The Anatomy of an 'Islamist' Mob and Turkey's Roma Expulsion

According to a Hürriyet Daily News story:

A group numbering dozens attacked the opening of several art galleries in Istanbul’s Tophane neighborhood last night, putting at least five people in the hospital with injuries from pepper spray, broken bottles, batons and knives, shouting "God is great." The hospitalized included one Polish and one German citizen. The attack was first believed to have been in response to art pieces on exhibit because "Galeri Non" had an exhibition that featured content on the taboos of Islam and Atatürk both. However, witnesses at the scene who spoke right after the incident and this morning confirmed that the scuffle broke out due to alcohol consumption in the streets.

In contrary to what many of you may expect, I'm not going to point out the radical Islamization trend in our society.

Neither I would criticize the AKP government for familiar reasons.

Instead, I'd like to forward you to another story.

Hürriyet (the Turkish version this time) also reported today that Istanbul's Fatih municipality, which is being controlled by AKP, is selling some of its land to the Treasury for 2500 lira per squaremeters. The land were expropriated one and half a year ago for one-fifth of this price. The previous owners, who were forced by the government to make this agreement, were the Roma community that has been residing in this district for thousands of years. So the local authorities kicked the Roma out and sold the land to the national government for a much more profitable price. It is clear that the government will soon sell the land again, probably to private companies that is close to AKP, possibly for a much lower price.

So in Sarkozy's France, a populist fascism is being used to deport Roma.

In AKP's Turkey, everything is according to the book: It's neoliberal fascism that we call gentrification...

Coming back to the 'Islamist' mob in Tophane, I've learned that the real reason which lays beneath the surface of the recent vandal attack was neither alcohol nor politics. Like in most problems in life, it's about money and property.

The Tophane district is now part of a large urban renewal project. For poor locals, popping art galleries are the materialization of the incoming catastrophe. In the short term, they are rising the rents in the district, which is bad for those who live in rented houses. In the long term, they are even worse, because they're bringing posh shops and rich people with them, which will speed up the gentrification projects. Shortly, those who own a house there will soon or late be kicked out...

To conclude, the Tophane incident is not a symptom of Islamist radicalization. The gravest danger here is not about religion in its core, but it is related to religion in someway. The mob portrays the darkest feature of AKP's rule. With its policies, the government does not only alienate and polarize the people by mercilessly privatizing the public space; but it also corrupts Turkish Islam, turning it into a convenient tool of material interests, while still masking its neoliberal fascism with a pseudo-religious face.

So what is worse? Sarkozy's France or AKP's Turkey?

The answer depends on who you are: A member of the ruling elite? An artist? A Roma? A conservative have-not?

Who?

Blame Bono

I've got some strong material for the stupidest conspiracy theorists of them all.

Hypothesis:

Whenever Bono goes somewhere, the national government there starts seizing the judiciary.

Evidence I:

Bono was in Turkey on the eve of the recent constitutional referendum. He had a meeting with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. Consequently, the amendments were passed by a popular vote and the AKP government have a stronger grip on the judiciary now.

Evidence II:

Bono was in France yesterday. He met President Nicolas Sarkozy. Consequently, Sarkozy's Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux has announced some reform plans on judiciary. If ratified, the new laws will create a new French judiciary which will be more dependent to the government, especially on crucial issues such as the appointments of the magistrates.

My Theory:

Should we blame the Turkish people?

Should we blame the French nation?

Heck no!

Blame Bono!

U2's Bono met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace in Paris yesterday. The palace didn't publish a photo, showing Sarkozy and Bono together. We've got only this one.

Boo This 'Democrat' and You Lose Bad

When I returned from Austria to Turkey, I was supposed to find a more democratic homeland, considering the positive reactions of the US and the EU officials following the constitutional referendum.

However, it seems that it's still business as usual under the AKP government here.

First of all, I was not permitted to vote in the airport on the eve of the referendum, because they say that I must be a resident of another country to do it. As long as I reside in Turkey, even if I won't be around on an election day, I can't vote while leaving the country. And there is no way to vote abroad.

Maybe the government don't let these people vote, because they know that the Turks who are open to the world, shuttling between Turkey and other countries, know a bit better about democracy than the AKP mob. So they also know that these people would never vote for these constitutional amendments, which are everything but democratizing...

Then I came back here and confirmed that the referendum didn't change anything, after reading a Turkish news story:

"Like President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan had also been booed by the Turkish crowd during a match in the FIBA World Basketball Championship. Now the police have scanned the CCTV footage and spotted the individual fans who protested Erdogan. The next step will be identifying these individuals through their seat numbers. So the police have started to check the information on the commercial website that the tickets were solved, as well as the credit card records of the ticket-holders."

And you still say that this prime minister is building a better democracy? Didn't you notice yet what's coming up with the already-approved destruction of separation of powers in Turkey?

Referendum According to Different Sources

Newsy.com broadcasts a useful video to summarize what tomorrow's crucial referendum will be about:

Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

Bono as a Misguided AKP Supporter?

Speaking legally, what Bono has just done in Istanbul was not pro bono.

The Irish singer was here for U2's first Istanbul gig. Unsurprisingly, he made some political contacts.

Following their meeting, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is using Bono as a political asset on the eve of the constitutional referendum. Erdogan has narrated their chat with the following words:

"I told Bono that I was imprisoned because of a poem that I recited in a political rally. He reacted with a laughter."

Well, Erdogan didn't reiterate the verses, probably because he didn't want to interrupt Bono's laughter. Let me remind you those verses: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers."

I'm sure Bono is not a hypocrite. If he gets along well with Erdogan, then he also does with -for instance- Abu Hamza al-Masri at home. After all, their discourses are similar.

The most controversial part of Bono's visit was not his meeting with Erdogan, though. It was what happened in the concert and afterwards.

When Bono thanked Egemen Bagis, a minister from AKP , 40.000 fans in the Olympic Stadium booed. "Okay, okay! I won't mention politicians," Bono quickly backpedaled. Then he invited a Turkish musician, Zulfu Livaneli, up to the stage. Livaneli sang his masterpiece, Leylim Ley, in tune with tens of thousands of people. According to Livaneli, who is also a member of the main opposition party (CHP), Bono told him that he knew this song and he'd never seen such an atmosphere in a concert before.

Did Bono realize that the crowd are mostly anti-AKP people, so he cleverly counter-balanced the scene with a CHP-minded artist? I don't know, but it anyway seemed to me that Bono is quite a pragmatic man, not an idealist like his public image presents himself.

The more annoying part is Erdogan's statement about the booing crowd. He said the following words during a live TV interview:

"Bono thanked Egemen Bagis and those young men booed. How can you explain this mentality? A minister has managed to bring an important band to Turkey and you boo him in front of the band members. You may not like the party of that minister, but you can't boo him there. You don't have such a right."

I get used to such anti-democratic, autocratic remarks by Erdogan, so I'm not going to criticize these words. I'd like to point out some other fact:

Turkey has beaten Slovenia in the World Basketball Championship quarterfinals last night. When President Abdullah Gul entered the court, almost 15.000 Turkish fans booed him. So Bagis, as an AKP man, is not an exception.

When you watch these scenes, you really get curious. The members of AKP are being booed and jeered everywhere, but their party keeps getting almost half of the votes in Turkey's elections.

The allegations about widespread election rigging get supported with these scenes, even though we should still keep in mind that Turkey is not Istanbul. The greater hinterland of the country, mainly Central Anatolia, is probably still the quite voting machine of AKP.

The problem about Turkey's democracy lies just here. The conscious, urban classes are dwarfed by the political sheep of the county.

Personally, I will be in Vienna on Sunday and I will vote in the airport.

A "yes" can create a Dictatorship of the Sheep in Turkey.

A "no" can only delay it.

The paradox can force anyone to behave pragmatically, instead of keeping up with idealism.

Bono is such a man.

I am not.

The EU's Blind Love With AKP

I never believed in anti-EU conspiracy theories in Turkey, which generally argue that the EU wants Turkey to change in a negative way, not a positive one. Some of them even suggest that the EU elite would actually like to see a theocratic state in Turkey to build a stronger Christian European unity with such an antagonism.

In this regard, it is surprising for me to see that the EU supports the upcoming constitutional amendments, which are controversial enough to force the Turkish government to put them on a referendum. It is surprising, because it is very obvious that these amendments are of a kind that no EU nation would ever agree to have them in their own country.

There are many reasons, but let me give you four of them to explain that these amendments will drive Turkey away from democracy, if they're approved by the majority of the people. Such a result in the referendum will be as anti-democratic as the minaret ban in Switzerland, but their consequences for Turkey and the world can be more destructive.

1) Apart from the content, the method of the referendum is clearly against the EU criterion. "The Code of Good Practice on Referendums" by the Venice Commission emphasizes that the people should be able to vote for or against each proposed article separately.

2) The most important one among the proposed changes: With the current system, 53 percent of the members of the Constitutional Court are elected by senior justices and 27 percent are chosen by the president. With the new system, the share of the electors will change as follows: 37 percent by the president, 27 percent by senior justices, 16 percent by the parliament and 15 percent by the high education board. It means that the AKP government will shape up almost 70 percent of the Constitutional Court, which is a key institution in a democratic checks and balances system. If approved by the referendum, there will be no separation of powers in Turkey anymore.

3) Previous point is more of an issue about macro-politics, but the new amendments will also bring catastrophe to millions of ordinary Turkish citizens who may one day need an independent judiciary when they confront a violation of their rights by the government. One article of AKP's package ultimately limits the courts to review the decisions of the administration only in their relation to current laws. It means that a court cannot be able to stop the construction of a hydro-electric dam, citing its environmental threats anymore.

4) All the eye-candies that the government put into this dangerous package to make it appear more attractive had actually already become law. For instance, the freedom of information had been guaranteed by a law in the past and putting it into the Constitution won't make any difference. Moreover, some eye-candies will have some painful adverse effects. For example, an amendment will allow a citizen to press a charge in the Constitutional Court. In appearance, it can be seen as a more democratic option, but it is not. After thousands of individual cases, the Constitutional Court will be so paralyzed that each case will be concluded after years. So this "right" will actually make it harder for a Turkish citizen to exhaust domestic remedies before going to the European Court of Human Rights.

Aren't the politicians and bureaucrats of the EU aware of these facts? Are they fall for those needless eye-candies? Or do they have an agenda that we don't know about yet?

Whatever their answers are, simply, this referendum is about destroying Turkey as we know it as a democratic, social state of law and justice.