Ertugrul Ozkok: Turkish PM wants obeisance or jihad

You may find it strange, but do you know what came to my mind at that time?The Revolutionary Way's* or Dev Yol's boycott campaign against Cumhuriyet daily in 1970s.You can say "What is the relation?" But it is not as you think at all.They are both expressions of an anti-democratic, despotic and dictatorial mentality.Therefore I write this column under the influence of this similarity.If I were a man in the close circle of the prime minister,If I were a wise and reasonable man,If I had ability to make a serious assessment on the situation,And most importantly if were brave enough to tell what I think to his face,I mean if I were a real friend of him,I would make "the concrete analysis of the concrete situation", as it is used in the Dev Yol terminology, for him.* * *-- Now the prime minister excessively personalized this argument. He makes his party to follow this personal anger.-- If a leader is enslaved by his personal anger this much, it becomes harder for him to get out of that spiral. Every wrong step is followed by another one.-- Erdogan's personal anger is increasingly turning into a fight against freedom of press not only a fight against Dogan Media Group.-- Erdogan, who is expected to accelerate the efforts for full membership to the EU after the closure case, has started to run exactly in the opposite direction.-- When the prime minister said "Do not buy their newspapers", he forgot that those voted for him are not entirely the members of his party who obey what he says.-- They did not take an order from him on which newspapers they read. Therefore, expecting them not to read or not to let any newspapers enter their house, means considering them as ones who have to obey his orders.-- The prime minister directs his party organization not to let these newspapers enter their homes. Using the organization to fulfill such an anti-democratic order is the culture of a fascist party order.-- After he clearly said "I am targeting them", and then he ordered a boycott on these newspapers, that question comes to mind automatically: What will be the next order? "It is incumbent to kill them?"-- With the combination of his recent anger and his attempts to prevent newspapers to be sold, the prime minister in fact summarizes the basic philosophy of the culture that rules his politics: "Obeisance or Jihad"-- This attitude of him will automatically remind his remarks when he said "Democracy is a tram that we get on until we reach our target" when he was the mayor of Istanbul, and will bring that question to mind: "Has the tram arrived the last stop?"-- Every new jihad call from the prime minister against the newspapers, which cover the Deniz Feneri scandal, brings this to mind: Does the Deniz Feneri corruption scandal reach out to Erdogan's very close circles? Is this anger an expression of that fear?-- Each show of anger by Erdogan carries this question outside the borders of Turkey, and the media institutions, which give the biggest support to him during the closure case, start to be more interested in Deniz Feneri scandal.-- The Economist magazine asks that question in its latest edition: "Less than white? His attempts to suppress the media are accompanied by the darkening of the name "AK" (white in English) in the name of his party.-- Prime Minister puts pro-AKP media groups in a very difficult position with this attitude. The concept of "Dogan Group" vs "Erdogan Group" is increasingly positioned in the people's minds and the media group which is managed by his son-in-law suffers the most.

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Look where we had arrived from Dev Yol's despotism against Cumhuriyet daily.Both of them are the sickness of the same despot ideologies.The interesting thing is even at the age of 50 one cannot be cured from this illness.* The Revolutionary Way or Dev Yol is one of the most important and strongest leftist movements in Turkey during 1970s. The illegal movement had a wide support with some estimates it had around 500,000 active supporters.