Strongmen by Eve Ensler

Author:Eve Ensler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OR Books
Published: 2018-02-26T16:00:00+00:00

ERDOĞAN

A Normal Man

Burhan Sönmez

Victim

WHEN ERDOĞAN STARTED to run for office in 1994, he took his wedding ring from his finger. He held it up to the people during a speech. “That is my only wealth,” he said in front of the press. Five years later, in 1999, he stated, “If some day you hear that Tayyip Erdoğan has become so rich you should consider that he has committed sinful things.”

This was the year when he ascended to the peak of his fame as a victim. Erdoğan was convicted by the Turkish state for reciting a poem during a rally. The poem, written by Turkish nationalist Ziya Gökalp a century before, was said to be changed from its original by Erdoğan; he added in some extra elements.

The mosques are our barracks

The domes our helmets

The minarets our bayonets

And the believers our soldiers.

At that time, Erdoğan was the mayor of Istanbul. Reciting the poem got the attention of the secular-sensitive judiciary. Having been sentenced to ten months in prison, Erdoğan served four months in jail. The prison was not a prison. It was a prison in name only. They had converted it into an office for him. He had a secretary in the prison with him. The secretary’s name is Hasan Yeşildağ, who deliberately committed a small crime in order to get into prison and welcome Erdoğan. They prepared a special ward for Erdoğan. It had a television, a fridge, and a sofa. Visitors came daily to see him. National and international luminaries came to see him. Their interest suggested that they saw him as a figure of political promise for Turkey.

When Erdoğan left prison, he did not wait long to depart from his political party, which was saturated in traditional Islamist discourse. Erdoğan had learned a lesson. Not to abandon Islamism, but to walk away from its traditional—and marginal—form. He said he had changed, but he never pointed out what parts of his ideology had changed.

These were the years of turmoil for the Turkish economy and for Turkish politics. Erdoğan met with international celebrities, such as George Soros, and with elected officials from the United States. He was seen as a moderate Muslim leader who could provide a positive example for the Middle East.

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