The Turkish president wants to expel 10 ambassadors because they called for the release of activist Osman Kavala. In doing so, he is once again trying to distract attention from problems at home, says Erkan Arikan.
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If the opposition parties maintain their unity, Erdogan could have a difficult time getting reelected in 2023Image: Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Turkish Presidency/AA/picture alliance
Every time there's a fresh problem with the Turkish economy — indeed, every time Turkey is in the headlines for whatever reason — it's only a matter of time before a completely incomprehensible reaction from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrives.
It's obvious that Erdogan not only loves stirring up conflict with the West, but also needs it. After all, why else would he mess with his most important NATO partners, the United States, France and, above all, Germany? And this, less than a week after Angela Merkel made her final visit to Istanbul as German chancellor when the two leaders almost exclusively praised the German-Turkish relationship. That praise appears to have only been lip service, at least on Erdogan's part.
West is always to blame
Turkey's president is once again using a tried and tested tool to deflect attention from his problems. The latest poll results show that Erdogan's ruling AKP party has lost massive support, with just under 30% saying they would support him in an election. Erdogan reacted to this bad news with savage insults directed at the opposition parties.
Erkan Arikan heads up DW's Turkish departmentImage: DW/B. Scheid
Then, on Thursday, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the international task force against money laundering, announced it was officially placing Turkey on its "gray list" over its failure to fight money laundering and terrorist financing. The move was met with slight price fluctuations on the Istanbul stock exchange. However, when the Turkish Central Bank abruptly, and surprisingly, lowered its key interest rate, foreign exchange rates collapsed and the Turkish currency saw its sharpest decline in decades.
This shows, once again, that the greater the domestic pressure piled on Erdogan, the stronger his reaction — and always against the West. And so, the joint appeal by the 10 ambassadors calling for a speedy resolution to the case of the civil society leader Kavala suited him just fine.
A strongman in a desperate situation
This isn't the first time that Erdogan has taken on the West. But this time, he has really gone too far. After Kavala was jailed on flimsy charges in 2017, he was accused of supporting the Gezi Park protests that sparked nationwide demonstrations in 2013. He was acquitted of these charges by one court, but a few hours later another court convicted him of being the mastermind of the attempted coup in 2016. It's more than obvious that these accusations are utterly far-fetched.
Osman Kavala: Imprisoned activist, philanthropist
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The European Court of Human Rights also ruled that there are no grounds for Kavala's continued detention, and has demanded his immediate release. Erdogan rejected the ruling, which is why the Turkish court also stuck to its decision — confirming once again that Turkish courts only make decisions according to the president's instructions. The idea that Turkey has an independent justice system, which Erdogan has repeatedly claimed, could not be further from the truth.
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Losing young voters
It's particularly significant that young people, those under the age of 25, would rather support other parties than that of the president. Unemployment is rising, refugees living in Turkey are increasingly being seen as a threat — and a president who is visibly in poor health is no longer seen as a hero.
If the opposition parties maintain their unity until the next scheduled presidential election in 2023, Erdogan will have more than a difficult time getting reelected. If, however, the opposition splits, that will play into the president's hands.
Whatever the future holds, right now Erdogan still has his hands full trying not to anger Western allies even more.
This commentary has been translated from German.
'We are from here': Turkish-German life in 1990 in pictures
Istanbul photographer Ergun Cagatay documented in 1990 the life of the Turks who stayed in Germany following the 1961 recruitment agreement. The photos are showcased in an exhibition.
In 1990, Istanbul-based photographer Ergun Cagatay took thousands of photos of people of Turkish origin in Hamburg, Cologne, Werl, Berlin and Duisburg. They are on display from July 8, 2022 to February 7 at Berlin's Museum Europäischer Kulturen, as part of a traveling exhibition, "We are from here: Turkish-German life in 1990." Here he's seen in a self-portrait in pit clothes at a Duisburg mine.
Two miners shortly before the end of their shift in an old-style passenger car at Walsum Mine, Duisburg. Due to a rapid economic upturn in the '50s, Germany faced a shortage of trained workers, especially in agriculture and mining. Following the 1961 recruitment agreement between Bonn and Ankara, more than 1 million "guest workers" from Turkey came to Germany until recruitment was stopped in 1973.
Shown here is the upholstery production at the Ford automobile plant in Cologne-Niehl. "Workers have been called, and people are coming," commented Swiss writer Max Frisch back then. Today, the Turkish community, with some immigrants' families now in their fourth generation, forms the largest ethnic minority group in Germany, with 2.5 million people.
During his three-month photo expedition through Germany, Cagatay experienced a country in transition. Between the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification, Germany was in the process of becoming a multicultural society. Here, demonstrators march at a rally against the draft of the new Aliens Act, in Hamburg on March 31, 1990.
The photos provide an insight into the diversity of Turkish-German life. Seen here is the eight-member family of Hasan Hüseyin Gül in Hamburg. The exhibition is the most comprehensive coverage on Turkish immigration of the first and second generation of "guest workers."
Today, foodstuff like olives and sheep's cheese can be easily found in Germany. Previously, the guest workers loaded their cars with food from home during their trips back. Slowly, they set up their culinary infrastructure here in Germany, to the delight of all gourmets. Here we see the owners of the Mevsim fruit and vegetable store in Weidengasse, Cologne-Eigelstein.
Children with balloons at the Sudermanplatz in Cologne's Agnes neighborhood. On the wall in the background is a mural of a tree with an excerpt of a poem by Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet: "To live! Like a tree alone and free. Like a forest in brotherhood. This yearning is ours." Hikmet himself lived in exile in Russia, where he died in 1963.
At the Quran school of the Fatih mosque in Werl, children learn Arabic characters to be able to read the Quran. It was the first newly built mosque with a minaret in Germany that was opened at that time. People no longer had to go to the backyard to pray.
Photographer Cagatay mingles with guests at a wedding at Oranienplatz in Berlin-Kreuzberg. In the Burcu event hall, guests pin money on the newlyweds, often with the wish "may you grow old with one pillow"; newlyweds traditionally share a single long pillow on the marital bed.
Traditions are maintained in the new homeland too. Here at a circumcision party in Berlin, "Mashallah" in written on the boy's sash. It means "praise be" or "what God has willed." The traveling exhibition is sponsored by the German Foreign Office, among others. In addition to Essen, Hamburg and Berlin, it is also being held in cooperation with the Goethe Institute in Izmir, Istanbul and Ankara.
