Modern Muslim democracy

But Turkey's soap operas are also sending another message that has proved an unexpected tool of foreign policy further afield. Soap operas set in Istanbul have inspired a big increase in tourism, their distributors say. On a pleasure boat along the Bosphorus, a tour group of young Arab couples on honeymoon watch the shoreline from the deck. As the boat passes an elegant sultan's palace and they all rush to take a photo.

They know the palace well, it's an exterior used in another Turkish soap opera which has taken the Middle East by storm. Since these television dramas captured audiences of millions in the region, the numbers of Arab tourists flocking to Turkey has, according to the distributors, gone up 10-fold in six years.

Hamza and Raja are on honeymoon from Jordan. He is in jeans and a jacket. She is wearing a face veil.

Turkey, they explain, is an exotic but safe option. Like its soap operas, it is familiar but exciting, offering an aspiration of what they would like their country to be: a Muslim country, but modern and European as well.

So coming to Istanbul is a chance to experience a Western-style country without the risks of venturing too far into the unknown.

But for some Turkish intellectuals in Istanbul that aspiration is paradoxical: contemporary Turkey may have been demilitarized, but not everyone thinks that Turkey has yet won the right to put itself forward as a model of a modern Muslim democracy.

At the Istanbul International Book Fair, there is a crush at one bookstall. Crowds of supporters have gathered in support of a well known publisher and columnist, Ragip Zarakolu, whose posters are plastered on the walls.

He was recently detained and is being held without charge, one of dozens arrested as part of a vast operation against presumed sympathisers of outlawed Kurdish groups.

According to the International Press Institute, Turkey has more journalists in prison than either China or Iran. Many have not been charged.

The problem is the government encourages any public reaction against anyone who is critical of government policy”

The government argues that its wide ranging anti-terrorist laws are necessary to get on top of a destructive Kurdish insurgency which has this autumn once again become a major problem.

But critics say the Erdogan government has also started to use the laws to intimidate journalists and academics who dare to speak out, and is in danger of succumbing to the authoritarian tendencies which many in Turkey had hoped were a thing of the past.

Nuray Mert is a political scientist at Istanbul University and a commentator for the daily newspaper Milliyet. She also used to have a TV show, but that was cancelled after the prime minister lashed out at her in public, more or less accusing her of treason.

This autumn a transcript of a private phone conversation between herself and a friend who is now in prison was leaked to a pro-government newspaper, alongside commentaries accusing her of expressing sympathy for Kurdish separatists. The public condemnation has unnerved her. She says she is now worried about her personal safety.

"The real tension began two years ago," she said, "with my criticism of politics getting more and more authoritarian, rather than more and more democratic. Turkey's people are very nationalistic and the problem is the government encourages any public reaction against anyone who is critical of government policy."

There is an irony here: a governing party which wins landslide elections through genuine popularity but which rejects criticism as unpatriotic. And it leaves a question mark.

How can Turkey position itself as a major power with real influence in the region, unless it addresses flaws at home, and first and foremost troubling limits on media freedom?

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 777