One billboard stands out above the others in all the ditches and junctions of Istanbul. in one face kind man with metal glasses, vague hair and a neat mustache. A sentence comes out of his mouth: “I promise you: I will deport all Syrians in two years”. He is the main candidate of the Turkish opposition. 14 May presidential electioncentre-left Kemal Kilicdaroglu. “I was very clear about this from the beginning. TürkiyeFirstKilicdaroglu said.
Türkiye this spring is approaching an important moment in its history. For the first time in 20 years in power of the omnipotent Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan – now president, former prime minister – he is seriously chance of losing power. This was confirmed by the vast majority of polls, which gave Kılıçdaroğlu up to a 10-point advantage over Erdoğan.
The battle will be for four, not just two. Among them, only Kılıçdaroğlu represents a coalition and party that is not overtly. rightist. However, there is one but: Within the Man Who Wants to be kind coalition, there are several parties with a distinctly right-wing leaning. Türkiye turns right. The trend goes back decades.
“Türkiye has always been a country. political center clearly located on the right. And with his advent akp [el partido de Erdogan] He came to power much faster in 2002. Starting from 2010, the Erdogan government became more reactionarymuch more with a shift towards positions Islamists and nationalistspushed the center far to the right”, explains the political scientist and professor at the university Sabanci University, Berk Esen.
And this, Turkey’s migration and refugee policy. When Syrians started to leave their country en masse in 2014 and 2015, Turkey opened its doors. Over time, the Anatolian country became the country with the highest income in the world. refugee population. Problems between communities were virtually non-existent for years – until an inflationary crisis hit Turkey.
Now the vast majority of Turks want the refugees to go out. “If this situation happened in Europe, we would see it” social reactions Similar. Türkiye cannot be expected. refugee camp lots of people wanting to go Europe. No matter how many problems it has, Turkey cannot be expected to accept such a thing without difficulty. Not a realistic expectationsays Esen.
Racism and ideology
Despite everything, according to experts, there are many differences between the anti-refugee movements originating from Europe and those coming from Turkey. “According to me European far right Not against refugees Muslim refugees. Muslims in general. are “civilizationists”and we have seen it in the Ukrainian refugees coming to Europe”, explains the expert Selim Korumember of Turkish think tank TEPAVcontinues:
“This is not the case in Turkey. The Erdogan electorate understands that the incoming refugees come from Syria. Middle Asiaand what, how conservative muslimsThey share a social vision. The opposition rejects them, but only because they criticize the deal with the EU that has left millions of refugees in Turkey. ‘Anti-immigrants’, yes, but from a very different perspective than in Europe”.
According to Koru, Türkiye is not actually on the right, another change – much slower, deeper – happening in Turkish society; and this is going in the opposite direction.
“Part of the perception that the Turkish political center is on the right lies in the idea that Erdogan, who has been allied with the far right for the past few years, is pushing everything. political committee towards there The roots of this idea go back to the 2000s, when Erdogan and his AKP party tried to represent a party. wide center right. However, as it was before the 2000s, this is no longer the case, the AKP is a party. extreme rightand the Erdogan government is an extreme right-wing government,” Koru says, adding that according to the expert, this creates a social reaction movement.
something similar happened in Spain during and after the transition, Francoist national-Catholicism gave way to a social and religious liberation movement that is still alive.
According to Koru, Turkey is at the beginning of a similar process: “Türkiye is increasingly secular and disrespectfuland the population is growing criticism whether political or religious, with authority and sanctity. If you spend time in big cities, you can see that Erdogan is losing his power. culture war. 20 years ago [cuando Erdogan llegó al poder], morality and religion they were equivalent. Not so anymore: religion has lost its power to influence society.