The international “friends of Turkey” bear a great deal of responsibility for Turkey’s predicament, a fact that the crocodile tears they shed today could not easily conceal.
As a richly articulated living history, Sur shattered the stereotype of the Middle East as intellectually backwards and culturally empty. A call for international support.
We are witnessing the consolidation of a new form of authoritarianism with a populist streak.
The case of Academics for Peace in Turkey shows us academics trapped between authoritarianism and precarity, and why international solidarity has become crucial.
Now that the dream of a peaceful union of the “peoples” under the HDP has turned to nightmare, as embodied in the explosion at Vezneciler, there are only two possibilities.
The demands pushed forward in both parts of Kurdistan are almost identical, both demonstrating an attempt at formally installing a confederal municipal system into the region.
Turkey is currently experiencing the paradox of being integrated into the western security and defense system, while not sharing some of the most basic western objectives.
The rise of the pro-Kurdish HDP coincides with the country´s growing democratic deficit under the AKP and a re-intensification of armed conflict against the PKK, with implications for the entire region.
Ironically, Britain’s PM did not counter the slanderous comments made against Turks, but instead sought to demonstrate that he too would prevent them from entering the country.
Institutions are the most useful tools for autocrats helping them ‘encapsulate’ or ‘co-opt’ opposition and resistance, and the AKP will continue to hijack them so long as it is in power.
“Kurds are scared to go into their homes and Turks are scared to go out of their homes”. This is the state of public order in Turkey in the wake of the failed peace talks.
The confidence that prevailed in Kurdish streets in the aftermath of the Kobane victory is now replaced by a growing sense of abandonment and misery, with nationalism its natural expression.
