generalspeaking

Tuesday, January 08, 2019

Transforming a Country

"We are selling everything."
"There is so much discrimination, not only cultural but personal, the anger, the violence is impossible to handle."
"If you had something better and you see it dissolving, it's a hopeless road. I could have stayed [in Istanbul]. I would be better off [economically]."
Now when I come here, I don't see the same Istanbul. She does not have energy any more. She looks tired."
"Me not wanting to come here is a big, big thing, because I am one of those people who is in love with the city itself."
Merve Bayindir, 38, designer, Nisantaski district, Istanbul

"People who are leaving do not want to come back. This is alarming for Turkey [due to the polarized political climate]."
"I have received so many emails from students and friends who are trying to get out of Turkey."
Ilker Birbil, mathematician, Regent's University, London

"Pardon us, we do not forgive."
"The hands of our nation would be on their collars both in this world and in the afterlife."
"Behaviour like this cannot have a valid explanation."
Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan

"There is a transfer of capital underway. It is social and political engineering."
"If one looks at any major country collapse in history, it is normally preceded by a migration of wealthy people away from that country."
Global Wealth Migration Review, AfrAsia Bank

One Road One Belt that China is constructing across much of the world, including a huge military base in Turkey has led to "a hopeless road" for many Turks who want nothing to do with the direction Turkey has taken under Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, which is neither just nor has it been instrumental in developing the country in any measurable positive manner. What it has done is to transform what was once proudly democratic with historical flaws of certain dimensions into an absolute Islamofascist country.

The country that is situated between Europe and the Middle East, long seen as an entry point to both is fast closing itself into an isolated, hostile Islamist nation and in the process steadily losing its educated, professional demographic through Erdogan's campaign to root out any suspected Gulenist sympathizers, arresting thousands of lawyers, journalists, military, police, academics and others who have the misfortune of being accused of sympathy with the upheaval that almost wrenched power from Erdogan in a 2016 failed coup attempt.

But Ms. Bayindir's decision to leave her beloved Istanbul arrived sooner than that, as an active player in the 2013 protests when the government planned to develop Taksim Square in Istanbul from a people's park to an industrial-retail complex. The violence that broke out then, she says, completely traumatized her, leaving her constantly on edge and fearful. The protesters were denounced as delinquents, were arrested, harassed, leading many to leave the country altogether.

The past two to three years has seen students and academics leaving Turkey -- along with entrepreneurs, business people and wealthy Turks taking to desperately selling everything they possess to move their families and their money out of the country. Over a quarter million Turks emigrated in 2017 alone, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute, representing an increase of 42 percent over the year before, at a time when close to 178,000 citizens took leave of their country.

Ibraham Sirkeet, director of transnational studies at Regent's University in London remarks on the flight of people, talent and capital, driven by fear and uncertainty; a combination of factors that define the country under Erdogan's rigidly autocratic rule. Fear of political persecution, terrorism, a distrust of the judiciary and the arbitrariness of the new 'rule of law' along with a business climate steadily deteriorating are all underpinned with the reality of Erdogan favouring corruption that enriches his cronies.

Britain has seen a sharp jump in applications for business visas since 2016, an estimated ten thousand, doubling the number from 2004 to 2016. Political asylum applications leaped threefold after the coup attempt, and sixfold among Turks seeking asylum in Germany, figures that Sirkeci cites from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Worldwide, Turks applying for asylum jumped to over 33,000 in 2017. Many are followers of Fethullah Gulen whom Erdogan despises as his nemesis.

Tens of thousands of teachers and academics have been purged from their jobs, among them many who signed a peace petition asking the government to halt its military action in Kurdish cities and to return to the peace process.