Fethullah Gulen Tolerance, Dialogue and Peace
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Turkey as a country is a living example of that as it started the only democracy in the Middle East almost a century ago and reached in its golden age of authoritarianism within the last year. This is not the first time that Turkey is weathering such political storms. The country went through a number of coup d’états within its ninety years of lifetime. But this last round of run for absolute power came from the very people who started as champions of human rights and freedoms. The political actors who established a full dictatorship today were all pro-western and pro-democracy and were promising high standards of living for all ethnic and religious groups not so long ago.
Fethullah Gulen pointed out the “Turkey’s Eroding Democracy” in his New York Times op-ed back in February 2015: “It is deeply disappointing to see what has become of Turkey in the last few years. Not long ago, it was the envy of Muslim-majority countries: a viable candidate for the European Union on its path to becoming a functioning democracy that upholds universal human rights, gender equality, the rule of law and the rights of Kurdish and non-Muslim citizens. This historic opportunity now appears to have been squandered as Turkey’s ruling party, known as the A.K.P., reverses that progress and clamps down on civil society, media, the judiciary and free enterprise.”
It was not just Fethullah Gulen’s foresight about Turkey’s dangerous turn, most other Western media outlets warned the AK Party administration. Several recent articles in New York Times “Ahead of Election, Erdogan Cracks down on Critics”, “Dark Clouds over Turkey”, “For Turkey’s Ruler, Criticism from New York is not Fit to Print”, some other in Financial Times “Turkish President tightens grip on Turkey”, “Rolling Back Reform had led to malaise in Turkey” all warned about the deviation from democratic goals. European Parliament also warned Turkey earlier on fundamental freedoms and corruption. “US warned Turkey not to hurt its international standing” several times as well but just got its own share of offensive comments from Erdogan and his henchmen.
Political scientist Gokhan Bacik counts a dozen different authoritarian practices in Turkey that occurred within the last couples of months. “Many judges have been fired or removed from the bench because of their recent decisions –two were arrested… Hundreds of people have been arrested or detained for insulting the president… The police assault people freely… Arbitrary media accreditation is another daily routine… Hate speech is another routine occurrence… Any anti-government activity is defined as a coup attempt…” Bacik adds that “a typical political scientist would criticize the government for bringing Turkey back to an authoritarian age. However, more is needed. How is the Turkish public digesting this? A more analytical perspective is needed to explain the rise of authoritarianism in the Turkey of 2015.”
The question of “how Turkey did end up in this authoritarian hell despite that majority of the public and very same politicians seemed to be willing on empowering its democracy?” requires a more detailed analysis than the scope of this short note. Like political scientist Ihsan Yilmaz we are still hopeful that Erdogan’s efforts will eventually backfire. As he explains in his recent article on “Erdogan’s fights with press freedoms” that “Erdogan’s desire to create a dictatorship in a country with 200 years of electoral history, modernization, secularization and democratization will definitely backfire. What is more, Turkey has a 1,000-year tradition of pluralism, multiculturalism and diversity that Erdogan has waged a war against.” Obviously a lot is at stake in the coming elections. On the eve of this critical general election we share Fethullah Gulen’s wishes within his concluding remarks of the NYT op-ed “Turkey has now reached a point where democracy and human rights have almost been shelved. I hope and pray that those in power reverse their current domineering path. In the past the Turkish people have rejected elected leaders who strayed from a democratic path. I hope they will exercise their legal and democratic rights again to reclaim the future of their country.”
