Ertugrul Ozkok: The PM is enslaved to his own angry rhetoric

This impression of mine has solidified into a real claim after watching him speak last Sunday to a gathering of AKP youths. The Prime Minister has become enslaved to the very style of rhetoric which he has spent so much time defending. But the real danger at hand is that there is no one left in his close circles who has the strength, energy, or courage to let him know what is happening.   Â

 

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I watched him speak in amazement. When I watch a politician defend "freedoms" with a rhetoric that sounds something like a declaration of war, I get the feeling that what stands behind him is not actually freedom, but some other intentions. Erdogan is unable to rip himself away from the emotions of "we" versus "them." He constantly characterizes those who oppose the lifting of the ban against turbans, as well as young women who don't wear the turban, as "them." And his emotions as he talks about "their" rights? "We tolerate them." What we are seeing here is a very basic break-down in democracy. When people characterize something which they see as their "right" as a "freedom," and then brush off other people's rights as something which they are "tolerating," this can only be a cry of arrogance on their parts. I would like to point out I am not talking about constitutions or laws here. I am talking about character and personality. The Prime Minister's rhetorical style has stopped being an "art," and metamorphosized into a totalitarian stance. And I am really having difficulty calling this stance "democratic" at all. Which is why my belief that it is not politicians who will be able to solve this turban problem is firming up. There is no freedom in the world which can be defended as though by pounding it into people's heads with wood.

 

Of course, we could greet this rhetoric that we are hearing from Erdogan by sort of ignoring it, brushing it off as "something we shouldn't take so seriously."

 

But no, this rhetoric scares me. Because this strong leader is passing the anger of his rhetoric like a wave through all AKP members, even AKP municipality mayors.

 

And I have to wonder, how is this angry rhetoric ultimately going to affect the youth of the AKP? Is there anyway to calculate even from now what notch on the Richter scale this earthquake of angry talk will register, and what the effects will be?