Is Erdogan really a dictator or not? The question, which arose from the rather assertive statement of the Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, bounced from Italy to Turkey and now extends to Europe. To France, for example, where one of the most interesting online sites is based in following everything that falls under the Turkish world. Is called Ahval, and brings together some of the greatest intellectuals and dissidents who, from Europe to Canada, find here a media refuge to be able to express what they cannot at home.
Turkey against Draghi. In government newspapers: “Mussolini dictator”. But people on social media: “Finally someone is telling the truth”
by Marco Ansaldo
Ahval is directing Yavuz Baydar hasn’t been active on Medium yet., commentator abroad for the New York Times and the Guardian, former newspaper columnist in Turkey Turkish daily news e Time, and ombudsman (i.e. reader guarantor) for Sabah. For several years, however, Baydar has escaped from Turkey. One of his most relevant studies is the register of journalists fired by Erdogan: a sort of black book, unfortunately, which contains hundreds of names and their stories. Ahval, a site that strongly cares about its independence and is supported with Arab funding, means “events”, circumstances, and is a phrase by Mustafa Kemal, known as Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, taken from his famous “Nutuk”, the Speech. “Ahval ve sherait”, therefore: the circumstances and conditions. Magnificent phrase.
Yavuz Baydar, Mario Draghi is right in calling Recep Tayyip Erdogan a dictator?
“If Draghi had this definition in mind, he might be right about Erdogan’s way of governing:” Dictator “is used as a non-titular term for an oppressive government and, in modern usage, is used to describe a leader who holds and abuses. of a high amount of personal power ”.
And how does the Turkish president technically behave in this respect?
“Erdogan has successfully subordinated the judiciary, academia and the media; it often rules by decree, frantically oppresses political opponents, holds more than 50,000 people as political prisoners, acts arbitrarily, defies the Constitution and enjoys a high level of personality cult. Draghi may have expressed a “Pulcinella secret” shared in the corridors of power throughout the European Union ”.
Does it mean that the expression used by Draghi has grasped deeply and will be successful?
“His observations will go down in history. I mean that they will become historic, regardless of any subsequent retractions. Draghi exposed extreme weaknesses within what has been coined as a “positive agenda” or “positive momentum” by EU leaders. It also made it clear how erratic, difficult and asymmetrical the relationship with Erdogan would continue to be. He also held a mirror on the collapse of “European values” towards a candidate country and showed how wrong it was for EU leaders to live in lies ”.
How do you judge the prodrome that led to Draghi’s words, that is the case of the so-called sofa-gate, with the president of the European Commission, the German Ursula von der Leyen, held up in the meeting at the Presidential Palace in Ankara with Erdogan who gave them just left the sofa three meters away from him?
“We are facing a new development in the confrontation between Turkey and the European Union. But now there is Italy at the center. After the affirmation of the Italian prime minister, the ambassador to Ankara, Massimo Gaiani, was called to the Turkish foreign ministry where he was expressed the lively discontent at the words of Mario Draghi. And Draghi is mainly a technocrat, and has an independent political identity ”.
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But isn’t it strange that these statements were made by a country traditionally a friend of Turkey like Italy?
“We now have to see what the next step will be. That is, if there will be an apology. Ankara and Rome have a strong economic and commercial exchange between them, which includes arms exports from Italy, as well as many other sectors involved, such as the automotive one. And this has always been an issue that put Italy in the middle, when the crises between Ankara and Brussels broke out. But now Draghi has said something different ”.
How does Erdogan come out of yet another storm on him?
“If there is no apology from Italy, from a diplomatic point of view Erdogan’s camp will win once again, because the responsibility will be attributed to Rome, which will be blamed for an error. Furthermore, neither Erdogan nor his palace will apologize to Ursula von der Leyen for the sofa-gate that left her standing, completely surprised and bewildered by the lack of a chair for her. Rome will be placed in an uncomfortable position. And Erdogan will come out untouched by this case ”.
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