{"id":8131,"date":"2017-02-16T17:24:36","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T23:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=8131"},"modified":"2017-02-16T17:25:36","modified_gmt":"2017-02-16T23:25:36","slug":"8131","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/02\/16\/8131\/","title":{"rendered":"It Doesn’t Sound Like A Good Idea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mustafa Akyol notes<\/a> Turkey’s slide away from liberal democracy and into the cult of the strong man in AL Monitor<\/strong><\/em>:<\/p>\n

Another dramatic scene\u00a0is set in the year 1961.\u00a0Turkey is under the rule of a secularist military junta<\/a> that has overthrown\u00a0the democratically elected Democrat Party government. The young boy who bravely recited the Arabic call to prayer is now a pious Islamist with a \u201ccause.\u201d A truck full of soldiers heads into his modest neighborhood, where they break down his door\u00a0and arrest\u00a0him as he is praying. For added drama, the man’s\u00a0aged parents try to stop\u00a0the soldiers and\u00a0save their son. They are viciously thrown to the ground, in a scene reminiscent\u00a0of Nazis in Holocaust films.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00a0a young boy in the neighborhood has been\u00a0watching all this with sadness,\u00a0but also with a certain\u00a0wiseness,\u00a0knowing that\u00a0these dark days will pass. At that point,\u00a0Erdogan’s voice is heard\u00a0reciting a line from a famous\u00a0poem: \u201cDon\u2019t leave this nation without a hero, my God.\u201d\u00a0That boy is the young Erdogan, the very hero that \u201cthis nation\u201d \u2014 Turkey\u2019s religious\u00a0conservatives \u2014 has been waiting for for a century. That, apparently, is the message of \u201cThe Chief.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A certain irony, since apparently Erdogan had faked his diploma in order to begin his ascent to power. Akyol’s conclusion?<\/p>\n

Many of Erdogan\u2019s supporters will likely be moved by the eagerly awaited\u00a0film, whose\u00a0trailers have had\u00a0more than 130 million hits. The historical irony will probably be lost on most of them that\u00a0the early Turkish Republic that they so despise was characterized not only\u00a0by a heavy dose of secularism, but also by a cult of personality, not unlike their own, around Kemal Ataturk<\/a>. In the 1930s, when Ataturk dominated Turkey, statues of him were erected across the country\u00a0to the extent that the words \u201cstatue\u201d and \u201cAtaturk\u201d became synonymous in the public’s mind.<\/p>\n

Now, a century later, Turkey has\u00a0another cult of personality in the making, at the hands of the very people who\u00a0for decades ridiculed the\u00a0cult of\u00a0Ataturk. Statues are out of fashion these days, but a much more influential form of art\u00a0is available for the mission: film.\u00a0\u201cThe Chief\u201d is\u00a0just the beginning. The producer has proudly\u00a0noted\u00a0that\u00a0\u201cThe Chief II,\u201d \u201cThe Chief III\u201d and several other films are being planned\u00a0for the series. They will all be launched on Feb.\u00a026<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0Erdogan’s\u00a0birthday.\u00a0After all,\u00a0his birthday\u00a0must be a special day for the entire nation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t know enough about Turkey to really comment, but it sure sounds like a nation with a significant number of frightened people who want someone to protect them – at any cost.<\/p>\n

I hope they don’t end up with a cost that cannot be borne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mustafa Akyol notes Turkey’s slide away from liberal democracy and into the cult of the strong man in AL Monitor: Another dramatic scene\u00a0is set in the year 1961.\u00a0Turkey is under the rule of a secularist military junta that has overthrown\u00a0the democratically elected Democrat Party government. The young boy who bravely \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8131"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8133,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8131\/revisions\/8133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}