{"id":70709,"date":"2013-06-19T11:50:49","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T08:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=70709"},"modified":"2023-04-06T14:15:44","modified_gmt":"2023-04-06T11:15:44","slug":"erdogan-on-the-horns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2013\/06\/19\/erdogan-on-the-horns\/","title":{"rendered":"ERDO\u011eAN ON THE HORNS"},"content":{"rendered":"

They threw their caps
\nAs they would hang them\u00a0on the horns o’ the moon,
\nShouting their\u00a0emulation.<\/em><\/strong>
\nCoriolanus<\/em>,\u00a0William Shakespeare<\/p>\n

\"_38421315_erdogan-ap-150,<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
The\u00a0ferocious antics of the prime minister over the past three weeks\u2014or has it been\u00a0three years or eleven?\u2014made me think about hamburgers. And then bulls. Ever\u00a0dangerous, always charging blindly ahead, the same instinctive tactic wired into their incomplete animal brains, always completely predictable, always ending up on the table….. chopped meat.<\/p>\n

With boring redundancy Erdo\u011fan has shouted the blame to everyone and everything but his\u00a0own splendid self. Now angry all the time, he yelled his strange, twisted,\u00a0deceit-filled story to the world. Like Coriolanus, another tragic hero not properly educated to power, Erdo\u011fan followed down the same doomed path: \u201cWhat\u00a0his breast forged, that his tongue must vent.\u201d And he did, and the world\u00a0exploded in outrage as his country had before. The prime minister\u2019s outrageous\u00a0claims and preposterous intrigues, his and his advisors lies and subterfuges, it\u00a0was all too, too much.<\/p>\n

The world is\u00a0appalled. And what does the prime minister and his lackeys do next? Why they attack the world. What else? For no one understands democracy like the prime\u00a0minister of Turkey. New York City police killed seventeen people in the Occupy Wall Street\u00a0battle, Tayyip asserts
\nin full or feigned ignorance of the facts. (None were killed.) And so it continues to this moment. What can you do with people like\u00a0this? Such a bunch that gives even criminality a bad name.<\/p>\n

Now the\u00a0beleaguered one claims that the police were correct in gassing most of central Istanbul. The lapdog Istanbul police chief earlier asserted that the police had\u00a0won a victory greater than Gallipoli. Not only did the police gas unarmed,\u00a0peaceful protesters but according to Erdo\u011fan they had a \u201cnatural right\u201d to do\u00a0so. Why? Because they were fighting against \u201csystematic violence.\u201d\u00a0One wonders what books Erdo\u011fan has been
\nreading to present such a bizarre argument. Perhaps he skimmed through his wife\u2019s new book, The Psychology of Dictatorship<\/em>? In this day, in this world with the sordid legacy of using gas as a weapon, what leader in his or her right mind would launch such an offensive attack against the citizenry? Wanton, widespread violence occupies his mind and he threatens more and harsher\u00a0attacks, excuse me, defensive measures.<\/div>\n

Who talks to\u00a0this man? Who recommended this horrific retaliation policy based on a ludicrous\u00a0label of terrorism. This trick has been done already with the fantasy\u00a0conspiracies that destroyed the Turkish military. It\u2019s a nonsense. Everyone\u00a0knows it. Who says to him, Look Tayyip, you are destroying yourself with all\u00a0these garbage lies and threats. Don\u2019t be a bull!<\/p>\n

Instead,\u00a0these low-level operators shout their emulation and clap their hands, thrilled\u00a0with the sounds of their own magnificence. \u201cDon\u2019t worry beloved leader,\u201d\u00a0they coo, \u201cyour people will believe only you and certainly not their lying eyes?\u201d And just to be sure, they arrest doctors, lawyers, journalists, and threaten and fine television channels and draft legislation to control the social media, the\u00a0great \u201cmenace\u201d according to their beloved leader. And all of it in front of the world\u2019s eyes-wide-open. Ah, it\u2019s so tiresome writing about these people.\n<\/p><\/div>\n

They had\u00a0planned to reach 2023, the centennial year anniversary of the establishment of\u00a0Atat\u00fcrk\u2019s republic. Of course, all memory of Atat\u00fcrk would have disappeared by then. And surely they would have reveled in its destruction.\u00a0The journey\u00a0had begun\u00a0with Erdo\u011fan\u2019s first election victory in 2003. \u00a0He gave a balcony acceptance speech and\u00a0wore a tie of green, Islamic green. I have never forgotten that moment. Nor have\u00a0I forgotten the flood of rich and famous flocking to his favor. But that was\u00a0then.<\/p>\n

And this is now. I\u00a0will never forget these\u00a0stirring days\u00a0and the heroism of the youth of Turkey in their struggle for\u00a0the future promised to them by Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk. He also prophesied that\u00a0they would have to fight for it. And so they now fight. And they know his\u00a0fighting words by heart. And like good soldiers of Mustafa Kemal, they know the enemy. I will never forget the beautiful women in smart\u00a0dresses getting gassed by the fascist police, not flinching, and emerging even more lovely. The polite, embattled young men, resolute and courageous in the face of\u00a0brutal
\npolice attacks. Young people of all ages participating in this war of\u00a0liberation from a religious fascist government. All of this will surely serve as\u00a0a model for youth around the world who also suffer from the policies of arrogant\u00a0men and women wearing thousand dollar suits. These young Turkish people are\u00a0bringing a renaissance to their country, a flourishing spirit of gentility and\u00a0grace the while being falsely accused of the vilest acts by a desperate regime. But the truth has been revealed through the overwhelming power of technology and the amazing\u00a0facility of youth. And the government can only resort to a policy of unabashed lying. I will not forget any of these astonishing things. Certainly not the complete inability of the Turkish government and its supporters to understand this spontaneous combustion of youthful energy which is\u00a0nonnegotiable. It is obvious\u00a0these young people\u00a0will continue for as long as it takes. And\u00a0surely the process will continue to confound all the \u201cexperts,\u201d so don\u2019t bother watching the talking TV heads. Ah, the brilliant, unifying generality of it all. It\u00a0resides outside the bounds of politics, religion, wealth, business, national borders, and surely government itself. It\u2019s in the realm of hopes,\u00a0expectations, peace, youth, friendship and, I’ll say it, love.
\nWhat revolutionary group has ever established hot lines for injured animals? None. Except this one.\u00a0And such attention to detail characterizes this movement and is why its success\u00a0is inevitable. Lastly, how wonderful is the incredible resilience of the spirit and principles of Mustaf Kemal Atat\u00fcrk, an unstoppable, singular man for the\u00a0ages who remains both the stuff of dreams and the driving\u00a0spiritual force to forge this better, this much better future. For all these people, the young, the older, the departed, I shout out loud my emulation and admiration. Your dreams are hanging on the horns of the moon. Seize them. No more\u00a0words needed.<\/p>\n

Cem Ryan, Ph.D
\nIstanbul
\n19 June 2013<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

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The ferocious antics of the prime minister over the past three weeks\u2014or has it been three years or eleven?\u2014made me think about hamburgers. And then bulls. Ever dangerous, always charging blindly ahead, the same instinctive tactic wired into their incomplete animal brains, always completely predictable, always ending up on the table….. chopped meat. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":70710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,34,922],"tags":[9179,2186,1018,6138],"class_list":["post-70709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","category-usa","category-world","tag-gezi-park","tag-police-terror","tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-taksim-square"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70709","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=70709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}