News Quiz, Erdoğan Edition
November 7, 2013 § 6 Comments
Particularly following the Turkish government’s response to the Gezi protests this past summer, an increasingly bright spotlight has been trained upon Prime Minister Erdoğan’s managerial inclination to micromanage seemingly small and insignificant details, his blanket rejections of things with which he does not agree, and his efforts at social engineering and shaping Turkish behavior. He is in the news this week for something he did that touches upon this portrayal of the prime minister, so in the style of the Bluff the Listener game on the NPR radio show Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, guess which one of the following three stories about Erdoğan is the real one.
Story One: Prime Minister Erdoğan has threatened to sue the makers of Turkish Taffy, a candy which he says is not authentically Turkish and is harming Turkey’s image. Turkish Taffy, invented by a Turkish immigrant in New York after WWII, has been gaining popularity in recent years and came to Erdoğan’s attention when a visiting business delegation from the U.S. inquired where in Ankara they could find some “authentic native” taffy. Erdoğan insists that visitors to Turkey should be interested in lokum and baklava and instead are getting the impression that Turkish confection consists of corn syrup-based candy. In comments to reporters, Erdoğan said, “Taffy is not a Turkish sweet. This American company is using Turkey to further its own economic interests and defaming our proud legacy. We are looking into the appropriate legal steps to make sure that Turkey’s name is not used in connection with this foreign product.” The makers of Turkish Taffy say that they have been using the product name for more than half a century and have no intention of giving it up.
Story Two: On a trip to Finland, Prime Minister Erdoğan paid a visit to Rovio, the Finnish company behind the mobile gaming phenomenon Angry Birds, but let the game developers know that he has a problem with their game’s basic premise. In a meeting with Rovio’s CEO, Erdoğan asked, “Why are these birds angry? Doesn’t it have a negative effect on children?” The CEO explained that the birds are angry because the pigs have been stealing their eggs, and that Rovio has not received any reports of children being adversely impacted by the birds’ emotional state. Erdoğan has repeatedly voiced concerns about negative social cues that may be affecting Turkish youth, and with mobile technology very prevalent in Turkey, there is speculation that Erdoğan’s comments might be foreshadowing a new push to control mobile content. Previous governmental efforts have been launched to censor Internet content such as blocking Youtube and filtering websites that the government deems morally objectionable, and the government’s attacks on the evils of social media – and Twitter in particular – during the Gezi protests may be moving even farther afield to video games.
Story Three: The popular U.S. television program American Idol has spawned copycats in a number of countries, and Turkey is no exception. The producers of Turkstar, which was a singing reality competition that lasted only one season in 2004, are trying again in light of the popularity of American Idol, and their new show Türk Idol is right now in the midst of holding tryouts across Turkey. They have run into a serious obstacle, however, which is that Prime Minister Erdoğan has already declared his opposition to the show’s name. In remarks to AKP deputies in a party meeting this week, Erdoğan noted the notion of an idol offends religious sensibilities, and he hinted that the show’s title and the implication that it will create a figure to be emulated could even be used to prosecute the producers for insulting Islam. “Social entertainment is important,” Erdoğan was reported to have said, “but it must be done in a culturally appropriate way. We reject the idea that anyone who sings well should be venerated or that this person should be called an idol. We have received numerous complaints about this show, and we are not interfering in lifestyles but acting to protect concerned parents.” The show’s producers have indicated in light of the prime minister’s concerns that they are open to changing the show’s name, and stressed that the show’s title is not meant to make any religious claims.
Which one of these stories is the real one? For the answer, click here to read the actual news item describing what has the prime minister upset.
Turkey’s “Democratization” Package
October 10, 2013 § 3 Comments
Ten days ago, Prime Minister Erdoğan and the AKP released the details of their long-promised and long-awaited democratization package, which had been hyped for months as a major initiative aimed at correcting imbalances righting wrongs in the Turkish political system. Since I am late to the game here, I am not going to do a deep dive into everything it entails – a summary can be found here – but most commentary, as typified by this column by Amanda Paul, has focused on the fact that the new proposals are good in some ways and fall short in others. In other words, a decent start but not far enough.
This is definitely one way to view the package. Another way is to think about it through the prism of how the AKP views democracy. In June 2012, Steven Cook and I wrote a piece for Foreign Affairs in which we contended that the AKP was expanding Turkish democracy when you look at measures of participation – meaning the extent to which citizens are able to participate in democracy – but limiting Turkish democracy when you look at measures of contestation – meaning the ability to contest the government’s power. The democratization package appears to break down along this dichotomy, which is unsurprising. Much of the package makes life a little easier for Kurds by allowing Kurdish-language education in public schools; allowing the use of the letters q, w, and x, which are found in Kurdish but not in Turkish; allowing Kurdish and other languages to be used in election campaigns; restoring former Kurdish names of majority-Kurdish villages in southeastern Turkey. These measures allow Kurds to participate in Turkey’s political and civic life to a larger extent. Other measures that affect the general population do the same, such as allowing government employees to wear headscarves ( which is unabashedly a good thing, no matter how many scary columns you read about the “Islamization of Turkey”).
When it comes to contestation though, there is nothing to cheer about. The proposal to lower Turkey’s electoral threshold to enter the Grand National Assembly from 10% to 5% is not actually being proposed as a law, but is being proposed simply as a topic for debate. Furthermore, the proposal to create single-member districts (rather than keep a system of proportional representation) or to keep a system of partial representation and create districts of 5 or so members would almost certainly benefit the AKP and maintain or increase its percentage of parliamentary seats. In addition, hoped-for proposals on reforming the anti-terror law – which is increasingly used as a cudgel against journalists and government critics – were absent. If it wasn’t clear to everyone that the AKP cannot stand to be challenged in any way even after this summer’s events, it should certainly be clear now. When this government talks about expanding democracy, it only means it in a very narrow sense (and even then, it apparently doesn’t mean it if you happen to be Alevi rather than Sunni).
There is still another way to view this democratization package, which is that it actually intends to do the precise opposite of what it claims. There is a proposal to establish a hate crimes law that would impose three year prison sentences on anyone who commits a crime based on someone’s or some group’s language, ethnicity, nationality, skin color, gender, disability condition, political views, philosophical beliefs, religion, or sect. In theory this sounds like an effort to protect minorities, but given the Turkish government’s track record of prosecuting students who protest against Erdoğan or pianists who insult Islam, I would bet nearly anything that the hate crimes law will be used to go after AKP opponents and critics. Nearly any speech can be criminalized and punished at the government’s behest under this legislation, and Erdoğan has unfortunately demonstrated that he has no qualms about cracking down on things he simply doesn’t like or finds offensive. There is a good chance that the most far-reaching and significant part of this “democratization” package will be an element that does not enhance Turkish democracy but instead greatly weakens it. So yes, there are ways in which the government’s efforts to improve Turkish democracy may be a good start, but there are also ways in which “this doesn’t go far enough” is not quite the criticism that should be leveled. It’s not the absence of certain elements in this proposal that worries me so much as the inclusion of others.
