Erdogan's Lost Luster: During His Reign, Arabs Rediscovered Turkey
21 February 2014
By Diana Moukalled
It was not only Turkish public opinion that was
shocked by the recent leak of an audio recording of
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in which he
hinted at the direct pressure he exerted on the media.
The Turkish opposition has often warned against the
expansion of what it calls the "dark triangle"—the
government, businessmen and media—which forestall all
attempts to create an independent and powerful media
in Turkey.
The disappointment with Erdogan's scandals has
reverberated in both the East and the West, and those
of us who looked up to the Turkish model as an example
of harmony between Islam and modernity have been
equally disappointed.
The latest scandal concerns the recording, made during
the recent Gezi Park protests and available on YouTube,
in which Erdogan is heard asking an official at a
prominent satellite channel to withdraw a story
because he does not agree to its content. The official
agrees immediately and pulls the report.
The recording coincided with a proposal of a new draft
bill which extends internet censorship at a time when
at least 100 journalists have lost their jobs since
the start of the corruption scandals involving Erdogan
and members of his family at the end of last year.
These scandals guarantee that Turkey will remain at
the top of the world's jailers of journalists, even
above China. Today, Erdogan controls around 80 percent
of media outlets in Turkey, and his reign has seen the
highest rate of dismissals among journalists.
Whoever follows events in Turkey cannot help but be
surprised by the rapid and dramatic deterioration of
Erdogan's once-sparkling image, which appealed to a
wide section of Arabs.
The Arab Levant responded to his charismatic
personality. During his reign, Arabs rediscovered
Turkey and their passion for the Ottoman Empire, which
never really ended. In the past decade, Turkey again
infiltrated the Arab soul with a booming economy,
tourist industry, its process of modernization and a
captivating nature, as well as through TV soaps
featuring beautiful actors and actresses who occupied
Arabs' imagination and dreams.
In this difficult Arab reality of ours, we were often
quite taken by Turkey and its move towards democracy,
and saw it as a catalyst, or maybe even as a source of
help for other Arabs wanting to take similar steps.
However, the recent disappointments have exposed how
Erdogan is now unable to differentiate between public
and private, and how Turkey's march towards democracy
is faltering.
Erdogan's early days in government were characterized
by a turn towards the East at a time when his Turkish
adversaries were looking to their Western neighbors.
He started to talk to us in our language, causing
surprise in Turkey, because successes abroad did not
translate into domestic success. He lost large
sections of Turkish public opinion, and was unable to
achieve actual progress in his relationships with the
Kurds, and now the facts about the fragile nature of
his regime are finally being exposed.
Now the Turkish secularists who are closer to the West
are the ones who are making progress. As for Erdogan,
it is likely that all he has left from his orientalism
is despotism.
Diana Moukalled is a prominent and well-respected
TV journalist in the Arab world thanks to her
phenomenal show Bil Ayn Al-Mojarada (By The Naked
Eye), a series of documentaries on controversial areas
and topics which airs on Lebanon's leading local and
satelite channel, Future Television. Diana also is a
veteran war correspondent, having covered both the
wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan, as well as the
Isreali "Grapes of Wrath" massacre in southern
Lebanon. Ms. Moukalled has gained world wide
recognition and was named one of the most influential
women in a special feature that ran in Time Magazine
in 2004.
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