What’s happening in Turkey today is not some exotic oddity. It’s a forewarning of exactly what can (and is) happening in the West.
Does this timeline seem familiar?
1. Neoliberals get elected. They fill their coffers while alienating a whole swath of society who they deem too far beneath them to matter.
2. A religious fundamentalist arises who speaks to those marginalised people, telling them they’ve been wronged (they have) and that he will make it right.
3. He gets elected.
4. He stays.
…The only point we haven’t seen (yet) in the West with the current rise of fascism across both sides of the Atlantic is the last one.
That’s not because it cannot happen here.
It‘s just because it hasn’t happened yet.
2/3
Notice where it starts though – and try not to ignore it or rationalise it away even if your salary depends on it – because this is the bit that’s going to hurt:
Neoliberalism is the slippery slope to fascism.
3/3
@aral Historically, what we consider Liberalism today has always gone hand in hand with nationalism and totalitarianism. It's only been in the last 150 years or so that we had labels for Liberalism and Fascism.
It's a deeper trend that's hard to research.
@aral
People in the West, esp the US, are not very good at observing anything outside their borders
You are right to share the warning.
@Disputatore @aral They gor marginally better between 2002 - circa 2012, during Erdoğan gov. Then it got nose dive again, but last three years we are again approachig 2002 levels. Erdoğan keeps the hold of the government because of all the social capital he accumulated during those years. Also, as you said, he controls most of the media.
Results of those policy decisions was bad, simoly because they privatised most of the public utilities. I ll give an example. Today, de facto, education is not a public right in Turkey. State schools are all underfunded and a huge portion of them are converted to religious education schools. Neither secular nor religious high schools, except a couple, has any chance of getting you into a good university no matter the level of the student. For profit study centers are everywhere. So, Islamic sects grew who give cheap or free extra education. One of them was Gülen's. They even stole exam results etc. People were left behind by neoliberalism, they turned to islamic "tribalism" (ideological nepotism, really.) and corruption. And this last is tied to our current fascism.
@Disputatore How exactly would you characterise the period starting with Özal and ANAP if not neoliberal?
My “analysis” is simply my lived experience as the child of Turkish parents.
"telling them they’ve been wronged (they have) and that he will make it right"
I wish more liberals would understand that. I knew Hillary was done when she called Trumpers "a basket of deplorables." They might have been, but she was essentially calling them "white trash." Huge trigger especially in the South. She wasn't going to try and convince them, she was going to cut them out. Trump was lying but he did promise them jobs.
Neoliberalism inevitably leads to a selected few robbing a state of its funds. No regulation means the big fish eat all the small fish until they're the only ones left.
And since the masses usually don't make the connection, because media most of the times belongs to those few capitalists and education is being kept suppressed with poor funding, they opt to fight amongst each other, be it on religious or cultural grounds, instead of simply getting rid of the root of the problem -> the capitalists.
Those capitalists then choose some useful idiot and let him rule the country while securing their continued profits.
In other words, accumulation of obscene amounts of wealth is the underlying core problem as it creates severe social inequality.
@aral I think we make a mistake when we treat capitalism or socialism as political systems or belief systems. They aren’t.
Both are just tools to convert resources(human and material) into things people want with different pros/cons.
The Texas energy grid is interesting because it’s essentially free market and most of the USA is tightly regulated. Texas gets cheap power and a high renewable mix. They also have grid instability and price gouging.
I don't buy this. Religious fundamentalists fill their coffers and alienate who swaths of society just as much. The difference is the religious fundamentalist removed all opposition at all levels of society. He stays because people are afraid of retaliation for going against him and his people.
Alternative to #1: Liberals get elected.
- The religious nuts and bigots don't like talk of equality and religious freedoms, extremism rises.
- Liberals (and the media) are happy enriching themselves and too afraid of rocking the boat to stop the fascists.
- By the time they realize it, half the population has been radicalized and the fascists are unstoppable.
@aral Well, yes, with the slight difference, that not all places in the West are religious enough, that the fascist needs to pull on a religious T-Shirt.
We (proudly) vote for the fascists without them having to lower themselves so far as to carry around a bible.
@ddlyh Let’s do a little experiment: under your real name (the one on your passport), reply to this with a post that insults both Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu.
Then let’s get you a ticket to Turkey and see which one you get arrested for.
At that point you should have the same understanding I do about which is worse, even if the alternative isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
That is how fascism got to power in 1933… democracy should protect itsself better against antidemocratic elements… people have ill memory…
And happening again as we speak… neoliberalism has driven inequality and the populist far right is prospering on the dissatisfaction. Plain to see what the next step can be…
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