OP-ED: HOW ERDOGAN SPINS THE NEWS AND TURKEY OUT OF CONTROL SPECIAL
Digital Journal
April 13 2015
By Lonna Lisa Williams Apr 13, 2015
Islamist Ak Party President Erdogan is spinning the news and Turkey
out of control as he grants police more powers; limits freedom of
speech, protests, and the press; and arrests those who oppose him.
Turkey has been in the news a lot lately. Strange headlines like “Is
Erdogan Losing Touch with Reality?” “Teens Targeted as Turkey Cracks
Down on Free Speech” and “Students in Turkey Petition for Jedi Temple
after Call for Mosque on Campus” appear on the Internet lately.
Almost two years ago, the Gezi Park Freedom Protests challenged
Islamist Ak Party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan, like the Evil
Emperor from Star Wars, struck back — hard. Instead of Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk’s secular democracy, a police state reigned in Turkey. Anyone
who spoke against Erdogan and his ideals, including a beauty queen,
a 13-year-old boy who posted something on Facebook, teenage university
students, journalists, academics, and novelists — were accused in
court and, in many cases, faced with prison.
While Erdogan puts finishing touches on his over $600 million new
Ak Sarayı (“White Palace”), now the largest palace in the world,
working-class Turkish citizens are struggling to pay their rising
electric and water bills. While his children and in-laws run for
high posts in the government, university students struggle to find
good-paying jobs. The Turkish lira hit an all-time low in December,
and several Turkish banks are facing big problems.
Religious freedom is also at an all-time low. At Easter time this past
week, a Muslim Koran reading was held inside the Hagia Sophia, one of
the oldest Christian churches in the world. Built in the 6th Century,
it stood as the world’s tallest building for 1,000 years. In 1453,
it was conquered by Sultan Mehmet II and immediately converted into a
mosque with the Christian altar removed, intricate mosaics plastered
over, a nook cut toward Mecca, and tall minarets added. Ataturk wisely
turned it into a museum in the 1930s, but its future veers toward
being forced into a mosque again. There are over 80,000 mosques in
Turkey and over 3,000 in Istanbul, with more being built at the cost
of millions of dollars. Many of them remain almost empty while Turks
try to pay rising rent costs. Not one Christian church was allowed to
be built in the Turkish capital of Ankara, except on the foreign soil
of embassies. The idea that Turkey is only Muslim is false; there are
many Armenian Christians (who took Turkish names to survive) keeping
a low profile in Turkey, even as the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide approaches (which Erdogan denies). There are also many other
Turkish Christians with actual churches throughout Turkey, Jews,
Alevis, and, apparently, Buddhists and Jedi (as university students
recently demanded their temples be built on university grounds).
Erdogan has also been converting ancient Christian churches and
monasteries into mosques. In lifting up the Ottoman Empire and
portraying his image as a Sultan, Erdogan has denied the rich
Christian, Roman, Greek, and Mesopotamian histories and cultures
of Turkey.
Erdogan has closed Twitter and Facebook several times, only to reopen
them if “offensive” items were removed. Erdogan has allowed his
police force to attack unarmed protesters and even peaceful tourists
(including me). I spent 2.5 years working in Turkey and covering the
news first-hand. I even married into a Turkish/Armenian family and
learned the language. Turkey is a beautiful country, brimming over
with natural and historic treasures, and it should not go the way of
Syria or Iraq. New laws in Turkey threatening women’s rights. New laws
allow police to search and detain people without a search warrant or
even an official charge. They also prohibit protesters from covering
their faces with gas masks or wearing hardhats, thus making them
vulnerable to pepper spray and even the now-allowed gun bullets.
A 14-year-old boy was shot in the head with a metal tear gas canister
during the Gezi Park Protests nearly two years ago — while going
to the store to buy bread for his family. He was in a coma for nine
months and then died. When a judge would not release the name of the
policeman (and others) responsible for his death, two neighbors took
matters into their own hands. They stormed the courthouse and held the
judge at gunpoint for hours, demanding the name of the policeman who
killed the boy. When the judge refused, the neighbors shot him. Then
they were shot by Turkish police and labeled “terrorists.” This is
how Erodgan spins the news.
One Turkish man told me, “That boy’s neighbors sought justice, and
they were not given it, so they brought justice in the Turkish way. If
Erdogan’s Islamist Ak Party wins the upcoming June elections, Turkey
will face a civil war. The Ataturk people will not be patient forever.
They want secular democracy again. Turkey could become the next Syria.”
In fact, so great is Erdogan’s control over his citizens that he
determines the legal recipe of bread. There is a bill before the
Turkish Parliament to put smart chips with GPS trackers into the ID
cards of all Turkish citizens–and talk of inserting smart chips
inside Turkish citizen’s bodies so that the GPS trackers would be
even more effective. Who would have thought that what some Christians
consider the “Mark of the Beast,” mentioned in the Book of Revelation,
could first appear in Turkey?
Apparently, Europe and the U.S.A. are happy to sit and watch Turkey
fall into the darkness of dictatorship, like a Mevlana whirling dervish
gone out of control. Even the Kurds are accusing Erdogan of being
a dictator. Maybe they will help the Turks regain their government
and their human rights. Some Turks are actually trying, like the new
“Meydan” (“Defiance”) newspaper and the Republican People’s Party
(CHP), Ataturk’s secular democratic group. But time is short and much
needs to be done. If Turkey falls, how will things go with Europe
and America?