When we talk about contemporary Turkey we think of the long career of the current president
Erdogan. But we will come slowly to talk about his politics. First a little geography, which never
hurts. We are dealing with a nation in the middle between Southeastern Europe and Western Asia,
divided into two peninsular regions: Eastern Thrace and Anatolia, bordered to the northwest
by Greece and Bulgaria, to the south by Syria and Iraq, and to the east by Iran, Armenia,
and Georgia. Thanks to its strategic location, the country has positioned itself as a bridge
between different cultures, benefiting from democratic influences from the Old Continent
and becoming a role model for all Middle Eastern countries aspiring to a synthesis of Islam and the
rule of law. Now we are witnessing a reversal, and the recent authoritarian drift has greatly
slowed down the process of establishing democratic principles. We can say that the beginning of these
processes dates back to the late 19th century when competition with European powers led some of the
cultural elites within the Ottoman Empire to push for modernization. A goal that according to some
could be achieved by maintaining a synthesis between Islamic faith and state institutions, but
which according to others, including the famous Moustafa Kemal, required a clean break between
state and religion, which had to be limited to the private sphere of the citizen. Thus, after
the 1923 elections that saw the victory of the Republican People's Party (CHP) led by Ataturk,
Turkish became the official language in place of Arabic, the form of state was revised in a
republican key, a head of state and a prime minister appointed by the head of state were
established. Then within the following year, to solve the problem of the difficult coexistence
between democracy and Islam, Islam was erased from the country's daily life by abolishing the
sultanate, caliphate, and Islamic courts. This wasn t such a clean exit, however, since despite
the forced secularization, Sunni Islam continued to remain very deeply rooted, especially among the
rural and less educated population, also thanks to the influence that religious brotherhoods have
always exerted on every aspect of society. These include the Sufi-oriented Nak?ibendi,
to which Necmettin Erbakan, Erdogan's political father, belonged, and the Hizmet, founded by
Fethullah Gulen, which Erdogan used to rise to power and with which he came into open conflict
during the attempted coup of 2016. However, what were the highlights of the Kemalist reforms?
With the establishment of the Republic of Turkey on October 29, 1923, legislative and executive
powers passed into the hands of the Assembly, which was responsible for electing the President
of the Republic, the head of the sole party, for 4-year terms. The head of state in turn appointed
the president of the council of ministers and the members of the council itself. Completing
the picture were the stated independence of the judiciary, the recognition of the formal equality
of citizens before the law, and the granting of the active and passive vote to women. A milestone
achieved in 1934, long before several European countries. But it was in 1937 that the most
important constitutional reform took place: the one that defined the so-called 6 arrows of the
Turkish state: republican, nationalist, populist, statist, reformist and secular. Ataturk's death
in 1938 and the shift from single party to multiple political formations, caused by
a number of adverse circumstances including economic backwardness compared to the West,
were two of the main reasons that prevented full democratic transition. As the years passed,
there was the emergence of more liberal currents promoting private initiative that met with the
support of the dissatisfied middle class and less literate rural classes. Among these,
gaining the most support was Adnan Menderes' Demokrat Parti, which, in the 1950 elections,
succeeded in ousting the old single party and demolishing the pillars of Kemalism. Measures
such as the call to prayer in Arabic, the opening of many mosques, and the reading via state radio
of passages from the Koran would allow religious values to re-emerge, in contrast to the previous
statist vision. The situation is also very similar in contemporary Turkey: on the one hand the
aspiration for a secular and democratic society as stated in the Constitution but on the other hand
a deeply religious society that struggles to recognize itself in national democratic
institutions. Despite the new government's good achievements, including membership in
the International Monetary Fund, openness to both the West and Arab countries, and decent economic
growth (9 percent annually), social tensions simmering in the background erupted in the
famous Istanbul pogrom of 1955, when a right-wing nationalist group clashed with a Greek minority
present in the city's suburbs, resulting in the deaths of 30 people. Menderes' party was accused
of taking an authoritarian turn and planning the pogrom despite its declared democratic openness.
So to restore order and prevent a religious drift in the country, the army, as the guardian of the
Constitution, seized power by force on May 27, 1960. This date frames the first of four military
coups in the period between 1960 and 1997, during which the secular organs of the state, represented
by the military, several times came face to face against the confessional parties. An important
step is found in the second coup of 1971 but especially the third in 1980, because they served
to inaugurate the so-called "Turkish-Islamic synthesis," that is, the fusion of Kemalism
and Sunni Islam. In essence, the military, in order to prevent the secularity of the state
from being compromised, decided to come to an agreement with the Islamic components of society,
becoming the bridge for Islam to officially penetrate the institutions. To make a long
story short, the situation in the 1980s was this: after the coup was over, a consulting assembly
formed by the supreme military organ (the National Security Council) and constitutionalist experts
was charged with drafting the Constitution. It stated the democratic and secular nature
of the Turkish state, confirmed the role of the supreme military organ as the protector
of social order, and expanded the powers of the government and the President of the Republic.
The new electoral law then set the threshold for entering Parliament at 10%, so that in 1983 only
3 parties competed for seats: the People's Party (Halk i Parti - direct successor to the CHP), the
Nationalist Party (Mhp) and the Motherland Party (Anap). The latter was supported by the
brotherhoods and founded by Turgut zal, who won 45 percent of the seats and became the ruling party.
Ozal's party succeeded in embodying that Turkish-Islamic synthesis I mentioned,
bringing together the military, the brotherhoods, and the small and medium business class. However,
persistent economic backwardness combined with corruption and inefficiency in the state began
to foster the emergence of the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi) founded by Erbakan in 1987 and
in which a young Erdo?an was beginning to make his mark. The party wasn't driven by any particular
ideology but, through a team of economists, tried to come up with the best solutions to
the problem of the broken state finances. It was an effort that paid off, as in the
1994 local government elections the party won in more than 20 municipalities, including Istanbul,
where Erdogan was elected mayor, and in the July 1996 general elections Erbakan
crowned his dream of becoming prime minister. But before long, Erbakan would be way over his head,
as conservative policies implemented by his local administrators began to anger the military;
these included plans to build a mosque in Istanbul's Taksim Square, a place symbolic of
the Western way of life, and a desire to convert the former St. Sophia basilica into a mosque,
another symbol of Turkey's secular tradition since it had been turned into a museum in 1934 by
the will of Atat rk himself. In addition, contacts between the Welfare Party and other Middle Eastern
Islamic groups such as the Palestinian Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and the Algerian
Islamic Salvation Front were putting the party in a bad light in the eyes of the military. And
here we come to the fourth coup of 1997, also called the "post-modern" coup because it was
implemented without bloodshed, with Erbakan banned from political life, accused of stealing public
funds and inciting religious hate. The Welfare Party was dismantled and in its place was born the
following year the Virtue Party, into which the young Erdogan joined even though shortly before
he had been sentenced to 10 months in prison. And given his excellent record as mayor of Istanbul,
it's not surprising that much of the population considered his detention an injustice that would
have made him even more charming. Anyway, of the originally planned 10 months, Erdogan served only
four since in 2001 the Turkish Constitutional Court granted amnesty to Virtue Party members
who had been banned from public office. At that point, the party split into two fronts:
the conservative wing of the Islamic matrix (Saadet Partisi - Party of Happiness) and the wing
of the so-called innovators, the young moderate reformists, of which Erdogan became the leader,
founding the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi - AKP) on August 14 of that
year. In the November 3, 2002 elections, the AKP became the first party with 34.3 percent of the
vote, but for some reasons that I will not go into here, Erdogan had to lead from behind the scenes,
letting his loyal right-hand man Abdullah Gul replace him as prime minister. The AKP,
on the strength of its policy proposals aimed at reviving the country's economic
situation hit by the 2001 crisis and rising inflation, would set up a Muslim government,
inspired by European democracies but with a Sunni Islamic emphasis. As Gul himself said,
"Although some of us are religiously oriented individuals, we don't want to be defined as a
religious party. [...] We want to prove that a Muslim-majority country can be democratic,
transparent and compatible with the modern world." Major achievements in the early
2000s including economic growth of 5 percent annually, diversification of foreign trade,
and an aid program for the poorer sections of the population projected Turkey into the role
of a regional power, making it a viable candidate for entry into the European Union, so much so that
negotiations reopened as early as October 2005. Dear Erdogan, if last year you hadn't
confined Ursula Von Der Leyen to that little couch maybe your flag would also be in Brussels today.
Jokes aside, internally the reform of the National Security Council was important,
remember? The supreme military organ, which was downgraded to an advisory organ, thus lessening
the military's grip on institutions. In short, a series of achievements that led the AKP to prevail
in the July 22, 2007 elections with as many as 46.6 percent of votes in favor corresponding to
341 seats. But on balance, the most important achievement for the Turkish leader was that of
having succeeded in getting Gul elected to the position of President of the Republic,
which had in fact consolidated his power over the opposition. The situation that had been created,
however, was a harbinger of a dangerous authoritarian drift because the government
would be able to push through laws bordering on constitutional legitimacy without the head
of state casting any kind of veto. Starting in 2008, a number of events threatened to
compromise the prime minister's career forever. First and foremost, the law restoring the veil
for women in universities almost cost the party closure for "antilaic activities,"
according to the dossier submitted by the chief prosecutor of the Turkish Supreme
Court (Abdurrahman Yal inkaya). The rescue came when the Constitutional Court, called to rule on
the issue, initially declared the law contrary to the Constitution but a few months later reversed
itself on public interest grounds. Then it was the turn of the prime minister's very strong
reaction against the members of the Ergenekon, an alleged Kemalist-style secret organization,
composed mainly of senior army officials, established with the aim of overthrowing the
government and seizing power in a coup. However, an affair that remains unclear to this day,
with many accusing Erdo?an himself of organizing everything to dispose of his political opponents.
A 2016 ruling would partially confirm these fears by releasing most of those convicted.
Finally, it was in May 2013 that there was a harsh crackdown on environmentalist protests against the
construction of a shopping mall in the green area of Gezi Park near Taksim Square. On that occasion,
police intervened against the protesters using tear gas and water cannons. The media and
newspapers loyal to the government tried to cover up the news, but this caused the event to resonate
even more through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, which were blacked out. However,
the turbulent situation that had been created was not enough to undermine the popularity of Erdogan,
who, having reached the 3-term limit and unable to run again for the leadership of the government,
ran for the presidency of the Republic in 2014 and won with 52 percent of the votes in favor.
At that point, the "New Turkey" project desired by the president required annihilating the last
internal opponent still capable of challenging him. I am referring to that Fethullah Gulen
who had long ago helped him get rid of the Kemalists and who, after the Gezi Park affair,
had instead obstructed him. His brotherhood, let s remember: the Hizmet, was from then on branded as
terrorist (Terrorist Organization of the Followers of Fethullah" - Fetullah i Ter r rg t ) and
targeted by government forces. The democratic values that had brought the ruling party to
prominence back in 2002 had been betrayed, with a society sharply divided between supporters and
opponents of the regime and a president with little tolerance for his enemies. Frequent was
the use of Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code, which provided for imprisonment for all those who
offended the president of the republic; a measure that among other things in 2021 was
declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be detrimental to freedom of expression (Article
10 ECHR). The authoritarian drift was so obvious that even within Erdogan's own party, scorched
earth had been made. A few years earlier, the Gezi Park affair had cost the removal of loyalist Gul,
and in May 2016 trusted Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was also removed, due to differences in
political views, and replaced with Binali Yldrim. Boiling tensions erupted on that Friday evening,
July 15, 2016, when a reporter from state TV Trt began reading a lengthy statement from the
coup plotters announcing the seizure of power. At the same time, the military had occupied the
southern bridges over the Bosphorus in Istanbul and two jets flew over the city, spreading terror
among the population. Erdo?an declared in a live video feed made from his smartphone that he had
survived the attack and called for citizens to take to the streets to defend democracy. It was
hours of terror; in Ankara, the parliamentary headquarters was hard hit by the air force
and reduced to a pile of rubble, but by the next morning it was clear that the coup had failed, as
army units still loyal to the president managed to restore the status quo. Even today it's difficult
to say who organized the coup. At first Aaron Stein claimed that it was some departments of the
First and Second Armies that carried it out, along with the support of elements of the Air Force,
Navy and Coast Guard. Another article by political scientist Svante Cornell asserted instead that:
"had been the work of an unlikely alliance between old-style Kemalists and G lenists." Anyway,
the casualties were about 240 civilians and a few military personnel, nothing compared to those
who would die or be forced to flee because of the government's harsh reaction. One thing is certain,
that was indeed the golden opportunity to wipe out all the main opponents and more:
in fact, Gulen was blamed as the architect of the coup, backed by the CIA. Quick parenthesis:
remember that the last period of the war in Syria had brought relations between Russia and Turkey
closer together, meeting with a lot of criticism from the United States. After that, a state of
emergency was declared and not only the sectors of the military and civil service involved in
the coup were affected but also those with whom in the previous 15 years of rule, the party had had
to come to terms in order to secure power. I leave you with a detailed account of the various arrests
and dismissals that followed. At that point, the icing on the cake would have been this: to
lay hands on the Constitution with a reform and move the country toward a strong presidentialism
inspired by the French model. The coup had caused the main opposition forces to express
solidarity with the president and show willingness to consider the proposed constitutional reform.
However, the quorum needed to pass the amendments wasn t reached and it was appropriate to go
through a referendum. On April 16, 2017, Erdogan won with just 51.41 percent. A victory that,
among other things, was criticized both by domestic oppositions, which accused the government
of electoral fraud, and by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
and the Council of Europe. It was an outcome that reflected the deep internal rift in the country,
where Erdo?an's legitimacy was slowly being challenged by a general climate of protest over
arrests and repression by the authorities that went far beyond those belonging to Fethullah G
len's organization. It was very difficult for the oppositions to work because at the first mistake
they risked being branded as Gulenists, which over time has become synonymous with terrorists.
Today's Turkey, which will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the republic in 2023,
has at its leadership a president far away from the figure the father of the Turks envisioned.
Of the Kemalist "six arrows," very few remain intact, and among them it s clear that secularism
is no longer among the features of the Turkish state, but still, the political involution we are
witnessing has been countered by economic growth such that the country has become a major regional
power. That was at least until the most recent monetary policies led to the devaluation of the
Turkish lira, culminating in the currency crisis of 2021 and the consequent rise in inflation,
generating the risk of stagnation in the economy due to the rising cost of living and falling
internal demand. All of this would also impact the degree of discontent, so much so that in polls,
approval ratings toward Erdogan's actions would have dropped from 55.8 percent in March 2020 to
38.6 percent at the end of 2021. The lowest percentage in recent years, even lower than
in early 2019, when dissatisfaction with the performance of the economy had caused Erdogan
to lose control of Istanbul and Ankara in local elections. But it s good to stop here for today,
I thank you all for your attention and I will see you in the next video. Ciao!