I've been hearing more and more really scary shit about how Turkey is handling the aftermath of this earthquake. From strangling communications used, among other things, by people trapped to tell rescuers they're alive, to preventing the movement of people internally, a general lack of mobilization of emergency resources that were supposed to be in place and paid for by a specific tax after the last devastating quakes.
My turkish friends said as much. And it's not just Twitter, neither is this the first time it happens.
What people miss about Erdogan isn't just that he's 'unpopular with the west', the opposition is even more anti-western in matters regarding the PKK, the gulenists, greece's territorial claims, sweden, and refugees or everything else that is a grievance between Erdogan and the West. It's really not as simple as 'western media wants Erdogan down because he's the turkish Putin'.
Erdogan is a masterful and ruthless politician willing to ally anyone and do anything to secure his own power. And the turkish state has been entirely purged and subjugated to him. The AKparty has become a confederation of kleptocrats who hang entirely on the personal power of their kingpin, and not only has state services broken down under Erdogan but so did capitalist corruption increase. One of the government's greatest constituencies is the sort of construction company that pays bribes to skim on earthquake safety regulations so they can save extra cash to buy their condos in Barcelona together with their EU membership. The turkish state is not about to let that sort of conversation happen so close to the elections.
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Well, yes which is why I said the AKparty became a kleptocracy. Erdogan used to be at the head of a rather diverse and interesting political movement and at this point most people who aren't cronies have jumped ship. Because the AKP today is about Erdogan and how much money being friends with Erdogan can make you. There is a point where infrastructure spending becomes building shopping malls to shore up your supporter's bank accounts and that was when Turkiye's economy completely collapsed and Erdogan was forced to make peace with all of Turkiye's former geopolitical rivals in exchange for investment money.
But the sanctity of Erdogan's government isn't up for discussion. The complete control of turkish media and the state apparatus is. Which is the case at the moment. Prestige media takes its marching orders from the palace, which also maintains control over social media. Which I believe was also curtailed when the big fires happened and people found out that the government didn't even have the means of putting them out or helping people anymore.
Turkiye isn't China. It's not controlling people's anger so that it can stabilize the situation and change policy according to their demands. It's a representative democracy like any other and the government is focused on winning elections.
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I'm sorry but this has no basis in reality. Erdogan has empowered an oligarchy with himself at it's head. You're just ignoring everything that I'm saying in favor of a fantastical Turkiye that doesn't exist.
Never thought this site would have Turkish Nationalists. I thought they hated leftists.
It's complicated, because Erdogan has shaken hands with pretty much the entire political spectrum of Turkiye. And promptly burned bridges with them when it was useful to do so. A lot of reddit educated people think that Erdogan is just a big meanie persecuting an esoteric self support religious organization ie the gulenists. Except Gulen and Erdogan were allies and Gulen's movement was instrumental in how Erdogan captured the turkish state, subjugated the judiciary and broke down the professional bureaucracy.
So who are the Turkish Nationalists in that situation? Is it the AKPartists who want CIA Gulen extradited and punished because of the attempts coup few years ago? Or is it the opposition, who hates Gulen even more since he pulled a Gorbachev, helped destroy the rule of law in their country, and now lives with all the rights and privileges of a wealthy Pennsylvanian? The answer is probably most both at this point.
Yeah, super weird to see one pop up here. Erdogan is anti-communist and has been extremely harsh in crushing Turkish leftists and Kurdish movements. He's also an Armenian genocide denialist...
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Once saw a comment here that was excusing Azerbaijan by saying that Armenia "deserved it"
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Yeah and I'm not about to pretend that it doesn't happen in Russia or the US because I agree or disagree with the parties in power, or with their political projects. The turkish state is under the private interests of Erdogan's family and their cronies in the AKP. Their control of the media reflects that. Their nation building ambitions are far from a country like China's. It's a standard representative democracy living through a breakdown of law and living standards. That's what is at stake in Turkiye, not a fantasy where the Turkish president is some sort of far sighted Dengist beset by his enemies.
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So is Erdogan's government so catastrophic that he's making it easy for leftists to take over, or is he a far sighted leader at the head of 'good governance'? Which is it?
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And frankly I just disagree.
like, this is just not a thing that is happening in Turkiye. not sanctioning russia is not that.
Fair enough, we can agree to disagree and we'll see how things progress there I guess. Its possible that his coalition will lose the elections, in which case we can see what the alternatives are.
Erdogan won't lose the election. His core supporters are religious conservatives and older people, that wins elections by itself. But the opposition is too fractured, more interested in their narrow political projects than pragmatic politics. The only thing that unites them is a desire to restore judicial independence and the parliamentary system. Besides that, the opposition is more likely to criticize it's own heroes - either because they don't conform to every party's ideals or didn't in the past. Essentially, the group is so heterogeneous that anyone who displays a modicum of political acumen. Plus, the opposition relies too much on young voters and we know how that turns out.
The real question is what will happen when Erdogan dies and wether the AKP will even survive without him. Every one of his heir apparents turned out to be failsons in law so it's a coin toss.
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I mean, Erdogan's clique is largely responsible for worsening the disaster and profitting massively from collapsing building standards. That's just the tip of the iceberg. The Turkish state was reformed in order to maximize the pillaging of the commons and to destroy all opposition. Turkiye is a tax farm for prospective owners of european passports. But the state controls the media and the media is already doing perception management. I don't see that being dismantled unless the AKP itself ceases to exist. Too many old people and religious conservatives trust Erdogan because of his good governance in the parliamentary period.
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Very specifically the better times they lived through under the old AKP and the parliamentary system.
The corruption is rather blatant and out there. It's not really a matter of convincing anyone. Not per se.
People are conscious of their identity and the political projects that they support. Turkiye also has a complicated history going back to the ethnic cleansings of muslims from the balkans, through the armenian genocide, and the francophile secularist junta's efforts to attack the kurdish identity and religious groups. The latter turns to be the 'lower caste' of the country if you go back 2 generations or so. So in any event the different political parties are all competing and contradicting one another, playing by the rules of political action. And of course people don't necessarily trust each other. Erdogan manages to create a solid demographic out of mainly socially conservative religious people, and pretty much purged the state with the help of the gulenists. So he has free run of the country. And the freedom to pillage as much as he wishes.
What state control of media does is kill any discussion that can undermine that. But ultimately the person who thinks a CHP government is gonna even manage to outlaw the veil is gonna see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe. There's a meme in Turkish internet where a young person comes up to a street interview and says they work 50 hours a week, have no money, eat every other day, has no prospects, wishes he could flee the country. Then an old person comes by and asks if they have a smartphone. If they do, then they are whiners and things are actually good. Thing is, those people aren't privileged boomers either. They are often poor, poorer than the suburbanites. But they are religious and they are completely captured by state media. They are also loyal to Erdogan. So it's easy to spin things in ways that mean Erdogan is not at fault and should still deserve their vote.
Just want to thank the two of you for a very informative conversation.