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 OPINION/ SEMİH İDİZ

Wednesday,March 12 2014, Hurriyet Daily News

SEMİH İDİZ

Turkey is sliding into chaos

Things are gradually getting out of hand in Turkey, as the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) administration continues to divide society with its vindictive rule that promises no stability for the near future.

People are out on the street again, angered over the police killing of a 15-year-old kid during the Gezi Park protests last summer. The fact the government did not lift a finger to bring Berkin Elvan’s killer to justice has merely added fuel to the anger.

Meanwhile, the total lack of sympathy from Prime Minister Erdoğan for Berkin, even though he never wastes an opportunity to deplore the killing of Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Cairo by the Egyptian police, is glaring. The crocodile tears being shed for Berkin by his ministers, on the other hand, are laughable.

I have said it before, as have many people, and repeat it again, as will many people these days. The stronger this party comes out of the local elections March 30, the more instability one can expect in Turkey.


This is the only conclusion one can arrive at since Erdoğan is making no secret of his vindictive intentions. All you have to do is listen to what he says during the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) political rallies. Neither are those dailies which have become unquestioning mouthpieces for the government making a secret of what is to come.

Their columnists are openly promising what readers they have that domestic “neocons” and their extensions in the U.S. (meaning Fetullah Gülen of course) - who they claim are in cahoots with the CIA and Mossad - will be fully exposed after March 30. This is nothing but a clear indication of much more instability on the way.

Meanwhile Turkey’s legal system, which was far from perfect to start with, has all but collapsed because of the war between Erdoğan and Gülen. Brutal killers of secularist jurists and Christian missionaries have been released because of the way the government has tampered with the law in order to protect Erdoğan and his ministers from corruption allegations.

Erdoğan, for his part, has openly said he is relying on the local elections to exonerate him and his ministers from these allegations which continue to hover over his head like a dark cloud that keeps growing with one revelation or another.

What this means in plain language is he has no confidence in the legal system, even after the changes introduced by his government. Seeing that all his efforts to control the media have proved insufficient, he is now also going after YouTube and Facebook, and promising in this way to turn this country into a different version of North Korea.

The fact that Erdoğan has started back-peddling with regard to this issue - given that even President Gül, who recently ratified the restrictive new Internet law, is saying it is out of the question that YouTube and Facebook will be shut down - does not alter what lies in his heart.

Looking at all of this, all of those who are concerned with the fate of the economy are on tenterhooks as well. Erdoğan can continue to blame the “international interest rate lobby” that he claims is trying to undermine the AKP’s economic successes, but it is doubtful that his own ministers in charge of the economy are convinced by this.

History tells us that order always follows social chaos. Eventually, the time will come for a period of restoration and genuine reform after this nightmare is over. It will take time though. That period is clearly not on the cards till after the general elections planned for 2015.

Until then, social tension and ugly scenes in Turkey are likely to continue because it is Erdoğan and the members of his government, not to mention their media, who are promising this.

March/13/2014