ColumnsTashjian's Take
Will the earthquake threaten Erdogan’s rule?
On February 6, 2023, two earthquakes with magnitudes 7.8 and 7.5—the deadliest in Turkey’s history—hit the Syrian-Turkish border. At least 45,000 people died in Turkey. Another 6,000 lives were lost in Syria. The fallout of the catastrophic earthquake came as President Erdogan faces his toughest re-election campaign yet. Despite speculation that Erdogan may postpone the elections, he declared that presidential and parliamentary elections will be held on the agreed-upon date, May 14th of th
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Not mentioned in this otherwise detailed and thorough analysis is the willingness of Erdogan to manipulate Turkish voters by ginning up some needless military conflict within or next door to Turkey. Given the continuing hyper-nationalism of Turks, courtesy of brainwashing from cradle to grave on the uniqueness and greatness of Turkishness (so much so that any person “denigrating Turkishness” publicly is subject to a prison term, beating or worse), Erdogan only needs to create some excuse to send the Turkish army and/or navy into battle, as he did in connection with the last election he “won”, against the homegrown or Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, Armenians or Greeks. Any foe weak enough to crush militarily wil suffice to trigger powerful and unquestioning nationalistic impulse of Turks to unite and rally around their leader, even a failed and tyrannical autocrat like Erdogan.
While I’m hopeful the Kurds will do the smart thing for once and not shoot themselves in their collective foot by failing or refusing to unite with the CHP and the other opposition parties behind Kilicdarogu, political ambitions and ego-tripping within the HDP may yet enable Erdogan to escape the electoral defeat he surely deserves, along with prosecution and prison for his ill-gotten gains while in office. The corruption of Erdogan, his family, and his AKP toadies is likely to be massive. Let’s hope Kilicdarogu not only wins and rules honestly and competently, but also is able to claw back much of that Erdogan/AKP stolen wealth for the benefit of all Turks.
If the recent earthquake helps to bring down Turkey’s tyrant, all those thousands of lives lost in it will not have died needlessly. To put it differently, if the earthquake plays a determinative role in defeating Erdogan, those who died in the earthquake will have sacrificed their lives for a much greater good cause cause than those killed in Turkish military uniforms while bombing and shooting Turkey’s fake enemies like the Kurds, and therefore I believe the earthquake’s victims are more deserving of the status of martyrs.