The army smashed the progressive reservoirs of Turkish society and politics. The attack on the left was even sharper after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Islamism, long cultivated by the army and the United States, rose in Turkish politics. In 1994, a marginal politician such as Erdoğan managed to become the mayor of Istanbul, the biggest city in the country. His language resonated with anti-secularism (“A man cannot be both a Muslim and secular at the same time”) and with misogyny (“Men and women cannot be equal. This is against their nature”) and with ruling-class ideology (“We use the state of emergency for the benefit of our business world. When there is a possibility of a workers’ strike we immediately stop it by using the state of emergency”).
They call this the state of precious loneliness. It has become Turkey’s destiny, they say. The Western world, they say, is jealous of Erdoğan as a world-historical leader. The West wants to block the dawn of the Turkish and Muslim nation, which is the bright star of mankind.
Erdoğan and his people in the media use the language of loneliness, of precious loneliness. Anyone who is against Erdoğan is said to be against the nation. This is the cliché of populism—still finding buyers everywhere, from the United States to the Philippines.
At a certain point, the fake becomes normal and insanity turns into normality.
Lucky
Ahmet Şık, an investigative journalist, was preparing a book about the secret organization of the Gülen movement in the official institutions. While he was in the process of writing his book, the police arrested him and confiscated his manuscript, titled The Imam’s Army. This was in March 2011. The arrest appeared to be an operation to save the Gülen movement. Erdoğan was on the stage again. This was six years before his rift with Gülen. “There are some books that are more effective than bombs,” he said in support of the imprisonment of Şık.
After the “failed coup” in 2016, there was a funeral for the victims of the coup at a mosque. Erdoğan was present. An imam gave a sermon that condemned educated people instead of the coup plotters. “O mighty god,” he said, “protect us from the evil of educated people.” This was not a sentence pronounced accidentally. When a pro-Erdoğan academic said, “The most traitors are found among well-educated people” on a television show, it was seen as utterly normal. No one objected. What is there to object to when this is a normal statement?
Left-wing groups and parties, trade unions, students, journalists, writers, intellectuals of different forms—these have been the most determined in the opposition against Erdoğan. In the lead is the Kurdish resistance. This unity is the base for a democratic opening in Turkey. If they have been unsuccessful thus far, it is because they have never united against Erdoğan’s government. They are divided for different reasons. Their division gives Erdoğan a great advantage.
Erdoğan has built himself a White Palace. It has a thousand rooms. The White Palace has been at the center of a set of debates—it is not only seen as a white elephant, but it was also built illegally on public fields. Erdoğan’s regime did not bother to ask for permission from any government office, nor did it bother to apply for an official permit for the construction of this palace in the heart of Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. If Erdoğan is normal, then his practice is normal too—if he is the norm, then his building is the norm as well. No inspector or judge will question the lack of permits, just as no one questions his wealth. His wedding ring was his only asset. Now he is among the richest statesmen in the world. His wealth, he said in 2014, is in the multiple millions of dollars. It was the same year that uncomfortable videos of Erdoğan began to disappear from the Internet including the video in which he said, “If some day you hear that Tayyip Erdoğan has become so rich, then you should consider that he has committed sinful things.”
“Erdoğan” is now a familiar name in such leaked documents as those revealed by WikiLeaks and by the Süddeutsche Zeitung (the Panama Papers). When a journalist asked Erdoğan how his son managed to buy a ship, he responded, “A ship and a shipish [a smaller ship] are different things.” His personal wealth has swollen upwards while the national economy has withered. Turkey’s external debt has reached $432 billion (2017). Fifteen years ago, when the AKP came to power, the external debt was $129 billion.
That is the picture of a country where some men have been lucky, while the majority have been slipping downhill. Erdoğan is a lucky man.
PUTIN
So Sexy It Hurts
Lara Vapnyar
So sexy it hurts.
I HATE TO admit it, but every time I see yet another topless photo of Putin, Right Said Fred’s song starts playing in my head.
This doesn’t happen by accident or as a result of the dark workings of my perverse mind. This happens because I’m a victim of the Russian propaganda machine. Putin’s “sexiness” and the idea of his “sexual prowess” has been carefully cultivated as part of his overall political image.
I’m not sure whose idea it was and when exactly the great work on Putin’s sexiness started, but he hadn’t always been “too sexy for his shirt,” certainly not as a younger man.
Putin in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s was the opposite of sexy. A modest KGB officer working on the sidelines who grew to be a quiet bureaucrat and evolved into a tough but self-effacing ruler, a man without qualities, an invisible man, “a man without a face,” as Masha Gessen calls him in her seminal biography.
The first and rather shocking awareness of Putin’s sexiness came to people a few years before the election of 2012, after a series of photos depicting him in the midst of bold and striking adventures appeared in the press.
There was Putin in 2009, vacationing in Siberia. Climbing trees. Having simple meals with villagers. Swimming in freezing Siberian rivers. Diving in the world’s deepest lake, Baikal. Riding horses down the rugged terrain while shirtless.
The UK’s Daily Mail noted that: “Tony Blair may prefer ritzy yachts in the Caribbean, but it’s a hardman’s life for Vladimir Putin,” leaving no doubt about which man that venerable publication preferred.
Then there was Putin in 2010 hunting a whale off the coast of Kamchatka Peninsula. Choppy waters, steel-gray sky, Putin dressed in macho red and black colors leaning over the edge of a rubber boat, aiming his dart gun with great concentration. He did manage to kill a whale (or rather, his team managed to create the impression that he had). The mission was a great success.
The Guardian reported that “when the boat skidded onto the beach, Putin hopped off and made a beeline for waiting reporters. Clearly in his element, Putin replied jovially to a question as to whether the endeavour was dangerous. ‘Living in general is dangerous,’ he quipped. Asked why he got involved, he replied, ‘Because I like it. I love the nature.’” At least he didn’t say “I am nature” like Jackson Pollock once did.
Then there was Putin entering the cage of a lively leopard, tracking a Siberian tiger, putting a collar on a huge polar bear (the animal was heavily sedated, but still). Yet nothing could quite compare with his highly publicized flying with cranes stunt. This was taking publicity to another level.