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The Turkish Presidents populist leadership draws on the perennially useful Black Turks-White Turks dichotomy.

President Erdogan speaks to his supporters, Istanbul, July 16, 2016.Depo/Press Association. All rights reserved.Turkey is set for a tough referendum campaign period as parties take to the stage to persuade the electorate to vote yes or no for the April 16 referendum about a new presidential system. President Erdoan also stated that the referendum should be seen as a response to the 15 July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, claiming that the position of those who will say no in the referendum could mean siding with July 15.

Following this speech, supporters of NO accused Erdogan of polarizing the people in Turkey. However, far from being a crime, polarization has become the most important strategy of politics for Erdogan. Erdogan's polarization strategy is shaped by the AKPs history and how this approach responds to the public.

The presidents backers often cite three main reasons for his popularity and that of his party, the AKP. The first is social: Erdoan is perceived to be a man of the people, a representative of the lower and lower-middle classes, who felt ignored by his predecessors. The thing is, before Erdoan the presidents didnt value people, said a man who called himself Ismail, waving an AKP flag. But Erdoan cares about them. Thats the main thing. We see him as one of us.

So reported the Guardian following the July 15, 2016, military coup attempt in Turkey. Citizens from the lower classes in Turkey have supported Erdogan because they believe that Erdogan might be their father, brother or close friend. Erdogan honed his discourse and speeches for the lower classes to gain their support and he is very successful in realizing this goal. Crucial to Erdogans lower class mythology is the dichotomy of White Turks-Black Turks. White Turk has come to be associated with an urban cosmopolitan identity, modern feminism, secularism, while the Black Turk stands for the traditional, the conservative and lower-classes. One of the columnists, Burak Bekdil claims that Erdogans success story is precisely the victory of the Black Turks over the white Turks and illustrates the point with an anecdote about one of Tayyips supporters;

I saw one of the crowd of paper-tissue-seller-boys at the scooter's seat, pretending to ride it fast. I had to buy a few packs of paper tissues to convince the boy to leave the seat to me. An initial conversation on motorbikes and scooters quickly turned into a political chat' with my new, nine-year-old friend. ..How much do you earn? It depends. Sometimes 5 lira a day, sometimes even 25! Fine, but you can't sell paper tissues for all of your life. Any plans for the future? Yes,abi; I'll fight infidels like you and join Uncle Tayyip's' party. Infidels like me? Yes,abi, I saw you drinking wine at the caf One day, the boy said, he would become an MP. I wished him the best of luck. What does your father do for living? No job,abi. Any brothers and sisters? We're 12! But what makes you so fond of your Uncle Tayyip?' He is a good Muslim, and he sent us food, toys and other things. Why do you want to become an MP? Because they are rich and powerful, and I can better fight the infidels. Infidels like me? Like you,abi.

Bekdils reminiscence regarding this child is necessary to understand Erdogans polarization strategy and his popularity among the lower classes. According to some scholars, leaders in authoritarian regimes should redistribute money to keep their supporters and should pay their followers just enough to support them. Interestingly, Bekdils anecdote tells a very different story. Although there is an increase of poor people from the lower classes in Turkey, these people have continued to support Erdogans leadership. The main reason for this support is the notion of Erdogans populist leadership with his lower class metaphors and the perennially useful Black Turks-White Turks dichotomy.

Erdogan uses theterm zenci (Black Turks) in most of his speeches, and always claims that he is proud to be a zenci like the other lower class citizens in Turkey. Following the AKPs second term, Erdogan began to treat uneducated people as Black Turks, like himself. White Turks here are the well-educated, well-to-do Kemalist elites fashioning themselves on (some of) Ataturks ideas. They are often associated with state bureaucracy and the military. Black Turks are those who the White Turks despise as low-educated, lower-class and either still peasants in Anatolian or rural areas or unable to shake off their peasant heritage.Following the Gezi Park protests which of course were forced upon Turkey by these elites, the White Turks of Turkish society, he speaks about them as below:

According to them we dont understand politics. According to them we dont understand art, theatre, cinema, poetry.According to them we dont understand aesthetics, architecture. According to them we are uneducated, ignorant, the lower class, who has to be content with what we are given, needy; meaning, we are a group of negroes.

Peasants or people who live in Anatolian villages are complete Black Turks in Erdogans classification because these people were pressurized by Kemalist elites during the early Republican period. White Turks or Kemalist elites have always mocked them due to their uneducated/conservative identity. This article gives an example of Erdogans mukhtar (local head person in villages) meetings for understanding this phenomenon. Since January 2015, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has delivered monthly speeches to mukhtars, invited in groups to his presidential palace in Ankara. At the first meeting he said that;

"They were mocking me and all my mukhtar brothers by saying 'He cannot even be a mukhtar'. However, this nation elected me deputy, made me the Prime Minister and then elevated me to the office of Presidency by making me the first directly-elected President of the Republic of Turkey.

Overall, Erdogans lower class mythology helped to consolidate and polarize his voters especially after 2011. Indeed the lower class population is far larger numerically than the upper classes in Turkey, and Erdogan is well aware of this. He has used both conservative and traditionalist discourses addressed to the lower classes in such a way as to maintain the loyalty of a mass electorate. I think the polarizing strategy Erdogan used as a trump card in the last elections will also play a vital role in the April 16 referendum.

Link:
Erdogan's mastery of polarization - Open Democracy

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Feb. 2, 2017. (photo byADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Author:Cengiz andar Posted February 13, 2017

On Feb. 9, when I heard reports that a Russian aircraft had accidentally bombed a Turkish position in al-Bab, killing four soldiers and wounding 10 others, I did not immediately think that it might not have been an accident. I thought that way because I am generally immune to the conspiracy theories that are rampant in Turkey, just as they are in most Middle Eastern countries.

The Turkish army quickly issued a communiquesaying the bombing was an "accident."However, there was no mention of an accident in the Russian version that came later. In the Russian version, there was nomention of regret either. A day later, the Russians were a bit more articulate. They issued another statement, implicitly putting the blame on the Turkish side for having given the wrong coordinates on the deployment of Turkish troops, resultingin the casualties.

The Turkish General Staff quickly rebuttedthe Russian interpretation, pointing out that the coordinates of the location where the Turkish casualties occurred had been given to the Russian side eight days previouslyand also the night before.

Some in the Turkish media with a soft spot for fantasies claimed that the Syrian regime might have intentionally misled the Russians. There were claims that the air attack was in fact conducted by Syrian air forces or that Syrian forces acted on false intelligence provided by Russian intelligence.

In thisflurry of news, statements and counterstatements, my mind began to work on a conspiracy theory. Only a day and a halfbefore the Russian air attack on the Turkish position, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had had his long-awaited and eagerly expected conversation with USPresident Donald Trump. The conversation lasted some 45 minutes. The Turkish media close to the government, citing presidential sources, reported that the conversation was friendly and cordial. The reports said that the two leaders talkedabout the Turkish militarys Operation Euphrates Shield targeting al-Bab and that Erdogan told Trump that Turkey could undertake the military attack on the Islamic State (IS) to recapture Raqqa. Erdogan said that therefore there was no need for the Americans to supply the Syrian Kurds or relyon them to liberate Raqqa, Turkish media reported.

The American press, including The Washington Post, was careful to underline that Trump was noncommittal on the issue of Raqqa and on whether the Americans would stop cooperating with the Kurds. Nevertheless, the Turkish military started a massive attack onal-Bab and succeeded in penetratinginto the town to capture some key positions.

A day before the Turkish militarys offensive in al-Bab and a few hours before the Erdogan-Trump talk, the Syrian army reached Tadif, only a milesouth of al-Bab.

Considering all thesedevelopments, one could conclude that the Russian bombing of the Turkish position in al-Bab was not an accident.

How so? According to the accepted norms of Middle Eastern ways of interpreting information,this is what transpired: Russia sent a message of displeasure to Turkey because of its growing relationship with the new USadministration.

The Russian bombing was aimedat reminding the Turks not to forget that the main power broker in Syria is not the United States but Russia and that the Turkish side has to make its game plan accordingly.

Perhapsthe timing of the Russian Foreign Ministrys statement regardingthe Syrian Kurdish forces Peoples Protection Units (YPG) was not a coincidence as well. The statement emphasized that the Kurdish presence is necessary for the quest of a peaceful and lasting settlement of the Kurdish issue and that Russia does not consider the Syrian Kurdish groups to be terrorist organizations. The statement came on the same day when the Turkish position was hit by Russians and only hours after it was announced that Erdogan had asked Trump to stop cooperating with the Syrian Kurds.

The Turkish military still cannot even acquire total control of al-Bab, a town thought to be much more easier than Raqqa to deal with, making it very difficult to see how Turkey could effectively replace the Kurds with its forces to liberate IS'Syrian capital.

Militarily, one way Turkey could try to move south toward Raqqa would be to go through Tell Abyad, a Kurdish-held town on the Turkish border.However, that would mean first battling the US-backed Kurdswho have been fighting to take Raqqa.

Perhapsall these considerations led Numan Kurtulmus, a deputy minister and government spokesman,to announce that Turkey's final aim in Syriais al-Bab. On Feb. 11, Kurtulmus saidthat Raqqa does not constitute a direct threat to Turkeys securityand that Operation Euphrates Shield would come to an end after al-Bab. Erdoganhimself had earlier made asimilar statement, indicating thatTurkeys military role in Syria is limited to al-Bab.

However, the Turkish president changed course Feb. 12 and insisted that the Turkish military operation would go on all the way to Raqqa after al-Bab.

There might be a miscommunication. There is no such thing as stoppingwhen al-Bab is secured. The issue of al-Bab is about to be resolved. After that, there are Manbij and Raqqa, Erdogan said.

His last statement could be interpreted as his response to the Russian message.

What is next? A big question mark. Perhaps we will be watching Erdogan between Trump's anvil and Putin's hammer, more and more.

Read More: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/02/turkey-syria-usa-russia-erdogan-between-trump-and-putin.html

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Erdogan caught between Trump, Putin in Syria war - Al-Monitor

BEIRUT Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took his proposal for a Turkish-backed assault against the Islamic States self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa to the Sunni Arab states of the Persian Gulf on Monday, telling an audience in Bahrain that he wants to create a safe zone in that part of Syria.

Speaking on the first stop of a three-nation gulf tour, Erdogan said the safe zone would encompass 3,475 square miles and include the Syrian town of Manbij, which was taken from the Islamic State in August by Syrian Kurds working closely with the U.S. military.

The Turkish offer to participate in the Raqqa battle is not new, but it has been revived amid reports that President Trump hasordered an overhaul of the Obama administrations plan to arm the Syrian Kurds to assault Raqqa. Turkey vehemently opposes the Pentagons close military relationship with the Syrian Kurds, which became a major source of tension between Turkey and Washington during President Barack Obamas last year in office. The Syrian Kurdish militia, the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), has ties to Turkeys own Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist organization by Washington and Ankara and is waging an insurgency in Turkey to secure autonomy for Kurds.

Trumps promise to create a safe zone in Syria long rejected by the Obama administration also appears to have encouraged Erdogan to resurrect an idea that had lapsed since the defeat of the Syrian rebels in Aleppo late last year. Originally promoted by the Syrian opposition, with Turkish support, the concept envisaged enforcing a no-fly zone to prevent the Syrian government from carrying out airstrikes against civilians.

How this latest proposal would work wasnt clear, but Erdogan said the zone would be used to give sanctuary to Arab and Turkmen Syrians and would be terrorist-free an apparent reference to the YPG Kurds as well as the Islamic State.

Erdogan said Turkey envisions participating in the Raqqa offensive as part of the U.S.-led coalition, but he also has made it clear on a number of occasions that he expects Trump to sever Washingtons connections to the YPG.

There has beenno indication from Washington that the United States intends to abandon its alliance with the Kurds, who have emerged as the Pentagons most effective military partner in Syria. The Kurds have beenmaking steady progress with a three-month-old offensive to isolate and encircle Raqqa and are within a few miles of the city.

Meanwhile, Turkish troops and their Arab Syrian rebel allies have been bogged down for the past two months in a fierce battle to capture the Islamic State-held town of Al-Bab, more than 100 miles away. Turkey intervened in Syria in August to help Syrian rebels push the Islamic State out of areas bordering Turkey and also to drive a wedge between two expanding areas of Kurdish control.

Read more:

No decision yet on arming Kurds to fight Islamic State, Trump tells Turkish leader

Obamas White House on a plan to seize Raqqa. Trumps team decided not to pull the trigger.

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Turkey's Erdogan wants to establish a safe zone in the ISIS capital Raqqa - Washington Post

The firing of a prominent news anchor for his objection to constitutional changes that would expand presidential powers is the latest development to highlight Turkey's tightening choke hold on critical voices ahead of a referendum that the opposition considers unfair.

On April 16, Turkey will vote in one of the most critical polls in its modern history, deciding whether to change the country to an executive system, which would grant President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the sweeping powers that he has long sought.

If approved inthe referendum, the constitutional changes greenlighted by parliament last month would, among other things, give Erdogan the power to dismiss ministers and dissolve parliament, issue decrees, declare emergency rule, and appoint figures to key positions, including within the judiciary.

Kanal D sacked anchor Irfan Degirmenci on Saturday, a day after he came out against the proposed constitutional amendments in a series of 20 tweets to his 1.7 million followers. The national television channel claimed that Degirmenci was let go because he violated policy by "clearly taking a side on an issue the public is debating."

"No to the one who views scientists, artists, writers, cartoonists, students, workers, farmers, miners, journalists and all who do not obey as the enemy," Degirmenci wrote on Friday, releasing a series of critical tweets to back up his "No" vote.

Social media users and the oppositionwere quick to call Kanal D hypocritical, pointing out that the journalist Fatih Cekirge had openly supported the presidential system but was not fired. Veli Agbaba, the deputy head of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), called the sacking "the result of pressures against the 'No' vote and a clear sign the referendum will not be carried out under equal conditions."

A one-sided argument

Erdogan's supporters argue that Turkey needs a strong leader to make decisions after last July's failed coup attempt and a string of terror attacks. Opponents say the changes would further strengthen an authoritarian leader and turn Turkey into a full-blown dictatorship with few checks or balances.

The opposition media has been under assault in Erdogan's Turkey: Dozens of journalist are in jail, at least 150 outlets have been shut over the past year, and self-censorship is the norm.

The media landscape is dominated by pro-government outlets, most owned by large holding companies that are either close to the government or afraid of taking a stand lest they become targets themselves.Holding companies with media assets often rely on the government for lucrative contracts in other areas where they conduct business.

Kanal D, for example, is owned by Dogan Holding, which owns severalmajor newspapers and television channels, including CNN Turk. Dogan Holding's media empire is relatively neutral compared to pro-government mouthpieces.

Erdogan has even been known to personally call up the heads of news organizations to complain about coverage.

Pro-government media are ramping up support for the referendum and crowding out or ignoring the voices of opponents. The echo chamber in the media created around Erdogan and his supporters tips the balance of information creation toward the side of the government.

On Saturday, Erdogan, echoing other recent statements from Prime Minister Binali Yildirim,likened a vote against the presidential system tosupporting the Kurdistan Workers' Party or July's failed coup. That is a serious statement, considering tens of thousands of people alleged to have ties to Kurdish insurgents or coup plotters have been thrown in prison or lost their jobs.

A dearth of unbiased information about what the constitutional amendments mean and the pro-government slant in coverage has raisedconcerns about the vote's legitimacy.Adding to worries about the openness of debate, the referendum campaign is set to take place under a state of emergency.

"The referendum process will not take place under fair conditions," Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of the CHP, told journalists on Saturday. "We know that the (pro-government media) will continue to act as though the opposition does not exist."

The CHP and pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party - which has been weakened by the arrests of hundreds of its members, including a dozen parliamentarians - oppose the referendum. Erdogan's Justice and Development Party and the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party support the expanded presidential powers.

Original post:
Turkey pressures media ahead of Erdogan referendum - Deutsche Welle

Riyadh Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to arrive in Riyadh on Monday on an official visit on the second leg of his three-nation Gulf tour.

He will arrive in Riyadh from Bahrain. He will visit Qatar on Tuesday.

Newly appointed Saudi Ambassador to Turkey Waleed Bin Abdul Kareem Al-Khureiji was quoted as saying by Anadolu news agency that the Kingdom and Turkey are seeking to bolster bilateral relations in various fields.

The leaders of both Saudi Arabia and Turkey are cooperating to defuse conflicts in the Middle East, he said in an interview came on the eve of the scheduled visit by Erdogan to Saudi Arabia.

Al-Khureiji said Riyadh and Ankara share identical views on various regional issues, especially on war-torn Syria and Iraq.

Saudi Arabia and Turkey are keen on cooperating to defuse Middle East crises, the Saudi envoy said.

He also said that the volume of the Saudi-Turkish trade exchange has jumped to $5.8 billion.

The number of Saudi tourists to Turkey has grown to around 250,000 per year, he said.

The ambassador said that the 2015 visit by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman to Turkey to the G-20 summit has ushered in a new era of cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Economic cooperation between the Kingdom and Turkey has been steadily growing since the two countries signed a bilateral cooperation agreement in 1973, he said.

Last year, Ankara and Riyadh signed four agreements in the cultural and media fields during a visit to Turkey by Crown Prince Muhamad Bin Naif, deputy premier and minister of interior.

The convention of the Turkish-Saudi Coordination Council in Ankara in recent days was another proof that bilateral relations were growing, he said.

The council convened last week under the foreign ministers of both countries to discuss ways of enhancing bilateral relations between Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The council seeks to boost trade relations between the two states, he said, noting that both capitals were also seeking to cooperate in the field of energy.

While the Kingdom has great potential in this field, Turkey enjoys a strategic location. So both countries are seeking to benefit from this, he said.

In 2016, Saudi Arabia and Turkey conducted four joint military drills.

There is an increasing cooperation between the two sides in the military and defense fields, he said, citing a recent visit by Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik to Riyadh.

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Erdogan arriving today - Saudi Gazette