Winston Churchill once said “you can count on the Americans to do the right thing,” then he added, I presume with a smile, “after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” It isn’t any different for the Turks, I may add.
Marx and Engels famously started the Communist Manifesto with the words “a specter is haunting Europe—the specter of communism.” Crypto Anarchist Timothy May was less Eurocentric, beginning his 1992 Crypto Anarchist Manifesto with the words “a specter is haunting the modern world—the specter of crypto anarchy.” I would say that the “modern world” today is anywhere with an internet connection. That’s a lot of people from a lot of different cultures.
In 2018, the Turkish Lira depreciated by 39 percent against the U.S. dollar. That was followed by steep increases in unemployment and inflation, the combination of which yields a 60 percent increase in Turkey’s so-called “misery index.” In other words: People are hurt.
“Is the guy on the street feeling it?” someone asked me this week. The “it” here refers to the economy of course. His intention, I gather, was to understand why the governing bloc failed in Istanbul, as well as Turkey’s other major cities. Is it the economy or ideology? I tend to think that economy was important, and it’s going to be more so from now on.
Rulers have to live with their decisions. There is a point in Shakespeare’s famous play where Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking. She has recently plotted with her husband the murder of Duncan and Macduff’s family, and though this has given them power, she is now ridden with guilt, and maybe regret.
Turkey may look vulnerable to you. When President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was elected back in June 2018, you could buy a dollar with 4.71 Turkish Liras. Now it costs around 5.97 liras. This means that the lira has depreciated by around 27 percent in less than a year against the dollar. Yet there are solid reasons to be optimistic about Turkey.
When it comes to global politics, we all know that the European Union (EU) is in a sorry state. One of its three most powerful members is leaving, its inbred establishment is besieged, its Eastern edges are slipping into despotism.
“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action,” writes Ian Fleming in Goldfinger. Since I am not James Bond, I’m inclined to replace “enemy action” with “pattern,” but it works just the same, and for me, the 2019 election in Turkey was that magical third time. Let me explain.
There are two types of countries in our region: Countries where you know the results of an election before votes are counted and those where you have to wait for the tally.
