{"id":35082,"date":"2011-06-05T15:55:29","date_gmt":"2011-06-05T12:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=35082"},"modified":"2014-01-06T09:37:57","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T07:37:57","slug":"recep-tayyip-erdogan-is-papa-still-a-father-figure-to-turks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2011\/06\/05\/recep-tayyip-erdogan-is-papa-still-a-father-figure-to-turks\/","title":{"rendered":"Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Is &#8216;Papa&#8217; still a father figure to Turks?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"main-article-info\">As the Turkish prime minister seeks re-election, why do one-time liberal supporters fear the modern Islamist?<\/div>\n<div id=\"content\">\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/profile\/peterbeaumont\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Contributor picture\" src=\"http:\/\/static.guim.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2007\/10\/17\/peter_beaumont_140x140.jpg\" alt=\"Peter Beaumont\" width=\"60\" height=\"60\" \/> <\/span><\/li>\n<li id=\"contrib-shift\">\n<ul>\n<li> <span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/profile\/peterbeaumont\"> Peter Beaumont<\/span><\/li>\n<li> <span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/observer.guardian.co.uk\/\">The Observer<\/span>,\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t       \t\t\tSunday 5 June 2011<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/theobserver\/2011\/jun\/05\/observer-profile-recep-erdogan-turkey#history-link-box\">Article history<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<div id=\"article-wrapper\">\n<div id=\"article-body-blocks\">\n<p>Six months ago, an odd falling out occurred between <span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/turkey\">Turkey<\/span>&#8216;s  prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan \u2013 who is standing for re-election  next Sunday \u2013 and one of his allies in the country&#8217;s media, Ahmet Altan,  editor of the newspaper <em>Taraf<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Peculiar because Altan,  via his paper&#8217;s pages, has produced a steady stream of alarming stories  that had handily bolstered Erdogan&#8217;s view of the threat posed to his  government by some members of Turkey&#8217;s coup-prone military.<\/p>\n<p>How  their friendship foundered in January was a little matter at first.  Altan criticised the moderate Islamist Erdogan in print, accusing the  prime minister of having &#8220;no taste&#8221;. Insults followed from both sides  until Altan snapped. &#8220;People supported you because you were honest and  brave,&#8221; he seethed angrily. &#8220;Your party was making Turkey a freer and  more developed country. We will miss your former bravery and honesty.  You will one day miss your old self too, as the policies you follow take  you away from the side of the oppressed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of polls which  will almost certainly see Erdogan returned easily for another term in  office, the exchange is a deeply instructive one. In a Turkey more  important than it has been in decades, whose influence threatens to  eclipse that of the US in the Middle East, the question of the character  and ambitions of the man at its helm has been thrust increasingly into  the open.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey now has the world&#8217;s 17th largest economy. Turkish companies, as the <em>Economist<\/em><em> <\/em>wrote  recently, have a global reach and influence. It sits at a crossroads  between Europe and the east, in terms of geopolitics and as a key energy  pipeline.<\/p>\n<p>These days, who leads Turkey is a matter of importance.  Altan&#8217;s bitter comments reflect not only how Erdogan is regarded as the  man who has steered Turkey&#8217;s remarkable transformation from basket case  into a vibrant and confident international player with a economy second  only to China and India last year in terms of growth, but also the  suspicion of how, in his desire to cement his own and his party&#8217;s power,  some are becoming nervous of him.<\/p>\n<p>Explaining why &#8220;Papa Tayyip&#8221; \u2013  as Erdogan is known to his supporters \u2013 is so popular is not hard to  fathom. He has attracted a huge following through a clever synthesis of  nationalism, populism and a middling conservative morality that goes  down well with Turkey&#8217;s majority, where 95% of the country is Muslim but  the state is secular.<\/p>\n<p>His Justice and Development party \u2013 the AK \u2013  has ruled since November 2002 and has overseen a steady rise in living  standards after the succession of economic crises that marked the 1990s  in Turkey. Indeed, Erdogan has boasted that Turkey will become Europe&#8217;s  second largest economy by 2050 after Germany, which plays both to the  optimism he is so keen to engender and a newfound sense of national  pride. All this from a man representing a brand of politics not so long  ago banned by the Turkish state.<\/p>\n<p>Erdogan has overseen the opening  of EU accession talks since 2005 and brought about a period of political  stability, with the army pushed to the sidelines. And it is also fair  to say that in a party where half of all votes, according to a recent  survey, are delivered by the figure of Erdogan himself, rather than the  AK, party and prime minister are increasingly synonymous.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere,  Erdogan also has forged an independent foreign policy that has moved  closer to Iran, even as Turkey has turned its back on its once closest  ally in the region, Israel, following that country&#8217;s deadly commando  assault on a Turkish-flagged ship full of peace activists heading for  Gaza, the MV Marmara. Earlier, he had stormed out of a panel discussion  at the <span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2009\/jan\/30\/turkish-prime-minister-gaza-davos\">World Economic Forum in Davos<\/span>,  which included Israel&#8217;s president, Shimon Peres, over Israel&#8217;s war in  Gaza in January 2009, returning home to a hero&#8217;s welcome.<\/p>\n<p>If  Erdogan has a problem, however, it is not in alienating ever further  those Kemalite secularists who have always opposed him, regarding him as  kabadayi (a ruffian). Instead, it lies with an increasing number of  liberal intellectuals who once supported him but now regard him as being  too thin-skinned, overbearing and \u2013 they fear \u2013 increasingly  authoritarian.<\/p>\n<p>For in a country whose politics for decades was  dominated by a secular elite backed by an army that launched four coups  in as many decades, it has been the efforts by Erdogan and his AK party  to roll back the power of these same secularists that has been  responsible for growing alarm about the direction he is taking.<\/p>\n<p>Last  February, Erdogan announced the arrest of more than 40 military  officers for allegedly being part of a 2003 coup plot called Operation  Sledgehammer to bring down his government. Since then, the number of  military figures in detention has swelled to 200. Among them were five  serving generals brought to court conveniently only two weeks before the  country votes.<\/p>\n<p>Erdogan has been lucky in other ways in the timing of events in this election. Last month, a series of sex tapes emerged, featuring members of one of the main opposition parties, the  MHP, forcing 10 senior figures to resign. Some, indeed, have claimed  that the sex tapes were leaked by Erdogan&#8217;s party.<\/p>\n<p>In a country  with a high threshold for winning seats in parliament, a poor  performance by the MHP could see them fail to reach the 10% threshold to  win any seats in the assembly. And that could just deliver to Erdogan  the seats he requires to fulfil his plans to rewrite the country&#8217;s  outdated 1982 constitution, written by the generals after the coup in  Turkey in 1980.<\/p>\n<p>Erdogan  has made no bones about his desire to  become an executive-style president in the future under what has been  described as a French-style constitution, which would allow him to  continue to dominate Turkey&#8217;s political scene beyond 2015, when he is  barred from serving as prime minister again.<\/p>\n<p>It is all a very long  way from his humble roots as the son of a coastguard in Kasimpasa,  where he was born in 1954. It was while attending an Islamic high school  there that Erdogan got his first taste for politics, being elected  chairman of the Istanbul youth wing of the National Salvation party.<\/p>\n<p>Politics  would be one of two passions he would pursue in parallel with playing  semi-professional football until the 1980s for Istanbul&#8217;s transport  authority team, where he was scouted for the team he had followed since a  child \u2013 Fenerbah\u00e7e \u2013 an offer he would turn down because of his  father&#8217;s disapproval. Erdogan has,\u00a0however, remained such an ardent fan  of the club that when Fenerbah\u00e7e won the Super Lig this year, rival fans  from Trabzonspor accused him, obliquely, of using his power to secure  his club&#8217;s victory.<\/p>\n<p>After the coup of 1980, he joined the Islamist  Welfare party, for whom he\u00a0was elected to parliament in 1991,  but\u00a0prevented from taking his seat. Three years later, he was elected  mayor\u00a0of Istanbul, where he antagonised the still powerful secularists  with\u00a0his decision to ban alcohol in the city&#8217;s cafes.<\/p>\n<p>In 1997, he  came into conflict with the secular authorities again, this time for  reading a poem with Islamist sentiments in Siirt, which included the  lines: &#8220;The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the  minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.&#8221; For that, he was  sentenced to 10 months in jail.<\/p>\n<p>All of which, his secular critics  allege, was the first evidence that Erdogan harboured a secret plan to  turn Turkey into\u00a0a fully fledged Islamic state, more proof of which,  they say, has been provided by his failed efforts to make adultery  illegal and his attempts to introduce &#8220;alcohol-free zones&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Erdogan,  whose party was first elected in 2002 at a time he was barred from  standing from office under a law that was quickly changed,  has insisted  that he is committed to secularism, arguing only that secularism has  for too long prevented religious Turks from expressing their religious  convictions freely.<\/p>\n<p>That issue came to a head over the issue of  whether women should be able to wear headscarves in state buildings and  educational establishments, long banned by the constitution. Although  Turkey&#8217;s parliament voted to lift the ban, their constitutional  amendment was overturned by the country&#8217;s constitutional court in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>For  his part, Erdogan has explained his moderation in comparison to some of  the activists he grew up with in terms of where he grew up.<\/p>\n<p>While  he lived in the rough-and-ready neighbourhood of Kasimpasa, he would  walk each day through Pera, Istanbul&#8217;s old European neighbourhood, where  the nightclubs were and young women could be seen wearing miniskirts.  &#8220;Of course, I did not live the life of Pera,&#8221; he told the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em> last year, &#8220;but I knew Pera.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The  question is whether after his third win in succession, with his  opponents in retreat, he will still be inclined to remember it. Or  remember &#8220;his old self&#8221; once so admired by his former loyal lieutenant,  Ahmet Altan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2>THE ERDOGAN FILE<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Born <\/strong>26 February 1954 in Rize, Turkey. His  father was a member of the Turkish coast guard. He attended Islamic  school before graduating in management from Istanbul&#8217;s Marmara  University while playing semi-professional football.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Best of times<\/strong> In January 2009 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he stormed out of  a panel discussion over Israel&#8217;s war in Gaza, returning home to a  hero&#8217;s welcome.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Worst of times<\/strong> In 1998, he was  sentenced to 10 months in prison for inciting religious hatred. He had  publicly read an Islamic poem, which included the following lines: &#8220;The  mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our  bayonets and the faithful our soldiers&#8230;&#8221; Released after four months,  his criminal record prevented him from standing in elections or holding  political office until the constitution was changed in 2002.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What he says<\/strong> &#8220;In the west, there are no journalists who are trying to plot or  helping those who plot a coup. But this is the case in Turkey. We are  aware of those who want to overthrow our government.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>What others say<\/strong> &#8220;We will be facing a more powerful Tayyip Erdogan and we will probably  be facing a more authoritarian Turkey.&#8221; Soli Ozel, international  relations professor at Kadir Has University.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the Turkish prime minister seeks re-election, why do one-time liberal supporters fear the modern Islamist? Peter Beaumont The Observer, Sunday 5 June 2011 Article history Six months ago, an odd falling out occurred between Turkey&#8216;s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan \u2013 who is standing for re-election next Sunday \u2013 and one of his allies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":783456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[1018],"class_list":["post-35082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}