Media Crackdown in Turkey?

[Sheilbh]

If paranoaic fantasies are being discussed, then the AKP's pursuit of the Ergenekon conspiracy case should take center stage.

The sad truth I think is that the true nature of the Turkish "deep state" is now apparent - far more than being a feature of particular ruling faction, it reflects a much more generalized set of mental attitudes and structural tendancies that affect all political players.  Now that Erdogan is on top, he is playing turnabout and adapting the same kind of dirty tricks once used to keep him and his colleagues at the margins.  Except instead of being done to prop up a corrupt but pro-secular, pro-Western government, it is being used to to prop up a Islamizing, anti-secular government whose attitudes towards women's rights and the West is far more ambiguous. 

I'd dispute the characterisation of the AKP government and the idea that it's being 'propped up' - but broadly I think this is right. 

One does not have to be a Hungarian version of Sy Hersh to question the value of that tradeoff.

I mean that Erdogan reminds me of Orban and that I've never seen anything that make me suspect that the Gulen movement have somehow taken over state security in Turkey.  It strikes me as the sort of nonsense Hersh said about the Knights of Malta in the US military, or Opus Dei.  It's good copy but if anything hinders debate.

What Turkey is experiencing today is a swing away following decades of forced nationalist secularism (not that much different from the Polish-style communism between 1950s and 1989, which was more nationalistic/anti-German/anti-semitic than it was communist-style internationalist). So now people will be religious nationalists for a while, but hopefully it will get better in a decade or two. Again, comparisons with Poland are not inappropriate.

I'd agree.  Another comparison is with Latin America I think.  Turkey's an emerging democracy and that's a difficult process - which we'll hopefully see in the rest of the Middle East soon - but as long as the general direction of travel is towards greater respect of human rights and democracy then I'm relatively sanguine and don't worry about 'losing Turkey'.  There'll be mistakes and dealing with the past will be tough, there may even be an authoritarian populist or two that causes problems but I still, generally, think that Turkey's becoming herself as a free country - as has happened in Eastern Europe and in, say, Argentina.  I Think it's a good thing.

Of course the danger is if Erdogan slips from being like Orban into being like Putin.  But I think though he's expected to win this election it'll be with a smaller majority so hopefully that won't happen.