Does all this sound familiar? Brewing our own Taksim Square

Sadly, on the day that more than a thousand demonstrators were sent to hospital and a few to the morgue, major Turkish television stations, all under the thumb of Erdogan, broadcast documentaries about penguins and dolphin training, and concerts.

Four days after violent clashes between demonstrators and police, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc first apologised on television, saying that the use of “excessive force” against people who initially started the protest at Taksim Square was “wrong and it was unfair”. But then he quantified his apology. Reflecting his boss’s defiant spirit, Arinc stated that the government need not apologise to “those who create destruction of public property in the streets and who try to prevent the freedom of the people in the streets”.

Maybe, the latter part is exactly what our former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva should have said after the red shirts burned down a shopping mall and terrorised countless numbers of people over a considerable period of time prior to the government crackdown on their street demonstration. And now, those red perpetrators are getting millions of our tax money in compensation for their misdeeds, which they and their patrons pompously called “heroic”.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Erdogan conceitedly predicted in Morocco, where he was visiting, that the demonstrations would end by the time he arrived back in Ankara. We may wonder how on earth he could undertake a foreign trip when his country was coming apart at its seams just as he departed.

On the surface – before May 28, when a handful of environmentalists staged a peaceful protest at Taksim Square against the redevelopment of a park near Istanbul into a shopping mall – Turkey and the Erdogan government appeared to be doing well. Prime Minister Erdogan, in office since 2003, and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) had won a third term in power decisively, with a majority in the parliament. 

As leader, Erdogan successfully excised the Turkish military’s role in politics for good, after he imprisoned dozens of generals. However, he also refused to permit any new body to serve as a check and balance mechanism in Turkish politics.  His government threatened to dissolve the Constitutional Court, should it find any AKP-sponsored legislation unconstitutional. He also sought to write a new constitution that would give him more power. The new constitution is believed to give Erdogan an American-style presidency, as opposed to the current parliamentary system. Erdogan himself takes great pride in his political re-engineering programms and ability to carry them out. 

Under his rule, Turkey has seen an immense infrastructure construction boom. He is building a third Istanbul airport, bridges and roads. He plans to build an oversize mosque capable of holding tens of thousands of worshipers. The list goes on.

With every infrastructure project comes wholesale corruption, so that the people see their tax money squandered to enrich politicians and their cronies, but have no ability to stop it. The newfound wealth of Erdogan, his family members, and associates defies the sensibility of decent, honest Turks. Corruption cases against him and his party have been suspended in court, as Erdogan enjoys immunity granted him as prime minister by the constitution. Erdogan was credited with reforming the judiciary, but along the way he marginalised it. His grip on Turkish politics has prompted some Western observers to call him the “Sultan”.

In Erdogan’s Turkey, press freedom has diminished. The government has an enormous say over the media and how things are reported. Like any leader unflinchingly certain of his mandate, Erdogan does not take kindly to those who disagree with him. Journalists know they risk imprisonment and harsh sanctions if they cover the government critically. A Western press freedom watchdog organisation has reported that Turkey has imprisoned more journalists than any other country in the world. As such, Erdogan gets away with his “my-way-or-the highway” governing style, while the public suffers suppressed anxiety.

While superficially Turkey’s economic indicators give the country a healthy picture, Erdogan has accumulated for Turkey more foreign debt than that incurred by his predecessors combined. Household debt has also steadily and enormously risen under his rule.

In Turkey, on the fifth day after the first Taksim Square crackdown on protestors, demonstrations continue in the streets in many cities. Erdogan insolently insists he will not yield to what he calls extremists acting as tools of his political opponents. They, in his words, are provoking “innocent citizens”.

If all this hits close to home regarding Thailand, you are not mistaken. The rampant corruption, abuse of power, lack of transparency and accountability, parliamentary authoritarianism – where no other legislation other than that sponsored or supported by the government can pass – are all here. No censure debate can stop the policies that will eventually ruin the country’s economy, such as the rice price pledging programme, the excessive public borrowing, the questionable flood prevention construction projects, to name but a few. The cancelling of a soap opera condemning the immoral acts of politicians, and the defamation lawsuit filed against a respected and conscientious cartoonist are just some of the examples of our illiberal democracy.

In Turkey, the protests are not just staged by, in Erdogan’s words, “anti-progress, tree-hugger rabble”. Grievances among citizens have been brewing for quite sometime. The Taksim Square protests only opened a Pandora’s Box that has been closed tight. While Erdogan is still a popular leader for many Turks, his enemies from many different factions with similar aspirations will join hands against him. The shut door has been pried open; nobody knows for certain where it will lead and how it will end.

Today, in the streets of Turkey, people are chanting, “Have you heard us?"  

Here in Thailand, the answer might be no. Not yet, anyway.