers is also being investigated for depictions of Erdoğan. And on Netflix, a cartoon was censored for allegedly promoting homosexuality.

This is how things are in the country that Erdoğan calls “more democratic and free”. And where he speaks of equal opportunities, there are calls that are in no way inferior to a Taliban government. A religious TV station that Erdoğan set up with taxpayers’ money recommended women not to wear pants. A theologian, who in turn issues fatwas financed by our tax money, spoke on the broadcaster run by the state religious authority Diyanet: “Pants are very tight. It is unacceptable for women to appear in public with it.”

“We envy the lions their meat in documentaries”

Not only has freedom shrunk with us, but also work and our livelihood. In 1948, in a town in Anatolia, people applied for a single vacancy as a cleaner. In the last two years, meat consumption has fallen by almost half. A pensioner complained in a street survey that they no longer had any meat in the kitchen, literally saying: “In documentaries we envy the lions for their meat.” We even lack the means to pay for our basic expenses. In the first nine months of 2021, 400 million gas and electricity bills could not be paid. Now that the cold season is approaching again, concern is increasing. 73 percent of citizens see difficulties in paying their bills.

Do you think the people who are being robbed of one liberty after another and are getting poorer by the day wouldn’t hold the government accountable for it? You know very well that Erdoğan, the sole decision-maker, is responsible. This is reflected in a new survey, less than a year before next year’s elections: there is no sign of a victory for Erdoğan. He himself knows that unless another miracle happens, he must go. 60 percent of the population say they would “definitely not” vote for Erdoğan. Only half as many say they would definitely vote for him. Two out of three voters in the country are against Erdoğan. Knowing he can’t stay in office with just one in three voters, he hatched a new plan.