‘New Turkey’ turned out to be ‘old Italy’

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkey should be ruled like a company, and for this to happen, a presidential system is required! Thus, the “Turkish-style presidential system” in Erdoğan’s mind is becoming clearer.

We were defining it as an “authoritarian, one-man administration,” but “corporatism” has been added to it with the latest statement. Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italy was exactly this type of a state.

Well, the clues were there… Looking at the series of laws that were attempted to be sold to the people as a “security package” but actually were aiming to form a police state, we understood what it was.

Justice would be reporting to the president, the executive body would be run by the president, the president would be able to renew parliamentary elections, he would be running the country with decrees with the power of the law without the need for a parliament and a “corporative” mentality would dominate the state.

Thus, if his wish comes true, Turkey will turn into the Italy of 100 years ago.
They were saying “New Turkey” all the time, now we know their dreams were “old Italy.”

When do we go back to ‘kart kurt’?

I think Turkey looks very much like the former Brazilian soap operas. Events unfold, months pass, and then you take a look to see you are back at the beginning, as if the show had not started at all. You may stop watching the show whenever you want and when you come back, you could immediately catch up.

When the president said, “What are you lacking, bro? As a Kurd, you have become the president, the prime minister of this country, haven’t you? You were in the cabinet, in top positions. Are you present in the Turkish Armed Forces? Yes, you are,” I said, “hah, we are back to square one again.”

Because a large portion of the country is young, and another portion is not interested, these words of the president may sound “new” and even “logical” to them; however, they are neither new nor logical.
We have lost more than 30,000 people (we do not know the number of the maimed), we have spent billions of dollars on weapons and ammunition and the place we have arrived at after all this is the end of the 1980s.

When late President Turgut Özal was elected to his post, I heard, “What else do you want? A Kurd can even become the president.”

If there is no Kurdish question, then where do the words “Kurdish initiative, reconciliation process” come from?

Why does the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, send a 10-article list from jail and have this announced at press conferences at the office of the Prime Ministry at Dolmabahçe? Why a secretariat for Öcalan? Poor Sırrı Süreyya Önder will become seasick taking the ferry to and from İmralı Island, why?

The following was the invention of the Sept. 12, 1980, coup guys: “Kurds are actually mountain Turks. While they are walking on the snow they make a ‘kart-kurt’ noise, that’s why they are called Kurds.”

Twilight of fascism

Police detained six people before President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Balıkesir visit. The justification of the detentions was “They may protest the president.”

The six detainees are all members and administrators of legal associations. In a democracy, holding a protesting demonstration is one of the basic rights. As long as the demonstration is peaceful, it cannot be stopped or the organizers cannot be detained. Freedoms can never ever be restricted on grounds that “They may stage a protest.”

There are loads of European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) verdicts concerning this. For example, at the beginning of this month, Turkey was fined 7,000 euros each for nine people who were detained during a protest despite them not being involved in any kind of violence.

Turkey has become the stage of more and more illegal practices and those exerting them are police officers, governors and district governors.

The propaganda activities of political parties are obstructed, people are detained on grounds that they would stage a protest and invented “slander” cases are attempting to oppress the people. It is not too hard to guess pressures will further increase until the elections.

They want the “powerful” to be able to do whatever he wishes and that nobody would oppose any of that; those who try to raise a voice should be made to regret that; everybody should be oppressed and quiet.

Well, this is called fascism.