The End of the Turkish Model? Erdogan’s Paranoia and Authoritarian Streak Threaten his Legacy

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/erdogans-authoritarian-threaten.html

The End of the Turkish Model? Erdogan’s Paranoia and Authoritarian Streak Threaten his Legacy
By Juan Cole | Dec. 23, 2013

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is sounding more and more hysterical, and less and less like a statesman as 2013 ends. If you thought Barack Obama had a tough twelve months, you should consider Erdogan. A major corruption scandal has broken out in his government, with 24 persons implicated including the sons of two cabinet ministers and the head of government-owned Halkbank. One allegedly had $4.5 million in shoe boxes.

On Sunday, thousands marched in Istanbul to protest the alleged corruption.

Erdogan responded by purging 70 police officials, including Istanbul’s police chief, who were behind the investigation. Then he hinted broadly that the corruption allegations were groundless and resulted from an attempt by Israel and the United States to frame his party members. He threatened to expel foreign ambassadors from Ankara. Career diplomat, US ambassador Francis Riccardione, whose leaked dispatches from Mubarak’s Egypt show him to be a humane person interested in human rights, must be scratching his head at these wild charges that he is sneaking into AKP homes and planting millions of dollars in shoe boxes.

On Sunday Erdogan said he would “break the hands” of anyone accusing him of corruption, adding that “everyone will know their place.” (These phrases are metaphorical, of course). This kind of paranoid fantasy expressed in public should be a danger signal to observers. Leaders who think and talk that way are the sort of people who have caused the world an enormous amount of trouble. Paranoia is not a mental disease but a symptom of some other underlying condition; a common cause is clinical depression.