Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: Old “New Turkey”

How should we understand the legacy of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan? This article answers this question.  when we see that Turkey changed rapidly, moving away from the reforms of kemalism and pluralism towards Islamic populism. Governed through the nationalistic AKP (Justice and Development Party), religion has become more important, playing a greater role in the State.

Who is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan?

As the former Mayor of Istanbul (1994-1998), Prime Minister of Turkey (2003-2014), and the founder of the AKP (2001) - one of the biggest conservative parties in Turkey - Erdoğan is an experienced politician. Coming from an Islamic background, he describes himself as a conservative democrat. As president of the Republic of Turkey and the chairman of the AKP we can corroborate his political identity based on his own statements and the values of which he used to create the AKP described by himself as a “democrat and conservative party.” (Diken, 2017). To understand the ongoing political developments, we must analyze the image and vision Erdoğan is creating for both himself and the future of Turkey. The conceptual tools driving his communication and style of governance are crucial in understanding both his reasoning and the resulting decisions he may undertake.

Since 1923, Turkey's political regime has been a parliamentary government. However, in April 2017, the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, set up a referendum regarding the political future of the country. As a result, from 2019 Turkey will be governed by a presidential system which is expected to bring about an expansion of presidential powers.

When analyzing Erdoğan, we should take into account that he has been politically active for several decades. His time as a politically engaged individual can be separated into three distinctive ‘periods.

In the 1990s, Erdoğan was considered to be an Islamic fundamentalist; this was demonstrated in his public speech of 1994 where he stated that: “We will bring fair order sharia back. We will rule the country with the rules of God. We will not buckle under the West or America and their rules but will take the moral of the East. Whether you want it or not, we will bring our own sharia with peace.” 

His flowery speech underlines his aims to create an Islamic society. An additional prominent example was the 1999 incident where upon he was arrested for reading the poem “Soldier's Prayer” by Ziya Gökalp. By changing some verses for religious emphasis, it can label as a religious nationalistic speech as well as an attempt to lead the country away from democracy and the rule of law.

Minaret is the bayonet, domes are helmet,
mosques are our barracks, Muslims are our soldiers,
this divine army is waiting for our religion,
saying Allahu ekber.

In line with the first EU-accession negotiations a few years later, he enters his second period expressing himself as a pro-European modernizer. Initially the ascensions talks were symbolic in demonstrating that Turkey had become a fully secular and democratic nation - able to achieve the values that the European Union held dear. 

The negotiations seemed to push Turkey further towards Western values. However, many also saw Turkey’s democratic reforms as superficial, undertaken on paper to impress European decision-makers. This resulted in the talks proceeding painstakingly slow, leading to the growing anger of the ruling elites in Turkey. Under the illusion that Turkey had been taken advantage of, the warm feelings of hope were quickly replaced with hostile discourse against Europe.

With the failure of the ascension talks and residual resentment towards the EU, Erdoğan enters his third phase. In 2017, President Erdoğan mentioned that “Turkey has been patient since the application was made in 1959, but the EU misunderstood this patience… we will not be the party throwing in the towel. However, we do not need the EU membership any more”.

When Gareth Jenkins, a writer and analyst based in Istanbul, was asked in an interview in 2010: “What does he [Erdoğan] really want? If he had full rein?”, he replied: “He would accomplish a more Muslim society in Turkey, and establish Turkey as the leader of the Muslim world” (Kalnoky, 2010).

What is Erdoğan’s message?

To figure out how politicians want to demonstrate their political persona, politicians’ messages play a big role. However, their message in politics has a broader meaning than its use in daily language, Lempert & Silverstein explained this complicated concept as “It is not the topic or theme what someone is literally communicating”  (Lempert & Silverstein, 2012, p.2). The combination of images of a politician while communicating on several issues creates the message of the politician as Lempert & Silverstein described “A politician’s persona becomes visible as a collage-in-motion of communicative Issue events: through becoming identified in this way with issues, he or she acquires a political persona” (Lempert & Silverstein, 2012, p.3). In this part we will analyze Erdogan’s message, through his political life and one of the biggest resistance movements, Gezi Park.

Erdoğan and the government’s language about the controversial reconstruction and the protests in Gezi Park, made reconstructed Erdogan's message in the eyes of the world. Their speeches always contained the subtext that it does not make sense to participate in protests, as the government has already made a decision regarding the reconstruction of Istanbul’s city centre. However, this is not the only message being peddled by Erdoğan, as aside from the idea that protesting is pointless, the government argues it is also senseless. Senseless as the government knows what is right for the country and that protesters are a simple minority. Erdoğan wants the people to understand his clear and simple message: authority lies solely with the government, protesting is pointless, futile, and demonstrates ignorances. The government and more in particular Erdogan is the voice of the people. 

“Prime Minister - President - Sultan” Altagreer.com

Whilst his early reactions focused on creating a negative image of the resistance movement, he swiftly moves on to create a positive image for himself: "Our patience is at an end. I am making my warning for the last time. I say to the mothers and fathers please take your children in hand and bring them out ... Gezi Park does not belong to occupying forces but to the people." In order to spread his message, Erdoğan uses rhetorical devices which can be classified as belonging to a populistic communication frame. By stating that Gezi Park belongs to “the people”, Erdoğan positions himself in the discourse as the ‘man of the people’, not acting against them. This helps garner him further support amongst the masses.

However, he has often been, and still is the recipient of criticism made by many of his countrymen and women; as well as a recipient of criticism at an international level. As president he was responsible for implementing censorship through blocking multiple websites (e.g. newspapers, and sites criticising or even mentioning censorship in Turkey) along with social media networks such as Twitter and YouTube (Scott, 2014). Currently, more than 150 national and international journalists are imprisoned in Turkey, and therefore, the organization Freedom House has classified Turkey’s press as “not free” - giving a total score of 76/100 (100 = least free). Consequently, many people are concerned about the worrying trend of ongoing political developments.

Nevertheless, the ongoing support and an authoritative presidential system will help him further along his path in establishing a “new Turkey” based on a new type of nationalism. A nationalism that is not grounded in Kemalism, but in Ottoman history and Islam.

Is that enough to call him a religious nationalist? 

In the past, growing efforts on the Islamization of Turkish society have largely been unsuccessful. However, under the leadership of Erdoğan, progress is finally being made. Preliminarily, it has made the most progress as part of a roll out into the educational system. This is seen as the AKP’s reforms have expanded the religious content of regular academic high schools. Over 15 years, both the student placement system for universities and the curricula of schools have been changing continuously. Rather than focusing on how to improve the educational system, the ministry of education and government were mainly concerned with increasing the influence of religion. 

Religion now plays a substantial rol in the educational carreer. For several years it was not compulsory for students to answer religious questions in exams, and the effect of these questions were minimal. However, new orders under Erdoğan have lead to an increase in the importance of the Islamic religion. Not only are religion classes now compulsory from elementary school onwards, their effects on exams have also increased (Diken, 2017). In addition to emphasising and consolidating the role of religion in classes, Alpaslan Durmus, the head of curriculum for the ministry of education, called Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution “controversial” and announced plans to remove it from school programmes by 2019 (Sanchez, 2017). This seems to be in line with the observations Weise (2017) made; she titles: “Turkey’s new curriculum: More Erdoğan, more Islam.”

Furthermore, the government has been making additional modifications on the education system through increasing the number of Imam Hatip schools and religious vocational high school, both of which aim to raise new imams. Since the AKP’s election success in 2002, enrollment in these schools has surged from 63.000 to one million (Weise, 2017). In the course of this, Erdoğan mentioned that he appreciates the Imam Hatip high schools becoming more active and visible during his term of power (Hürriyet Daily News, 2015). According to him, these schools “will be the apple of the Turkish people” (Haberleri, 2012). This demonstrates how precious and valuable he considers these Imam raising institutions for the Turkish citizens and supports the argument that the current president follows a nationalistic ideology which is based on religion.

Meanwhile, as the schooling curricula is changed, new reforms to alcohol laws support Erdoğan’s image as a religious nationalist and highlights his message for changing the country to a more Islamic one. Specifical, the illegalization of alcohol increased in the last decades, during the AKP government. In 2013 the government passed a bill to limit retailers to sell alcoholic beverages between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. (Hürriyet Daily News, 2013) According to sharia law, Muslims are not allowed to drink alcohol. Therefore, this ban enshrines sharia law in civil law. Except from a person's residential area, it is illegal to consume alcohol or sell it in locations such as dormitories, health organizations, stadiums, sport complexes, educational institutions or patissieres (Hürriyet Haber, 2014).

“In honor of Erdogan” (haberekspres). People shared many posts and photos on social media to protest the ban of alcohol. Oda TV

Less than two years later, a second attempt followed: Antalya’s governor office banned drinking alcohol, even in a city which is an international tourism hub of Turkey (Stockholm Center for Freedom, 2017) - for instance in “parks, beaches, picnic and camping sites, open air public areas, historical sites [or] city squares” (ibid).

Freedom of what?

Erdoğan not only wants girls and boys, according to the Islamic rules, to be educated in different school buildings, but he has also further interfered in women’s right. Erdogan mention that “woman should stay at home and not participate in politics rather than voting” in an interview given in 1985 (Birgün, 2017). In contrary to what the Enlightenment tradition suggests, this aims for the restriction of freedom and the removal of equality.

“School Canteen - Boys & Girls”. Discrimination of girls and boys has started even in school canteens in many schools of the country after the speeches of Erdogan. Yonhaber

Such suppression happened for instance when Turkish academicians published a statement inviting the government to take necessary steps for peace and demanded to end the violence between Turkey and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), which is considered to be a terrorist organization). After the paper was published, academicians who have signed the statements were subjected to harsh criticism from the government and media. An investigation was conducted and three academicians were arrested. Later, many academicians were dismissed from their universities.

Both those examples are mainly touches principle of  “equality”, which is a main principle of Enlightenment movement and Turkish government’s decisions were not following the Enlightenment movement but Anti-Enlightenment. So, how can those acts be described in the ideology of Anti-Enlightenment? Anti-Enlightenment is an ideological movement contradictory to the ideas of liberalism, socialism and anarchism and, therefore, works towards a different kind of modernity. Based on un-equality, which rejects the principles of enlightenment, rationalism, universalism and restricts the freedom of people. 

Erdoğan is a typical anti-enlightenment conservative who appropriates a democratic image through his populism by using  typical new right style elements.

Erdoğan were also obvious in the way he deals with criticism and especially his policies and actions against media. Erdoğan sees social media as a growing political threat. In trying to regain control, he came up with a repressive Internet law that allowed the President of the Telecommunications Communication Presidency (TIB) to close any web content within four hours. Moreover, he has worked hard to put the Turkish press under government control for years. It has been successful to some extent by allowing businessmen close to him to buy large newspapers and television channels. However, Turkey still desires to remain an open society in terms of access to public information, especially social media.

Erdoğan's troubles with social media began with the protests in Gezi Park. This anti-government rebellion movement was organised through social networking sites such as Twitter. Twitter’s usage during the Gezi Park movement played a key role, because media channels were under the pressure of the government, and there were only a few TV channels that reported about the Gezi Park incident. Hence, protesters used Twitter as an independent form of media to remain informed, as well as support each other. In addition, AKP supporters and apolitical people could be easily influenced by the news during Gezi Park, as the TV channels showed highly biased information where the protesters were the enemies.

Banning social media platforms did not stop the people, especially the journalists, however Erdoğan did not like the fact that they are still criticizing him. So, he sentenced hundreds of journalists to prison in the last decade, not only local journalists but also foreign journalists (Akyol, 2015).

Banning social media platforms without a valid legal reason or arresting journalists actually violates freedom of speech and thought, which is not acceptable in democratic countries. However, the decisions of Turkish government for the last decades can’t be labeled as respectful decisions to people’s fundamental rights thus can be accepted as anti-democratic decisions. Why? Because, Anti-Enlightenment ideology  rejects democracy, rationalism and the fundamental rights of Enlightenment ideology, equality.  Equality, freedom of speech, religion, debate, art politics are instruments of enlightenment tradition which give people the chance to build their own world within the scope of democracy. On the contrary, following the Anti-Enlightenment ideology by the states or the Anti-Enlightenment  behaviors of governments/politicians drift away from democracy. Arresting journalist or banning social platforms don’t courage people to express their ideas however the core value of democracy are freedom, people’s will and notion.

Considering Erdogan’s reaction to opponents, the suppression the oppositions in Gezi park, ban on social media platforms, arresting journalists, he can’t be accepted as democrat although describing himself as “conservative democrat” since the enlightenment ideology of democracy was hated by conservatives in the past. However, he can be considered as an authoritarian and may be a dictator. Why? If we look closer at the structure of his speeches and his stance on the issues, his message is clearly about dictatorship.

For instance what he said about Gezi Park, “We won’t ask for their opinions. They will see! We will built a mosque”, was quite authoritarian and did not consider about the thousands of people’s will. Moreover, a democrat being respectful to freedom of speech and thought don’t arrest people or suppress social media platforms to just because people express their ideas unlike Erdogan did.

Erdoğan as an anti-Enlightenment conservative

Reinforcing his authoritarian image of these steps does not bother Erdoğan. Contrarily, this shows a strong relation between his message and image. His reactions to the people who are criticizing him has been dictatorial which is the image that he wanted to create, unopposed leader.

Even though the political position that Erdoğan communicates slightly changed throughout his life, he has recently been straight-line with his policies since he has started to receive almost half of the nation's’ vote through the elections. For the three general elections when Erdogan represented AKP as chairman, he gradually increased the votes and when he was elected as president he received 51,79% of the votes, considering all those elections they naturally give him the ideas of having the power to become more confident and careless about the oppositions or others’ will.

Since one of the characteristics of anti-enlightenment ideology is anti-democracy, Erdogan’s image and message, being authoritarian, draw a frame for him that he suits the ideology perfectly considering banning social media platforms, arresting journalists and academics, ignoring the role of the women in society which cannot be linked with a  democratic state or politician representing a democratic state.

It can be concluded that Erdoğan is a typical anti-enlightenment conservative who appropriates a democratic image through his populism by using  typical new right style elements. However, he undermines the basic principles of the democratic ideology: equal rights, freedom of the press, right to resist and protest as well as freedom of religion and education.

References

Mudde, C & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: University Press

Sternhell, Z. (2010). The Anti‐Enlightenment Tradition. New Haven; London: Yale University Press.