Turkey leaders exploit democracy

By Dr. Resmiye Oral

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Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister of the decade-old Turco-Islamist government of Turkey, is not taking an inch back from his position regarding the protesters in Turkey.

He labels the protesters “chapulcu” - looters - when they are peaceful students, professors, artists, lawyers, journalists, doctors, nurses, mothers, fathers, veterans, Kurdish intellectuals, workers, celebrities, parliamentarians. Everything, but not looters.

Erdogan and his party AKP have been sacrificing everything Turkey stood for; its sovereignty, culture, history and nature to profit and commercialization of the country.

The last such attempt in Turkey was to replace Gezi Park in Istanbul with a mall, located in the heart of Istanbul, that has been an oasis for Istanbulites among the concrete blocks of Taksim, for many decades. This infuriated environmentalists, whose benevolent civil disobedience was met with brutal police violence, which then brought out hundreds of thousands of Turkish people onto the streets all over the country.

Erdogan is unable to see that what has been turning the country upside down for more than a month is more than a few hundred trees - it's a sociological phenomenon that needs to be understood and addressed with an open mind, not an iron fist.

The crowds on the streets are asking of him today. “Hear us and respect us!” Instead, all they get is pepper gas, chemical-loaded water jets and being shot at by gas capsules, which killed five, injured more than 10,000, with hundreds in the intensive care units so far.

Erdogan and AKP's goal in all this is to spread terror, ban citizens' rights to free speech, association and assembly, and annihilate all forms of resistance to the society's Islamization and the country's commercialization.

Turkey is uprising today against AKP's calculated agenda that will eventually transform the society to one that lives by the rules of Quran, no less, like Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Libya.

The third military coup in Turkey of 1980 eliminated the democratic provisions of 1960 to such an extent that subtle steps taken in 1980s brought AKP to power and changed the composition of the society drastically.

First, the election system was modified so that political parties winning less than 10 percent (a threshold varying between 2 percent and 5 percent in democratic countries) of the votes nationally, would not be represented in the parliament even if they are the majority party in certain provinces.

Second, the number of parochial middle/high schools increased from 500 to close to 5,000 in a stretch of five years, a deliberate strategic effort to transform Turkey into an Islamist society. Thus, AKP came into power in 2002, winning 34 percent of the vote (363 representatives in a 550-seat parliament). Once in power, corruption and opportunistic support from nearsighted non-fundamentalists allowed them to win 47 percent of votes in 2007 and 51 percent in 2011.

Keep in mind, though, 51 percent of votes does not equate 51 percent of the population (with a 66 percent voting rate) since the majority of non-voters were liberals.

Thus, AKP has the support of only 35 percent of the adult population in Turkey enjoying disproportionately high representation in the parliament because of an antidemocratic election system.

Erdogan and AKP have never been for democracy. Had they, they would have responded to Istanbulites' request on Gezi Park and would have started a regional participatory discussion.

Had they, they would have supported multiculturalism, passed laws to end discrimination against Kurdish minority and democratized the election system.

Had they, they would not have rounded up scores of lawyers, physicians and nurses with brutal police force, who solely dared doing what they were trained to do; defend in court the demonstrators arrested unjustly by police forces and “treat all individuals regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or political affiliation in both times of war and peace,” as the Geneva Convention on medical neutrality empowered them to do. Thus, Erdogan and AKP committed an international crime by banning medical personnel in Turkey, Istanbul and Taksim from doing what they had to do.

Erdogan coined democracy as a train: “… we will take it until we get to where we want to be. Once we are there, we will get off.”

The international community has every reason to believe that AKP is doing just that: exploiting democracy as a vehicle to get to his hidden agenda. Erdogan and AKP are not non-violent mild Islamists.

Islam and any other organized religion, in the hearts and minds of individuals, certainly serve the good of the society. But, once Islam is pulled into political discourse, it is inevitable that sharia will follow sooner or later, in societies like Turkey, definitely with violence.

Before it is too late, American and European governments must send decidedly strong diplomatic messages to the Turkish government, withdrawing economic and political support. The international community dedicated to true democracy owes this to the benevolent, pacifist, non-violent democrats of Turkey trying to defend and expand democracy before Turkey becomes another, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt or Syria.

Two thirds of the people of Turkey do not want to live in an open-air prison, I trust everybody would respect that demand.

l Dr. Resmiye Oral, a dual citizen of the United States and Turkey, is a clinical professor of pediatrics and director of the Child Protection Program at the University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine and UI Children's Hospital. Comments: resmiye-oral@uiowa.edu