ERDOĞAN’S TURKEY AND THE PROBLEM OF THE 30 MILLION

Source:War on the Rocks Date:25Sep2020

Even though I don’t agree with the dystopian conclusion, this is an excllent article on Erdogan’s  divide and conquer strategy

There is reason to think that the present phase of Turkish politics, which is based on the polarization within the opposition, is coming to an end. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified pressure on the already beleaguered economy, and the government’s expansionist foreign policy is making dramatic international confrontations more likely. In this turbulent new environment, Erdoğan might give in to the temptation to take a more activist approach towards the problem of the 30 million. “Turkey will not only reach its 2023 goals [the centennial of the Republic], it will also be rid of the representatives of this diseased politics,” he said in May, hinting that he might cut the left out of the political system entirely. If this should happen, politics would be an uneven contest between Islamist, pan-Turkic, and secularist hues of Turkish nationalism. Far off, in the back streets of the big cities and in the Kurdish provinces, in second-hand bookshops and hidden corners of the internet, there would be a progressive left, weathering out what is surely going to be a violent storm.