The strategy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the recent frenzied attacks on his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and on the European Union is clear: to stand as leader and defender of Muslims in the world against a West deaf to just values. And, for now, this policy has paid off. Yesterday the Great Man, as he is now called at home, received the full support of the Turkish Parliament. To vote the text condemning the actions of the Elysée leader they were also two of the three opposition parties: the secularist republicans of the CHP and the nationalists of Meral Aksener’s Iyi Parti. Any tension in foreign policy – explains al Courier service an Dundar, the former editor of the secular opposition newspaper Republic – helps him to divert attention from the disaster of the Turkish economy and makes him rise in the polls. Against Macron he even managed to get the consent of the Social Democrats. What else could he want ?.
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What Erdogan did not quite digest was Macron’s announcement, following the beheading of Samuel Paty in Paris, that he wanted to strengthen controls on Muslim places of worship and put an end to the arrival of imams from abroad (for a good met Turks). In the crosshairs there is the religious movement Mill Grş (National Vision) that the armed wing of Ankara in Europe with 500 mosques of which 71 in France alone. Founded in 1969 by the former premier Erbakan and widespread in many countries of the European Union, including Italy, the organization claims that the organization of Western society is deeply wrong and that the decline of the Muslim world is the result of its imitation of Western values. Ankara, through the Turkish-Islamic Cultural Affairs Union (Ditib), invests huge resources every year to promote Turkish Islam abroad, especially in France, and now he risks having his hands tied.
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In the early 2000s and beyond, Turkey could boast a positive role in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The economy was growing at an important rate and its government was being held up as an example of democracy. Today the Turkish lira is at an all-time low, inflation gallops and the country’s debt increases. In foreign policy we have gone from the famous zero problems with neighbors philosophy, coined by the then foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, to today’s zero neighbors friends. Not only Greece and Armenia but also Iraq, Egypt, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, to name a few. Recently in Saudi Arabia was launched a campaign to boycott Turkish products that has been successful in several countries, including Morocco, Egypt, Bahrain and the Emirates. In addition, the threat of sanctions by the United States and the European Union exasperated by Erdogan’s constant provocations must be taken into account.
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To get out of the corner and regain support, the Sultan must attack. A few weeks ago the polling institute Eurasia gave him the loser in a hypothetical presidential challenge of 2023 against the mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu. Today, however, the Turkish president has turned the table and established himself as the bearer of a cultural revolution. From the Middle East to Central Asia, tens of thousands of people but also governments have joined the protest against France. And its popularity at home has risen. Erdogan thrives on conflict, exaggeration and manipulation. It reminds me, in a small way, of Slobodan Milosevic in the early 90s. Only the Russians can stand up to him because they use the same methods as him – he says Courier service Cengiz Aktar, professor of political science at the University of Athens, a past in the United Nations and the European Union -, Westerners still think they can talk to each other, of being able to make him sit at a table. They have not understood that the more they try to placate him, the more aggressive he becomes. Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh, Syria, the Kurdish question, Kastellorizo, Cyprus. There are many open fronts. Everything will end very badly – continues Aktar -, the economy could soon collapse and Europeans know that this would result in the arrival of thousands of refugees, not Syrian Turks.
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The problem that the crises and controversies created abroad, sooner or later, they will have an impact on the economic situation. In a short time, Turkey could find itself very financially exposed and totally isolated. When this happens, public opinion will blame Erdogan. A request for help from the International Monetary Fund could also lead to a series of constraints in foreign policy. At that point the Sultan will no longer be able to flex his muscles and from savior and defender of the Muslim world against the evil West he will become the president of a first nation. The economy is its Achilles heel.
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27 October 2020 (change October 28, 2020 | 01:01)
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