Turkish Politics Is Lost At Meeting People's Needs
The regularly scheduled speeches by party leaders on Tuesdays are turning people off of politics.
This month, the Turkish parliament reconvened from its summer recess. With that, the regularly scheduled speeches by party leaders on Tuesdays are back again, as harsh as they used to be, offering no hope that the political atmosphere in the country would move toward following a more constructive tune.
In fact, the rhetoric in the parliament will likely turn more poisonous in the coming months as the country has literally entered its election season — first with local elections in March 2014, followed by the election of the country’s next president in August 2014 by public vote for the first time and general elections in 2015.
While the country may be in need of a leader with a strong, unifying, constructive rhetoric at a time of worrisome polarization, none of the current party leaders seem to be offering that to the people. This divisive political arena, coupled with the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul and across the nation, shows the dismay with the ruling party. Still, those protesters know all too well that Erdogan’s party remains the favorite in all the upcoming elections. For a segment of society, however, the changes taking place are truly troubling, even to the point of causing many to question the fabric of what makes the people a nation.
For example, Turkey will mark the 90th anniversary of its founding on Oct. 29 in an atmosphere where people debate over government decisions making it no longer politically correct to call people from Turkey “Turks” or for children to spell out in schools, as they traditionally have, “How proud is the one who says ‘I am a Turk!’” or “I am a Turk, truthful and hardworking.”
