Democracy, Turkish Style
The
violent drama playing out in fits and starts on the streets of Istanbul - and
across the country - is more than a distant news headline for me. It's a
personal story come full circle.
On
Dec. 4, 1945, a government-inspired mob of 10,000 wound their way through
Istanbul's cobblestone streets, swinging pick axes and sledgehammers. Their
mission was to silence my grandparents, owners of Turkey's second-largest
newspaper. In broad daylight as the police watched, they destroyed Zekeriya and
Sabiha Sertel's publishing house, knocking down the door, breaking apart
printing presses, and heaving rolls of printing paper into the streets.
The
Sertels were the only ones arrested and put on trial. Their alleged crime:
slandering the government, charges tied to their call for an end to one-party
rule. They were acquitted, but as friends were either imprisoned or
mysteriously murdered, they fled into exile, where they continued pressing for
a full-fledged democracy.
My grandmother, defiant in the courtroom, refused to accept a plea bargain.
More
than 60 years later and a short walk across town, a similar scene keeps playing
out in Taksim Square with one striking difference. This time, it's a diverse
swath of free-thinking Turks marching through the streets, demanding personal
freedoms. The government, led by conservative Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
has answered with clouds of tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets. What's
stunning is that so little has changed. The same fight for civil liberties and
a vibrant democracy still is being waged today.
A few weeks ago, I landed in Istanbul at the peak of the violence to research a book about my
revolutionary grandparents and immediately found myself witnessing this
crossroads in Turkish history. My husband and I flicked on CNN International in
time to watch wall-to-wall coverage of a raging war between police and demonstrators.
Such scenes puzzle many Westerners. Turkey is showcased as proof that a secular
democracy can thrive in the Middle East, even serving as a model for Arab Spring
nations. I was just as puzzled as a child growing up in America, asking my
Turkish mother, "Why were our grandparents punished for demanding freedom
if Turkey is a democracy?"
The
ugly standoff between a new generation of young Turks and a prime minister they
accuse of increasingly authoritarian rule reveals the messy answer. Freedom
ebbs and flows, depending on who's in power. It's democracy, Turkish-style, a
very different model from what we understand in the West.
From
the republic's founding, the military served as an odd form of checks and
balances, charged with protecting the fledgling secular democracy with brute
force. Over the years, it staged four coups to oust regimes that the generals
deemed were straying from the path. During the first coup in 1960, they hanged
the premier. The last coup in 1997 toppled the Welfare party, the first Islamic-led
government, but Erdogan and other party members soon regained power. It's no
wonder that Prime Minister Erdogan has reined in the military. Claiming they
were unlawfully plotting against his regime, Erdogan's government has locked up
a host of generals, along with other perceived conspirators, including lawyers,
intellectuals, and journalists. More journalists are behind bars in Turkey than
in any other country. "We need the military," said one relative,
longing for the old days of intervention.
So
violent clashes in the name of democracy are nothing new. What's unusual is the
resilience of these protesters. The son of a friend said simply, "They
tear-gas us, but we're not afraid." But those who've lived through coups
and repressive regimes are afraid for them.
One
night, a veteran journalist translated for us as we watched live
coverage of riot police forcibly removing activists in Gezi Park, ground zero
of the resistance movement. "I hope no one dies," she said like a
worried mother. The brutal scene must have flooded her with memories of the two
years she'd spent in prison, enduring rounds of torture. The crime according to
the generals? Her politics. "The party you work for is legal today and not
tomorrow," she explained matter-of-factly. And that, in a nutshell, is how
Turkish democracy often works.
If
they were alive today, my grandparents would be cheering on these young
activists with front-page coverage. They seem free of the fear that paralyzed
those who lived through coups. Will the demonstrators continue to face down
their prime minister, or will tactics such as Erdogan's vow to hunt down
"one by one" protesters who "terrorized the streets"
ultimately teach them the Turkish lesson - that even the boldest freedom
fighters are eventually silenced?
No
one knows if Turkey has reached a tipping point. These demonstrators represent an important segment of
the nation's future - a fast-growing number of well-educated, technology-savvy
professionals from an array of backgrounds who have benefited from Erdogan's economic
policies. Armed with Twitter, they've put democracy, Turkish-style, on display
for all the world to see. Even as the government threatens to crack down on
social media, it may prove hard to put this genie back in the bottle.
(A version of this commentary first appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
http://articles.philly.com/2013-06-25/news/40187658_1_democracy-taksim-square-prime-minister-erdogan)
