Having recently spent 10 days being hosted by Justice and Development Party (AKP) to observe the Turkish democratic experience, I would have to say that I agree with the title, if not the content, of the New York Times‘ 8 June editorial “Democracy Wins in Turkey“. The people’s choice most certainly did win, and upon closer examination of the results and the deeper meaning behind it, I am certain we can find much with which to discredit the politicised mainstream media.
For years now, I have been hearing about how President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a dictator, how he is increasingly authoritarian and how he is dragging Turkey to an abyss. We have all heard the examples of how he is increasingly Islamising Turkey which, let us not forget, is a largely Muslim country with a significant conservative population. Who remembers the furore after the consumption of alcohol was banned in some places? Not one of these critics, domestic and international, pointed out that there were similar laws in place in America, Canada and Australia. That’s part of the fascination in the phenomenon of “Erdogan-bashing”. If Erdogan or the AKP say or do something, even if that something exists in the United States and other “shrines” to democracy, then it is perfectly fine to criticise anything they do as an infringement of freedoms, liberty and society.
Who also remembers how much Erdogan and the AKP were lambasted over freedom of the press and freedom of expression? If one was to believe the mainstream media, one would think that Turkey is the only place in the world where journalists have a hard time. The Western world barely made a whisper beyond a few impotent squeaks from the corners of their palaces of hypocrisy about the Al-Jazeera journalists detained in Egypt, and they simply had no words to say for those who are murdered in Iraq for exposing the savage brutality of the Iraqi government that rivals anything ISIS can muster. Why the silence, O Self-Righteous West? Is it because your allies and partners in crime and injustice are the ones who are under the spotlight for a change? Spare us your hypocrisy, especially since you have gone out of your way to persecute Edward Snowden simply for revealing how you spy on your own people and the world, and completely lack transparency and respect towards those who elected you.
Now let us compare how visitors are treated. On my way back from Turkey, I was, unsurprisingly, racially and culturally profiled and held at Heathrow Airport. The excuse that the border police officer gave me was that it was because I had come from Turkey which had now become a hub “for all sorts of bad people”, and that I used Turkish Airlines which is suspicious because “they fly places no one else does”. Based upon those two criteria, I bemusedly asked him why all the other white people who had clearly just come from Turkey and were also on the same Turkish Airlines flight as me were allowed to just stroll on by. I was swiftly told not to “get cocky” with the police officer.
Eventually, I was allowed to go, but not before I said that, barring a few exceptions, I had only ever been received warmly in Turkey, and had never been made to feel that I was unwelcome or a threat merely because I was a practicing Muslim. In the UK, I have frequently been insulted and assaulted, verbally and physically just because I am a Muslim, and I am regularly made to feel that I am some kind of threat and discriminated against. This can be easily evidenced by the speeches of certain political leaders, as well as the fact that the Independent newspaper reported on 30 November 2014 that Muslim men are 76 per cent less likely to get a job than their similarly qualified white counterparts. This is not a generalisation of the British people, many of whom are appalled at what is happening to their country, but it is an undeniable reality of how unwelcoming of any kind of “other” British politics is becoming. It is quite opposite to the Turkish state of affairs under the AKP that tried to be as inclusive of everyone as possible, bringing economic prosperity across the board, improving education and health standards, and creating opportunities for peace between Turks and Kurds that no other party has done before them.
Rather than be fair to the AKP by praising their accomplishments whilst legitimately and constructively criticising their faults, the mainstream media, particularly in the West, seems to be bent on demonising the party and particularly Erdogan. They have been touting the latest election results as a rebuke to his supposed ambitions of greater authoritarian rule and dictatorship, and they have been celebrating the so-called champions of democracy in the People’s Democratic Party (HDP). It is amusing that they skim over the fact that the People’s Democtratic Party (HDP) are merely an extension of the Kurdish terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) who have the blood of thousands of innocent Turks and Kurds on their hands. It is even more amusing that they have so little respect for their audience that they fail to inform them that the first steps towards trying to find a political rather than military solution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey were taken by none other than the AKP and Erdogan.
If Erdogan is a dictator, then I wish all dictatorships were like this. After all, what kind of dictator allows those who oppose him to reduce his overall majority and control over parliament? What kind of dictator allows his ambitions and plans to be thrown into disarray by a bunch of upstarts? Finally, what kind of dictator allows democratic elections to be held and feels the need to campaign in the first place? The fact of the matter is that if this election showed anything, it showed the lies and deceit of many political parties and media organisations that like to paint the AKP government as dictatorial, and Erdogan in particular as a tyrant. If they had any shame whatsoever, they would at least acknowledge that the AKP did nothing but allow free and fair elections to express the people’s choice, and Erdogan is now trying to play a key role in establishing a coalition government. How very dictatorial of him.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.