The Looking Glass War.

There are days and times when one comes close to despair, when there seems to be nothing but ugliness and horror all around, when the news is bloated with stories of humanity's inhumanity. Such has it been over this past week. Whether it's the massacres in Paris, or the killing of thousands in Nigeria, or the ongoing unfolding horror that is Syria and Iraq, or little men full of nothing but their own importance preaching of their own virtues, it's enough to make one sick to the stomach. I could turn off the TV and the computer, put virtual fingers in my ears, cover my eyes and listen to nothing but the silence of my mind; or I could stumble around, quoting Yeats.
Neither, of course, would be an answer.
Then again, re-posting satirical cartoons that mock the weak and not the strong is also not really a suitable riposte.
I have heard an unbelievable amount of crap being talked over the past week, neatly summed up by Rupert Murdoch's idiotic demand that all Muslims should apologise for the Paris killings, Richard Dawkins' latest histrionic rant, and the Fox News 'Expert' who claimed that Birmingham was a no-go zone for non-muslims. It never ceases to amaze me how the 'experts' crawl out of the woodwork to make their opinions known, before scuttling back into the darkness of their mind caves.
Why is it that we need, bluntly, white middle-aged male 'experts' on Islam whenever there's an 'Islamic' atrocity, when we would be (quite rightly) offended if some bloke with a beard and a robe started inveighing against so-called Christian transgressions? Such as, for example, Amjad Choudary, who is pretty much the Islamist equivalent of Outraged of Tunbridge Wells. It strikes me that many of these religious experts are well-versed in the acts of mankind, but distinctly lack much knowledge of the God they profess to understand.
I am not going to pretend to be an expert on Islam: I can't pretend, for that matter, to be an expert on Christianity, or any other religion you may choose to nominate. However, at least I do not dissemble myself into that most Protean of things, an 'Expert'. The ones I've been watching seem largely to be people who've done just enough reading to confirm their prejudices.
I have, however, had the privilege of living in a truly wonderful country that happens to be majority Muslim (Turkey, as if you didn't know..). I have to say this: the image of Muslims and Islam that is time and again represented in the western media is totally, entirely and completely unlike the people I knew that happened to live in a country where Islam was the main religion. I now happen to live in a country where Christianity is the main religion.
Does this mean that my life is dominated by the rhythms, orders, injunctions, requirements and demands of the Church of England?
Er, no.
Except for, nominally, Christmas and Easter.
And that is pretty much the deal, from my own experience at least, for most Muslims - religion touches one's life, but does not dominate it. Most of the Turks I knew smoked and drank and rarely went to the mosque, except during Ramadan and at times such as weddings and funerals - in other words, their interaction with faith pretty much mirrored life back home.
And 'mirror' is an important word here.
It strikes me that the horror of ISIS, the butchery inflicted by Boko Haram, the killings by a pair of disadvantaged, alienated men who were nevertheless a product of France, all of them, are a gross, distorted mirror held up to the 'West'. They reflect back our own prejudices, fear and anger, and in turn a mirror is held up to them.
Going back twenty years, the mirrors of societies were more normative - life in the UK both resembled, and was a reflection of, life in Turkey, both the good and the bad. Yet in the last fourteen years, the mirrors we as societies have held up to each other have become increasingly distorted, unreal, surreal even. The haters on both sides resemble no-one more so than their opposite number, while the normal middle, the ordinary, decent people who just want to live their lives as well as they can are squeezed out of existence. The mirrors of the worlds have become like those you see in a circus, emphasising above all else all that is baleful and grotesque.
What can be done about such stupidity and ignorance? Be full of passionate intensity or lack all conviction and do nothing?
I won't pretend to have all the answers. All I know is that we, the average, the ordinary, the meek and unremarked of this Earth, all of us who just want to live, need to wrest the mirrors of the world from those who warp them, take them back and render them back into their true shape.

Big State or Big Discussion? The Fight for Turkey's Soul

I thought there was something to be hopeful about before the past weekend, but now I'm not so sure. It seemed that finally Recep Tayyip Erdogan had deigned to listen to some voice other than the one that echoes around the inside of his skull, and that a rapprochement was possible.

Then he went completely Fruit Loop.

The result? The Police re-take Gezi Park, rip it up, re-plant it with several hundred trees and thousands of flowers (in order to show that the AKP, unlike the protesters, is a truly Green party), plants that will have to be ripped up again once the shopping mall/'Ottoman-Style Barracks'/luxury flats/Spaceport for Turkey's first spaceship has been given the go-ahead, scatter protesters, arrest lawyers, doctors and the few independent journalists still working in Turkey, steal a man's piano, fire tear gas into buildings including hospitals and (allegedly) the Dutch Consulate, mix some chemical irritant with the water fired at protesters from the TOMA water cannons, and basically the whole world outside of AKP-land gets the blame.

All for the sake of a tree?

Well, that's how some would still have it. In fact, it's part of an ongoing debate that has been in Turkey for a long time, one that has two parts:
The emergence of democracy as a social construct;
and the role of government and religion in private lives.
This is nothing new. It could be argued that in the UK, much of our history since the Reformation has been about the same subject - for example, what the precise role of the monarch is, what is the relationship between Crown and commoner, what rights do we have to the enjoyment of privacy etc. The American Constitution is very much built on the notion of individual rights and the responsibility of the individual within society. Of course, whether it works in practice or not is a very different thing, but the principles are there. And again and again over the course of the last two hundred years, we have seen societies being united and/or riven by the possibilities and fragilities of democratic process.
What is fascinating is watching it happen in real time in Turkey, thanks to the heroes of Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and beyond. Gezi Park itself has been an incredible melting pot of possibilities, and what has been truly notable is the fact that people of so many political and religious persuasions, people who would not normally see eye to eye on a single thing, have found a commonality and a capability to work together. It may not be easy, it may not be quick, they may not be able to agree entirely, but they have sought to compromise and to work together - the very idea of what a community and a society is.They are living refutation of Erdogan's idea that democracy comes but once every election time.
The other issue that is important here is how closely should government interfere with personal liberties, rights, and responsibilities? Turkish people are quite rightly pissed off at Erdogan's incessant micro-management - you half expect him to turn up behind your shoulder while you're having breakfast, and he starts saying 'No, eat the EGG FIRST, then have THE HONEY. Hold your tea LIKE THIS...' - but he is hardly the first Turkish Leader to do this. As I said in an earlier post, Turkish politics is pretty paternalistic, and an awful lot of politicos hear love nothing better than the sound of their own voice, dispensing wisdom: Unfortunately, there are a lot of voters out there who love this sort of thing. Interestingly, an AKP politician today said that the more educated a person is, the less likely they are to vote AKP, or indeed vote at all.
Again, this is nothing new - look at any country's history, and you will see that people have protested and rioted for similar reasons - but the protests in Turkey are important because this must be the most widely-disseminated and witnessed protest, thanks to social media platforms, in history. And looking at it, the message is clear - these people love their country deeply and care deeply about what happens to it, but they also want the right to live without the government sticking their noses in where they don't belong. If someone wants to buy a beer after 10 pm, let him. If someone wants to wear a headscarf to university, let her. If two lovers want to kiss in public, whose business is it but their own?
This, however, is a debate for everybody in Turkey, not just the elected few - how much is private conscience a matter of public concern, and to what depth sould government be involved in the affiars of the individual?
For myself, I believe that issues of conscience and faith are essentially private matters, not state ones. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk wisely decreed that the Turkish Republic was a secular state, but of course a politician's personal concerns and outlook will always colour the interpretation of the meaning of 'secular' - you just have to look at the USA for examples of that.
The question is this - what kind of state will emerge from all this? A Republic full of parks, piano recitals and discussion, or a Republic patrolled by the iron hand of a man standing behind your shoulder, telling you how exactly you should brush your hair?

....one mighty forest.

And still it continues. I have watched on, somewhat amazed, by the wildfire of protest across the whole of Turkey. From Istanbul to Adana, from Izimir to Ankara, on it goes: thousand upon thousand on the streets, cheered on by the clatter and drum of tin pots, saucepans, kettles and anything that makes a clang from a million balconies. Galatasaryli and Besiktasli and Fenerbacheli, football fans normally at each others' throats, arm in arm, united in opposition to the police; housewives and grandmothers spitting curses at the baton-wielding thugs in uniforms, lawyers at the barricades, JCB drivers blocking roads to guard the protestors, doctors and nurses rushing to set up field hospitals; And everywhere, anyone who can has taken to social networking sites to witness and record what is happening, in marked contrast to a slumbering media. CNN Turk, purportedly a news channel, was showing a documentary about Dolphin Therapy at the height of the battle in Istanbul. Even the international media have been somewhat slow and circumspect in their reportage, although they are beginning to make up for it now.
And at the eye of the storm is Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister. At this time of crisis, you would expect him to be firmly at the helm, seeking to control and alleviate the situation.

He has decided to go on a four-day tour of some North African countries.

He has derided the protests, saying they are the work of 'extremists', 'marauders', 'terrorists', 'alcoholics'.

Where, oh where, did it all go so wrong for him?

Let's not forget that this is the man who was feted internationally for standing up to Israel over the Mavi Marmara episode in 2010. This is the man and government that has rounded on its neighbours when human rights abuses have happened there. This is the government that has started dialogue over the whole Kurdish issue, that has stabilised the whole economy and overseen almost unprecedented growth in the economy.

So why has it all gone wrong?

Simple, really. Erdogan thinks he can do no wrong. He's just a little too fond of moralistic finger-wagging, of seeing himself as a sultan dressed in a business suit, of being The Big Man. It is hubris, plain and simple, the same thing that eventually did for Margaret Thatcher here in the UK.

But it's also about all the acts of fear and deprivation that have been allowed to happen throughout Turkish society: The fear that your phone might be tapped or your tweet or Facebook entry scrutinised, that you are being spied on by the smiling neighbour across the road; It's the fear, for journalists, that one wrong word will see you imprisoned; It's the fear that if you don't dress the right way or say the right thing at the right time that you won't get the job you're after, and the apprehension that you won't get on in life because you don't belong to the right political party.

it's also the resentment -about alcohol prices being raised and raised and sales being restricted, ostensibly to stop public drunkenness (despite Turks having the lowest per capita alcohol consumption rates in Europe), about stopping people kissing in the street, while turning a blind eye to child marriages and honour killings, about the very visible few getting so much richer than the majority, while holding out a few crumbs to the socially disadvantaged.

And nowhere is this fear and resentment felt more than in the cities, where a young urban middle class is coming head to head with a gang of professional politicians who work with impunity, making decisions without consultation or advice, who blithely ignore the fact they are meant to be representatives, not of themselves, but of the people. To be fair, this is noting new: During my time in Turkey (during the 90s), it was clear that the majority of politicos were corrupt. what sticks in the craw with the AKP is that they dare to moralise and impose their own version of morality on the people, while all the time lining their own pockets.

This isn't, yet, a true nationwide revolt, despite appearances - for that to happen, you would need to hear the rustle and roar of the villages, coming forward to protest. Nor is it 'The Turkish Spring' - in fact, Turkey is a far more democratic country that Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria, nor are the protesters taking up arms. What it is, however, is bigger than any of the Occupy movements, more vital than anything that has happened in the streets and squares of Greece and Spain, and more inclusive than any, with every kind of person joined arm in arm against the sneering arrogance of The Sultan in Ankara, or whichever country he's jetted off to at the moment.

In short, it is democracy in action - demos + kratos, literally 'people rule'. democracy does not begin and end at the ballot box, it lives and breathes, moves, talks, protests, sings, laughs, cries, eats, sleeps, loves; and it should never, ever be allowed to die. It is a mighty forest, formed of every tree imaginable.

And it appears to my amazed and delighted eyes that one small tree in one small park in a great city, in my beloved Istanbul, in Constantinople, in Tsarigrad, in Byzantium, in the City of a thousand names, has given voice to the rushing roar of the forest in a fierce wind.