Status: 28.10.2023, 13:02 PM
By: Erkan Pehlivan
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On Sunday, Turkey will be 100 years old. But there is not much to celebrate. The situation of the economy, human rights and the rule of law is sobering.
Ankara – On October 29, 1923, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded Turkey. Preparations are taking place across the country for the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the republic over the weekend. Fighter jets are flying over the Bosphorus for their show on Sunday. In a martial promotional video on the occasion of Turkey's 100th anniversary, soldiers can be seen in combat missions. The accompanying rap song is heralded with the words "Martyrs do not die. - the homeland is indivisible" (Turkish: "Şehitler ölmez – vatan bölünmez").
Conflicts in the region weigh on Turkey
But the celebrations are overshadowed by conflicts in the region. Since the terrorist militia Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, the Gaza war has been raging with thousands of deaths. Hundreds of victims are added every day. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has apparently miscalculated. Both Israel and the West ignore the powerful man in Ankara. After all, he has declared his loyalty to Hamas. This is not a terrorist organization, but a liberation group that wants to liberate its country and people. In the West, Erdogan's words have caused outrage.
Friction between Ankara and the West
The conflict between Ankara and the West has been going on for a long time. In the recent past, the Turkish president had repeatedly behaved like a brawler. Erdogan had threatened his neighbor and NATO partner Greece with an invasion and an attack with "Tayfun missiles" if the country did not "demilitarize" several of its islands in the Aegean Sea.
The country had also ignored warnings from Washington and nevertheless acquired the Russian S-400 missile defense system. The consequence was to be expected. The Turkish government was kicked out of the F-35 program. A fifth-generation fighter jet. For years now, it has been trying to get modern F-16 fighter jets, at least from Washington, but so far in vain.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan apparently imagined things differently with the West. © IMAGO/Sergei Bobylev
Massive human rights violations in Turkey
The problems are also getting worse and worse within the country. Since the July 15, 2016 coup attempt, Erdogan has arrested hundreds of thousands of people on terrorism charges. This refers to alleged followers of the preacher Fethullah Gülen, who has been living in exile in the US since 1999. After the coup attempt, Erdogan had the movement classified as a terrorist organization and its supporters persecuted.
Brutal crackdown on Kurds
Erdogan also continues to take brutal action against Kurds. MPs, mayors and even the co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish HDP continue to sit innocently behind bars for years. Again and again, ordinary Kurdish party members and journalists are arrested. Demonstrations by Kurdish people are also brutally suppressed by the Turkish police.
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The language of more than 20 million Kurds is still barely visible in schools. Even after 100 years of the founding of the republic, people of Kurdish origin will have to wait a long time for lessons in their mother tongue. The genocide of the Kurds of Dersim in 1938 or the murders of thousands in the 1990s by the gendarmerie secret service "JITEM" have not been fully investigated.
The wishes of human rights organizations and reality are drifting apart
Human rights activists draw a sobering balance on 100 years of Turkey. "On this anniversary, as a human rights activist, I would have liked Turkey's head of state to step in front of the camera and say: We want a new beginning with the Kurds, with the citizens of this country. I apologize for causing too much suffering to the Kurds. From now on, the Kurdish language will be put on an equal footing with Turkish. The Kurds in the east, in Kurdistan, are allowed to manage their daily affairs themselves and not ask everything in faraway Ankara. I release all political prisoners. We, Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Christians, Sunnis, Alevis and Yazidis want to celebrate 100 years of the republic together. We also want peace with the Kurds in Syria, Iraq and Iran," said Dr. Kamal Sido, a Middle East speaker of the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), in an interview with our editorial team.
Turkey attacks Kurds in neighbouring country
The reality of the Kurdish people looks bleak. In neighbouring Syria, Erdogan occupies large parts of the country. The city of Afrin since 2018. While the Kurdish share of the population was previously over 90 percent, it has now fallen to less than 30 percent. For weeks, the Turkish air force has been bombing targets in northern Syria (Kurdish: "Rojava"), including electricity and water plants. As a result, around 2 million people in the region are cut off from water and electricity supply.
The country is also doing very badly economically. Inflation is at 57.25 percent and the Turkish lira continues to be in free fall, which only makes people more impoverished. The US dollar is now worth 28.19 TL. Five years earlier, it was 5.43 TL. The "century of Turkey" promised in the election campaign is still a long time coming.
International organizations give Turks miserable testimony
And the international institutions confirm Turkey's miserable situation, from human rights to the economy, the country can hardly record any positive development. In the rule of law index of the non-governmental organization World Justice Project, Turkey ranks 117th out of 142 countries. In Reporters Without Borders' Press Freedom Index, Turkey ranks 165th out of 180. And in the Democracy Index of the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg, the state only makes it to 132nd place out of 177.
The country is sinking more and more into corruption scandals and is trying to paint a positive picture by controlling the media domestically. The so-called disinformation law is repeatedly used to block sites on the Internet or social media accounts and to prevent critical reporting on the AKP government. There is currently no end in sight to the downward spiral in Turkey.