It´s Going to Get Worse, Before It Starts to Look Better...

It´s Going to Get Worse, Before It Starts to Look Better...

By: Erreh Svaia

“According to this view, democracy is a product of western culture, and it cannot be applied to the Middle East which has a different cultural, religious, sociological and historical background.”

 Recep Tayyip Erdogan

These days Turkey's president and strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, seems to be really interested in patching up some of his worn out relationships from the past, Erdogan, once seen as a moderate, now looks to be taking Turkey on a route from secular democracy to fundamentalist dictatorship, as he said before, for him, democracy was just a train, once he got where he wanted, he simply jumped out, now, Erdogan looks more like a Sultan these days instead of a democrat, and the changing process within the once promising country has severely hurt them.

A recent effort to re start Turkey's relationship with Israel and the even more baffling public apology to Russia from Erdogan might be one of the biggest surprises this year, to read clearly Erdogan's moves and to foresee his next, is becoming simply impossible, a couple of years ago he was hailed as the moderate democrat who was going to take Turkey into modernism, secularity, democracy and into an accession process to the European Union, in the middle of the so called Arab Spring, Erdogan's Turkey was a promissory oasis, but somehow things started going downhill from there, social protest originated in after a public park was set to be expropriated for a government project, showed Erdogan's lack of patience towards civil showings, them came Erdogan's banning of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, as corruption in his government was exhibited through the social networks, then came the apparition of the Islamic State, the Syrian crisis, where Turkey sidelined against the Assad regime and their partner, Russia, and the refugee crisis generated from the conflicts in Syria, Libya and Yemen, all these while Erdogan was shutting down all sort of free press criticizing him.

Erdogan's Turkey role in the crisis was a strange one, Turkey didn't waste time in accepting Syrian refugees, but at the same time Turkey let the Islamic State operate near it's borders without intervention, it it's as an strategy directed first at weakening the Kurds, a fast growing minority within Turkey, with a higher fertility rate than the ethnic Turks, also seemed that Erdogan was letting ISIS do the dirty job of wearing out the Assad government, all these, disguised as interventions against terrorism, even destroying a Russian military plane was also a part of a conflict, slowly starting to re activate in the zone, a division between Russia and Turkey with Erdogan playing skillfully as a master negotiator in a game of give and take with Putin, the USA, Israel and even Germany, developing here a talent for extorting Germany on the base of keeping the ever growing influx of refugee camp within Turkey's borders, a perverse game both Putin and Erdogan were playing, as Putin bombing in Syria targeted not only ISIS, but also the rebels against the Assad Regime, with Erdogan deliberately letting ISIS come into Turkish territory in order to justify land and air attacks against zones in control of the Kurds.

For a while, Edging looked like a strong and smart man taking wide advantage from the multiple part conflict, capable of killing various birds with a single stone, as the extortion on the European Union brought billions of Euros into Erdogan's government pockets, and the growing possibility of a Turkey's entrance into the Union, although many saw Erdogan's authoritarianism as an impossible barrier to bring down, the menace of a massive influx of refugees flooding Greece and Bulgaria's borders played to Erdogan's advantage, but the final price Erdogan is paying is precisely loosing that one thing that put him behind absolute power in his country, security, in the middle of the ISIS crisis, Erdogan seized absolute power in Turkey under the promise of using firm hand against terrorists and a smart strategy to handle Syrian refugees, in reality, Turkey has suffered from each time more regular terrorist attacks, the one in Atatürk Airport in Istanbul is the latest of three major violent attacks within Turkish borders, as three terrorists entered the airport, opened fire and blew themselves, in an act that took away 42 lives and many more wounded.

The Turkey attack has left many questions, as Erdogan's stranglehold on Europe might be becoming a bit too uncomfortable to continue, Erdogan seems to be looking for new alliances, perhaps thinking of a new Union that could take advantage over the European Union affected condition after the Brexit, but the scenario gets complicated after it was announced that the terrorists, not yet recognized, although suspected to be part of ISIS, came from the ex-soviet republics, a Russian, a Kyrgyz and an Uzbek were identified as the three suicide bombers, this, makes matter even worse considering the still tense relation with Russia, the flux of Russian Muslims towards territories occupied by ISIS and the long history of radical Muslim fighters in the Caucasus, and again, if that wasn’t enough the recent increase in suicidal attacks happening within the Muslim world with recent attacks perpetrated in Bangladesh, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it seems that whether he likes it or not, Erdogan place in history will see another change of primordial importance, as a fight within the Muslim world is about to take place, and this time it won´t be another “Arab Spring” but something even worst, with the Turkish people demanding more security in the middle of a more agitated country troubled between the growing influence of the Kurds, the strange ISIS association, a less moderate government, detonated by the exit of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, increased fundamentalism and the rise of Turkish nationalism spawned by people like Meral Aksener, putting together quite volatile elements into the Turkish equation.