Mustafa Akyol (Continuación)

About five years ago, everyone was talking about the “Turkish model.” People in the West and in the Muslim world held up Turkey as a shining example of the compatibility of Islam and democracy. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was then prime minister and is now president, was praised as a reformist who was making his country freer, wealthier and more peaceful.

These days, I think back on those times with nostalgia and regret. The rhetoric of liberal opening has given way to authoritarianism, the peace process with the Kurdish nationalists has fallen apart, press freedoms are diminishing and terrorist attacks are on the rise.…  Seguir leyendo »

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey keeps making global headlines. First it was for claiming that Muslims discovered the New World. Then it was for asserting that you “cannot put women and men on an equal footing.” Last week, it was for supporting the arrest, by Turkish police, of a number of journalists. But in the long run, it is his reforms of the Turkish education system that will likely be the most influential — and detrimental — to the global competitiveness of the country’s next generation.

Earlier this month, Mr. Erdogan backed a proposal by Turkey’s National Education Council to make Ottoman Turkish — an older version of the language, written in Arabic letters — mandatory in religious high schools, and available as an elective in secular high schools.…  Seguir leyendo »

On the night of Aug. 10, when Turkey’s powerful prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, won the presidential elections that added five more years to his already 12-year-long reign, I had mixed feelings.

Here was a leader I had supported for years — both as a voter and a columnist — as he battled against Turkey’s authoritarian secularists, especially the coup-prone military, which had executed or imprisoned some of his predecessors.

I still support Mr. Erdogan’s historic peace process with Kurdish separatists, which is likely to save Turkey from a decades-old bloody conflict. But in the past three years, I have become disillusioned with his growing authoritarianism.…  Seguir leyendo »

For several months, Turkey has been in the throes of a political war. The latest controversy emerged after a series of wiretapped phone conversations between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and members of his inner circle were exposed systematically on the Internet. These audio files immediately went viral and confirmed to millions of Turks that many of the rumors they’d been hearing about government interference in the media and judiciary were quite real.

In one of the recorded conversations, Mr. Erdogan called Fatih Sarac, a top executive at Haberturk, a popular news channel, to reprimand him for airing the critical views of an opposition leader.…  Seguir leyendo »

Over the past decade, the Turkish government has received much praise for successfully melding Islam and democracy. Today, however, Ankara’s continued reliance on tactics of confrontation and intimidation is threatening to overshadow the country’s significant achievements. As Turkey attempts to construct a post-revolutionary order, it would do well to follow the example of one Arab country that has managed to avoid political gridlock: Tunisia.

In 2011, protests led to the ouster of Tunisia’s longtime dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. The spirit of revolution soon spread to other Arab countries, albeit with less-impressive results. Libya suffered from bloody internal turmoil; Egypt reverted to brutal military rule; Syria continues to be ravaged by civil war.…  Seguir leyendo »

Foreign journalists writing about Turkey like to focus on the most fundamental divide in Turkish society: the rift between religious conservatives and secularists. But these days an internal clash is raging among the conservatives themselves. And it could be a boon for Turkish democracy.

On one side are the supporters of the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is enjoying his 11th year in power and facing increasing criticism for his authoritarian style of rule. On the other side, there are the supporters of Fethullah Gulen, an Islamic scholar and preacher who now lives in Pennsylvania, and whose teachings have inspired Turkey’s most powerful civil society group.…  Seguir leyendo »

There is a heated debate in Turkey these days over whether the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is furthering democracy or rolling it back.

Optimists argue that, thanks to the defanging of the long-dominant military, Turks now enjoy real democracy for the first time. Others, however, argue that Mr. Erdogan is becoming increasingly authoritarian after a decade in power and that Turkey is less free every day.

Either of these opposing views can be persuasively substantiated — if one carefully cherry-picks facts, which is what both Mr. Erdogan’s supporters and detractors regularly do while ignoring all evidence to the contrary.…  Seguir leyendo »