Who Is Erdoğan Trying To Kid?

Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan’s desperation is showing. Faced with the prospect of possibly losing the all-important referendum next month he has incited diplomatic spats with Holland and Germany – each of them home to millions of expatriate Turks.

The proximate cause of his anger – real or feigned – is the refusal of those countries to be drawn into Turkish domestic political fights. Those two countries took the entirely reasonable position that letting Turkish ministers host election rallies in Holland or Germany would amount an unwelcome intrusion of violent Turkish politics into their own more normal political system.

He is in a position to lecture anyone on freedom??

Why, they asked, should they condone Erdoğan’s  undemocratic, repressive version of politics by letting his ministers practice those traits in Germany or Holland? Not an unreasonable question. Furthermore, the Dutch have a critical election this week. Why did Erdoğan even think they would allow any outside intrusion at this point – let alone the rabble rousers from Turkey?

But focusing only on Erdoğan’s obvious insensitivity and hypocrisy is to miss the point. He simply doesn’t care about European criticism of his moves. In fact, he loves it because it feeds the popular domestic narrative of those nasty Europeans with their so-called emphasis on human rights trying to keep Turkey down in the second division. It is important to realize that his complaints about Holland and Germany are nothing but a smokescreen enabling him to push the always-reliable button of Turkish nationalism.

The only thing that matters to him at this point is getting enough votes in the referendum on proposed changes to the Turkish constitution giving him unchecked powers. There are some cautious comments in the Turkish press that this might not be as easy as he had hoped. There is some serious resistance to the idea of ending Turkey’s parliamentary system of government in favor of what amounts to one-man rule. It’s one thing to vote for AKP, it’s quite another to give one man – Tayyip Erdoğan – absolute power. Therefore Erdoğan has to do everything he can to whip up the Turkish booboisie – to steal a term from H.L.Mencken – into such a nationalist fervor that they rush to support their leader.

To that end he has manufactured inflammatory actions like calling Germany and Holland modern day versions of the Nazis, insisted on having his ministers travel to those countries and then get photographed as they are refused entry, yelping about double standards on human rights and freedom of speech, etc., etc. It takes a great deal of energy to do all this with a straight face, especially when so many journalists and opposition politicians are languishing behind bars in Turkey. Again, I cannot emphasize enough that he just doesn’t care about this very, very bad joke or the reality of the situation – assuming he knows it. Very few of his supporters have access to, or ability to understand any of the critical foreign comment. All they hear is his side of the story – blazoned across his in-house newspapers or broadcast loudly on supine TV stations.

Dutch riot police outside the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam

Turkish televisions are now filled with dramatic shots of protests outside the Dutch consulate in Istanbul -- located on the city’s main shopping street – or scuffles in Holland outside the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam. To outsiders, Erdoğan and his puppet ministers look comical and ridiculous as they struggle to climb onto the high road in this intensifying debate about standards of freedom in each country. They should be embarrassed by their pretensions, but they have long since lost the ability to be embarrassed by anything in Turkish politics. If the massive corruption scandals a few years and brutal repression against protesters didn’t cause any embarrassment, then it’s naïve to think that something like a loud argument with a foreign country would cause any embarrassment. Quite the contrary. Remember the old Turkish saying, A Turk Has No Friends But A Turk.

Turkey has sealed off the Dutch embassy for 'security' reasons

Will this tactic be enough to swing the election his way? Difficult to say. Turkish polls are notoriously inaccurate, but various commentators report some unease in the Erdoğan camp about the outcome of the referendum. This unease apparently extends not just to the usual political opposition but also could include some members of the ruling Justice and Development Party itself who like the parliamentary system. Unlike the general elections, this is a straight Yes or No vote where the winner has to get at least 50% of the votes cast. Given the possibility of vote fiddling, many people in the No camp believe they have to get well over 50% to get the outcome they want.

The only certain thing is more sharp election maneuvring by the Erdoğan camp between now and the referendum on April 16. Will  this be a sign of desperation, or just politics as usual? Very difficult to say.