Aliza Marcus: The Historical Blindness of Turkey's Detractors
[Aliza Marcus is a writer in Washington, D.C. and author of Blood and Belief: the PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence.]
Thirty years ago this month, Ilhan Erdost, a leftist Turkish publisher, was beaten to death by soldiers in Ankara's Mamak military prison. He had been detained by the military regime, which had just taken power in a coup d'état. His crime was publishing a book by communist theorist Friedrich Engels. He was 35 years old.
Erdost's widow, Gul Erdost, marked the anniversary by announcing that she planned to file a lawsuit against those she holds accountable for the killing: the generals who staged the Sept. 12, 1980, coup.
Gul Erdost has Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to thank for the chance to finally challenge the military. Thirty years to the day that tanks rolled through Turkish cities, giving rise to arguably the most brutal and anti-democratic period in the country's history, voters approved a package of amendments to the constitution drawn up by the former military rulers. These changes included removing the article that granted the military rulers perpetual immunity from prosecution.
Yet to hear many U.S.-based analysts tell it, Erdogan is tearing down Turkey's democracy, not building it up. These critics -- out of either willful disregard or sheer ignorance -- misrepresent what Erdogan has accomplished and why voters continue to support him. They depict Erdogan's government as an ominous departure from Turkey's past -- ignoring the abuses that occurred under the country's previous governments...
Read entire article at Foreign Policy
Thirty years ago this month, Ilhan Erdost, a leftist Turkish publisher, was beaten to death by soldiers in Ankara's Mamak military prison. He had been detained by the military regime, which had just taken power in a coup d'état. His crime was publishing a book by communist theorist Friedrich Engels. He was 35 years old.
Erdost's widow, Gul Erdost, marked the anniversary by announcing that she planned to file a lawsuit against those she holds accountable for the killing: the generals who staged the Sept. 12, 1980, coup.
Gul Erdost has Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to thank for the chance to finally challenge the military. Thirty years to the day that tanks rolled through Turkish cities, giving rise to arguably the most brutal and anti-democratic period in the country's history, voters approved a package of amendments to the constitution drawn up by the former military rulers. These changes included removing the article that granted the military rulers perpetual immunity from prosecution.
Yet to hear many U.S.-based analysts tell it, Erdogan is tearing down Turkey's democracy, not building it up. These critics -- out of either willful disregard or sheer ignorance -- misrepresent what Erdogan has accomplished and why voters continue to support him. They depict Erdogan's government as an ominous departure from Turkey's past -- ignoring the abuses that occurred under the country's previous governments...