Turkish Protests Continue with No Resolution in Sight

The problems in Turkey are becoming bigger news as they continue and escalate.  Though the trouble was supposedly started by the government’s plans to demolish a park in the country’s capital, the continuation of the protests is a sign of a much deeper issue.  People are voicing their discontent over the policies of Prime Minister Erdogan, claiming that he is becoming more and more fundamentalist in his views and that Turkey is in danger of becoming an Islamist state that cares little for those in the country that don’t happen to be Muslim.  But how is the PM handling this and what, if anything can be done to repair the damage that has already been done?

The protests are escalating, of that there is no doubt.  Dozens of cities are seeing protests and the reaction of the government has been harsh to say the least.  Water cannons and tear gas appear to be the weapons of choice in this battle, not diplomacy as some might hope.  Erdogan, in fact, has staunchly refused to acknowledge that the protestors have any legitimacy at all, instead preferring to resort to threats.  And, if some Facebook posts out of the country are to be believed, he has even resorted to organizing false protests, where the police handle them in a peaceful manner, in order to create false propaganda for international media.  All the while, however, the violence continues, violence that can’t, no matter how hard Erdogan tries, be hidden from the world.

Erdogan’s mistakes are piling up as the protests go on.  In addition to treating the protestors as if they are little more than unruly children, he is boldly stating that if these sorts of protests were to happen in Europe, the harsh methods that he’s using to quell them would be nothing compared to what European countries would do in order to restore peace.  This sort of thinking has led to thousands being injured and even a handful of deaths.  And his latest act of idiocy, storming GeziPark in order to get people to leave.

Of course, some people seem to support Erdogan’s claims that the protests stem from and are leading to nothing at all, seeing them as little more than a culmination of many smaller problems and possessing no real goal for reform.  While this may not be the case, it is true at least the Erdogan appears to have his own group of supporters, those who wish to protest the protestors.  They have become more vocal as of late, which may help to put this conflict into perspective.

Luckily, the protestors will be able to decide the truth of the matter for themselves.  With social media being what it is today, it has become a powerful tool for people to spread their message not only to others who are carrying on the struggle, but to the entire world.  No longer must we rely on popular media to get at the heart of the matter, for we can listen to the voices of the people themselves.  According one report, millions upon millions of Twitter feeds have been going out about the protests, somewhere around 3000 per minute.

Hopefully, international pressures will help in forcing Erdogan to resolve the problem in a proper manner.  Criticism from the EU has risen and many have demanded that an investigation take place to determine the true extent of the claims made against the Turkish PM.  Naturally, Erdogan responded by stating the protests were acts of terrorism and that he was justified in his response.  How long this kind of attitude can go on, only time will tell.

Turkey has been in the running to join the EU, working toward correcting all the problems that exist within the country so that they can obtain membership.  Human rights issues are one of the main issues, and the way the protests are being handled does nothing to improve their record in that department.

In my opinion, there’s a note of truth in all of the arguments.  This is likely a protest of the sort we might see in any developed country, though the focus is different.  When the US had its own “Occupy” protests, police resorted to brutality in numerous cases, albeit perhaps not quite as intense as in Turkey.  But the end result is the same - the government of the country has a vested interest in running it in a way that goes against the welfare of the majority of the population.  We saw little success in dethroning the aristocrats in the US and likely Turkey will find themselves facing the same problems.  Concessions will be made to a certain point and once the people have calmed, the government will go back to doing business as they see fit.  This is less a new version of the Arab Spring than a simple case of a young democracy trying to exercise its hypothetical freedom of speech.  Unless, of course, Erdogan pushes it into being something more, in which case, the entire country could be in very big trouble.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan courtesy of Senat RP via Wikicommons

GeziPark aerial courtesy of Chianti via Wikicommons