Last week, I was in Rhodiapolis, an almost 3000-year-old Lycian city near Antalya, Turkey. Its ancient theater (above), which was restored following a long work, was the stage to a classical music concert after a millennium-long silence. In today's Hürriyet, I've reported about this historical activity and the latest work in Rhodiapolis.
Here, I would like to tell something about the conversation that I had with the mayor of Kumluca, the closest municipal administration to Rhodiapolis. Husamettin Cetinkaya, who gave enormous support to the restoration, told me something (it was on the record, but we couldn't publish his remarks as the physical space on our Culture page was limited). Cetinkaya, a member of the governing AKP, told me the following words:
"When I was a child, we were referring to the ruins of Rhodiapolis as 'gavuristanlik' (the land of the Giaour). The ancient city was forgotten for a long time. In the year 2000, a forest fire revealed it to us again. As the mayor, firstly I saw it as a possible source of tourism revenue, so I passionately started to lobby for a restoration project. Then, I become a part of the excavation, so I realized that history was more important than money. Now, above bare rationalism, I'm attached to Rhodiapolis with my heart, too."
So the mayor from an Islamist party mobilizes his local administration to rebuild pagan temples, just for sake of additional tourism revenues at first, and then, by really falling in love with Anatolian history...
It's an interesting summary of Turkish Islamism, which is a form of neo-liberalism with a neo-Islamist outlook.
Meanwhile, I've read one of the best analyses of aforementioned phenomenon. I've discovered the author very late, but it's better late than never. Even though I have several objections to his piece, I still strongly recommend you to read two articles by Cihan Tuğal, right after reading a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, which was about the increasing numbers of rural-urban migrants and the democratic leaders that they are creating. After all, these "urban outsiders" are the core of AKP's voter base.
First article by Tuğal describes the neo-liberal overtones of Islamism in Turkey by revealing its Americanized nature and by demonstrating that it started to pacify the masses as soon as it is the new hegemonic power. The article is four years old, but it is still relevant today as can be seen from the fact that its prophetic conclusion is being confirmed by the Arab Spring today.
The second article by Tuğal is more directly related to the aforesaid Los Angeles Times piece. It tells about "the greening of Istanbul." The last phrases of the article are interesting: "Millions of Istanbul’s squatters have put their faith in the AKP’s Islamically embellished paradise of speculation. It remains to be seen whether this formula will weather harsher economic times."
In my opinion, with this conclusion, the second article of Tuğal corrects a mistake in the first article. After all, AKP doesn't really represent the export-oriented Turkish companies, even though it appears so. It represents the debt-driven, speculative nature of neo-liberalism. And the real test about its political strength will be when Turkey faces the next economic crisis as soon as the flow of foreign investment stops, independently of another global economic crisis or a domestic political one.
