Jul 5, 2013

It has been a month since the eruption that broke out at Gezi Park in Istanbul spread to many cities in Turkey. But tectonic tremors and aftershocks still continue. The political rule, although not under threat, has lost a lot of face, and it is doubtful whether it will ever get it back. Turkey’s recent history is now divided into pre-Gezi and post-Gezi periods. With each passing day, the political leadership seems to become less able to correctly diagnose any development.

The mistakes that were made at Taksim Square and Gezi Park were repeated on June 28, when in the Lice township of Diyarbakir province a group of 200 to 250 Kurdish villagers were strafed protesting the construction of a military outpost in the town. On June 29, this time in Diyarbakir, security forces tried to head off demonstrations by using pepper spray and water cannons against protesters. Remember how quiet it was in Diyarbakir and in Turkey’s Kurdish regions during the Istanbul protests? It was calm there — so much so that police vehicles were transferred from the Kurdish regions to Istanbul.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — who for the past month has been pouring oil on the fire every time he opens his mouth — spoke out on July 2 about the Lice incident, which resulted in the death of one person and the wounding of 11 others, two seriously. He claimed that “hashish and Indian hemp" were behind the Lice incident.

Lice, one hour north of Diyarbakir, is known as a center of Kurdish nationalism, and much of its populace has emigrated under heavy pressure from the town. Even if the planting of hemp in empty fields could be a product of unemployment and lack of labor, it is unlikely that this form of agriculture could be sustained without the knowledge of the soldiers stationed there, who outnumber the town's residents. Lice has a population of 5,000, but there are 15,000 soldiers around it. The production of Indian hemp, its transport and trading is not feasible without the knowledge of the state. Erdogan’s accusation of the people of Lice being involved in narcotics over the incidents is yet another irrational diagnosis of developments that could have serious political and security ramifications.

The media that has been subjected to increasing irrationality by a government that has become demoralized by the Taksim-Gezi events. As the national media is widely under the control of the government and has lost much of its independent identity, now the international media is being targeted by rhetoric with perceptibly nationalistic undertones.