[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Turkey and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Turkey Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week`s roundup to turkey@jadaliyya.com by Sunday night of every week.]
English
Anniversary of the Gezi Park Protests
Is This Your Justice, Turkey? Melis Alphan summarizes the lack of developments in the court cases concerning those who died during the Gezi Park protests.
Harvey: Gezi Park Resistance Still Continues Despite Leaving Park David Harvey’s statements from Istanbul on the second anniversary of the Gezi Park protests, in which he links global police violence with capitalist megaprojects.
June Elections
No Ordinary Election, Call for Revolution Nuray Mert examines the “revolutionary” language of the AKP election campaign, which would not usher in democratic change but would instead legitimize and concretize current authoritarian policies and practices.
I Want to Warn You before It`s Too Late Describing the ongoing uncertainties around the outcome of the election, Abdülkadir Selvi encourages voters not to “sacrifice Erdoğan” through their shortsightedness.
Is There Panic within AKP, Or Is It An Election Tactic? (1) - (2) Murat Yetkin wonders whether the reports by pro-AKP journalists about a drop in voter support for the ruling government is a legitimate concern or merely a method of mobilizing further voters.
Is Erdoğan as Neutral as He Claims to Be? Semih İdiz argues that President Erdoğan is engaged in “doubletalk” to try and dispel suggestions that he may be violating his oath of office by campaigning for the AKP.
The West`s Election Forecast: Weak AKP, Weak Erdoğan Serkan Demirtaş summarizes the opinions of Western diplomats concerning the election, the HDP, and Erdoğan’s influence.
AKP Claims God is on Its Side Mustafa Akyol explains the problems originating from the AKP and Davutoğlu’s "God, the nation, and history are with us" rhetoric that fuels majoritarianism and strong political polarization.
The World Will Have to Shake the Hand It Could Not Bend… (1) - (2) Markar Esayan thinks that as the world will have to acknowledge the success of “the largest civil society movement of the world,” while expressing suspicion over the HDP’s popular political campaign which, according to him, hides the true intentions of the Kurdish movement, i.e. political autonomy.
Under the Shadow of Guns; It`s HDP, You Can Expect Anything Yasin Aktay argues that the HDP’s “aggressive politics and violence” are not discussed enough while attacks on the HDP’s election offices have dominated public debates.
Why Should We Go to the Ballot Box? Özlem Albayrak asks AKP followers “who have lost their enthusiasm due to various reasons” to still vote for the AKP to counteract the forces that aligned against the AKP, its electorate power to change the constitution, and the continuation of the peace process.
What Will Happen on June 7? Mustafa Akyol explains the meaning of three scenarios based on the numbers of seats the AKP might earn at the upcoming elections.
Erdoğan’s Presidential Dreams Hang by Thread Amberin Zaman discusses the reasons behind the AKP’s waning popularity among the pious, and the tactics employed to counteract a major decrease in the vote.
Turkish Civic Society Mobilizes Against Election Fraud Kadri Gursel talks about civil society attempts to monitor the voting process due to intensified suspicion among the public over a government-implemented fraud to prevent a possible defeat.
Erdoğan Tries to Rewrite History According to Cengiz Çandar, altering the date commemorating the conquest of the conquest of Istanbul to correspond with an AKP election meeting tells a lot about the political practice of the AKP and Erdoğan.
Thank God We Only Have a Week to Go Before the Polls İlnur Çevik states that when the elections are over within a week, the political parties in the country should immediately start attending to real political issues such as the neighboring Islamic State and the peace process.
The Quest for Presidentialism Duran Burhanettin explains why Turkey needs a presidential system
False Nostalgia about the Parliamentary System in Turkey Kılıç Buğra Kanat argues that the notion that a change in the parliamentary system is being proposed to serve the interests of the ruling party hides the threats the current system has posed to economic and political stability in the country.
HDP does not Represent Devout Kurds Ergün Yıldırım argues that the HDP has only a pragmatic relationship with Islam, and does not have concerns regarding “the Muslim community of believers (ummah), the Islamic world, the Islamic region, and fraternity”; therefore, it is not eligible to represent pious Kurds.
Foreign Policy
The EU and Turkey Must Overcome a Decade-Long Impasse in Negotiations Ernest Maragall and Laura Batalla declares their hope to further the accession talks between the EU and Turkey despite the state of the almost halted process.
Lone Wolf Syndrome in Turkish Foreign Policy According to Murat Yetkin, President Erdoğan’s combative rhetoric towards the recent editorial in the New York Times (and towards Western countries, in general) is aimed for gains in domestic politics.
Turkey and US Reach Compromise Verda Özer comments on the semi-consensus reached between the US and Turkey on Syria amidst the increasing pressure on the Obama Administration to take a more active role in Syria.
Morsi Death Sentence Fuels Media Controversy Zülfikar Doğan talks about the reasons behind Erdoğan’s explicit targeting of the Doğan group, one of the biggest media groups in the country, and predicts a crack-down on this group and other Gülenist outlets if the election outcome maintains the AKP’s powerful rule.
Other Pertinent Pieces
İHD: 348 Mass Graves, 4,201 Bodies Found The Human Rights Association’s (İHD) statement on the 348 mass graves found, and the call for the prosecution of the perpetrators of these crimes within the scope of International Week against Disappearances.
Turkey Restricts Academic Research on Syrian Refugees Barın Kayaoğlu writes about the obligatory approval procedure required by the Interior Ministry from academic researchers working on the issue of Syrian refugees in Turkey.
Turkey Court Ruling on Religious Marriages Spurs Uproar Umut Uras reports the public uproar following the decision of Turkey’s top court to denote legality to a religious marriage in the absence of a civil one.
The Disaster of Soma: 45 Minutes and the Boss Mind Regarding the anniversary of the Soma mining massacre that left 301 workers dead, Fuat Atık condemns the “boss mentality” that upholds profit above the lives of workers, and frames it as anti-Islamic.
Turkish
Anniversary of the Gezi Park Protests
Gezi sonrası Türkiye: İki senede ne değişti, neler değişecek? Cenk Sidar argues that the Gezi Park protests completely transformed the nature of Turkish politics and revitalized the dynamism of youth and opposition movements.
Ali İsmail`den kalan Reviewing a new book by İsmail Saymaz titled Ali İsmail: Emri kim verdi?, Can Bergova discusses the ways in which the AKP has created an atmosphere of violence that has polarized politics in Turkey and banalized government-sanctioned acts of violence.
June Elections
Seçim çalışmalarına çok kısa bir tefekkür molası According to Erkal Ünal, the grassroots 10’dan Sonra [After Ten] Campaign by the HDP is a testament to the strength and dynamism of the HDP’s oppositional politics as more than just an anti-Erdoğan platform.
En büyük Kürt partisi kim açıklıyorlar Ezgi Başaran examines statistics from a new study that show the division of Kurdish votes between the HDP and AKP is not a division between secular and religious Kurds, as is commonly argued, but rather, a division between poor and rich Kurds, respectively.
Seçimin inanılmaz hasar raporu Başaran warns about the dangers of an election environment where assaults on party buildings are daily occurrences, freedom of press is breached, and the constitution is being violated by the President himself.
2002: Ezber bozan seçim Serçin Sun İpekşen and Doğan Duman describe the peculiar conditions of the 2002 election, when over sixty percent of Turkey’s voters were not represented in Parliament due to the ten percent election threshold and Parliament was split between the AKP and CHP.
Üç kesim bir seçim / AKP`nin telaşı Based on the rate of the AKP’s loss of votes between 2011 and 2014, in addition to the party’s difficulty polarizing the current election, Sezgin Tüzün claims that the best case scenario for the party will give them thirty-seven percent of the vote in the election.
Kadın temsilinin önündeki çifte baraj: Yüzde 10 ve erkekler Bert M. Azizoğlu and Onur Altındağ show that the election strategies and candidate rankings from the AKP, CHP, and MHP exclude women from representation in parliament.
HDP’ye ayar verme hakkımız yok, Kürtlere özür borcumuz var Oya Baydar argues that suspicions directed at the HDP concerning their integrity are implicitly rooted in racism against Kurds.
AK Parti giderse dindarların başına ne gelir? According to Levent Gültekin, the AKP is instrumentalizing religion in order to generate fear that their loss of power will have a deleterious effect on religious freedom.
AKP panikte mi, yoksa bu da mı taktik? Murat Yetkin argues that the publicly stated concerns of AKP politicians and supporters over the decrease in vote might be an election strategy to regain the sympathy of the voters.
Halkın gerçeğine hazırlanma günleri Tarhan Erdem claims that President Erdoğan should speak for the unity of the nation, move away from a rhetoric that favors one party and delegitimizes the others, and take the steps to ensure a democratic rule after the elections.
"Kürtler nerede?" - "Yine cenazedeyiz." According to Ümit Kıvanç, the distrust attitude regarding Kurds’ commitment for democratic struggle in the country requires consideration of the assaults that the HDP faces, and struggles the Kurdish movement gives on multiple fronts.
Seçim sath-ı mailinde cenazeler ve baraj Yuksel Genç comments on the influence of the war between the Islamic State and YPG-YPJ, and the heightened military activity on the Turkish Iraq-Syria border on the Kurds’ attitudes towards the elections outcome in Turkey.
Erdoğan’ın mitingine gazeteci olarak giremedik Ekin Karaca reports from Erdoğan’s public meeting in Adana where journalists who were not accredited by the Adana mayor were not allowed to enter with their cameras, tape recorders, etc.
İktidarın hikâyesi bitti Yüksel Taşkın thinks that with the victim rhetoric of the conservative AKP losing its narrative persuasiveness, and Erdoğan’s self-crafted election strategy being unsuccessful, the decades-long right-wing rule in the country is coming to an end.
Düşman bitince, kendi göründü According to Mücahit Bilici, Erdoğan used all rhetorical resources to create an enemy rhetoric only to leave himself exposed to the eye of the voter as a self-interested and corrupt politician.
AKP’nin Üç seçim kampanyası: tebliğ, itaat ve “icraat” Gürkan Öztan compares and analyzes the strategic aims of the political rhetoric used by the AKP forthe 2002, 2011, and the upcoming elections.
HDP’ye yönelik şiddetin arkasındaki asıl dürtü ayrılıkçılık Frederike Geerdink thinks that what sustains the assaults against the HDP’s election offices is the deeply-rooted discrimination against Kurds.
Tunceli`de CHP-HDP çekişmesi Burhan Ekinci talks about the rivalry between the HDP and CHP in Tunceli over the city’s social democrat population.
Üç-beş bomba ve hafızaya imdat çağrısı According to İrfan Aktan, the AKP’s accusations against the HDP derives from the ruling party’s need to call the violent history of 1990’s into people’s minds to distort the HDP’s image in the eyes of undecided voters.
HDP barajı geçiyor mu kardeş? Onur Yazıcıoğlu thinks that the polling companies should try to assess whether the opposition, the HDP in particular, will increase its votes, rather than debating over different scenarios of the distribution of chairs in the parliament.
Published on Jadaliyya
Press Freedom on Trial in Turkey: A Statement from BirGun
The Armenian Genocide and the Politics of Knowledge
Statement on the Anniversary of the Gezi Park Uprising
Let Us Make a New Beginning: Speech for the Armenian Genocide Centennial Commemoration in Istanbul