In a public speech, in Siirt in 1997, this was the poem, which Erdogan recited, which led to his arrest; he was the Mayor of Istanbul, and the military disbanded his party, with the PM resigning.
"The minarets are our bayonets,
the domes our helmets,
the mosques our barracks, and
the faithful our soldiers.
One thing that I can not digest, if the skies and the ground were to open against us. If floods and volcanoes were to burst upon us, we are those who are proud with the Iman of our ancestors, they never knelt down to frightening things any day, deeds of glory, deed of Anatolia, from Malazgirt til Canakkale, faith impenetrable to fortresses, our ancestors rushing from one victory to another, this is unity and togetherness." Poem by Ziya Gökalp
In the making:
In 1994, Istanbul was considered the filthiest city in Europe with rubbish piling up in the streets, poverty at its highest, with slums and pauper houses vastly growing. Here came a man from impoverished background, and not of the political elite of Turkiye, to take on the challenge, and transform Istanbul to the biggest, and most populous city in Europe, not to mention one of the cheapest to live in, and least xenophobic. His star was rising till he was sentenced to ten months imprisonment for incitement, having recited an Ottoman poem, deemed nationalist, after the military labelled his party an Islamist, forcing it to resign; he spent four months in prison forming the AK* political party post his release.
His rise:
For his prison record, he could not run for a political post, or hold a public office. He was so popular with the public, with his party winning most seats, and in turn, his AK party appointing him as the party Chairman, and subsequently amending the law. As the Chairman, he appointed Abdullahi Gul, his close ally, as the President. Gul's wife turned up adorning the Muslim headscarf, to which the secularists scoffed, if flipping on sight, baring their pale, lardy bellies, in their supine passive posturing, signalling for the West to see. The military tried to remove them both. He had his first showdown with the military, which was unprecedented, if a political anomaly, for no political leader had ever been bold enough to challenge the mighty Ataturk firing engine. But he did, and the military blinked.
He famously said 'This is a bullet fired at democracy'. With the military blinking, he seized the moment, called for a snap election, and his AK party won in an unprecedented landslide serving from 2002 to 2007, there with the mandate of the people. In the backdrop of the Susurluk incident of 1996, involving criminal underground, or the 'siyasi derin devlet', the deep state, he sought to exploit their alleged association with the military against military leaders.
With that in the pipeline, he sought to transform Turkiye from stablising the economy to keeping inflation down to joining NATO to seeking EU membership etc., and to date, after Germany, Turkiye is one of the fastest growing manufacturing economies in Europe.
Enter Fathullan Gulen into the equation, and with him, Turkiye turned East, with Gulenist parallel government formed. Or so argued his opposition. This does not deride, nor downplay the dark days of mass 'Ergenekon' inquisition against opposition.
Then came the Gezi park incident of the Summer of 2013, where police brutality, authoritarian rule, and oppressive reign came to pass, and for all to see, an opening for the West to deconstruct Turkiye.
From 2013 onwards, ISIL entered the political theatre, then the Syrian war.
The wire-taps of Erdogan and his son Bilal speaking of huge sums of monies being stashed, and assets being liquidated, had been released. In 1994, Erdogan had two flats, and a parcel of land in poorer neighbour of Istanbul, and as disclosed in the Paradise Papers, a great deal of wealth by his family in offshore accounts had been accumulated. Gulenists were said to have been behind the wire-taps, and brought forth an internal conflict between Erdogan and Gulen, who had been accused of orchestrating a public coup.
Presiding over three successive Premier terms, the limit allowed in the Turkish constitution, Erdogan sought to effect constitutional amendment, but first had to ascend to the ceremonial position of the Presidency with a plan to transform Turkiye from Parliamentary to Republic system of government.
To balance power, and coalition building, he sought to resolve the Kurd issue by initiating negotiations with the PKK, which ushered in Kurdish participation in Turkish politics with sizeable representation in the Parliament.
Failed coup:
By 2016, Gulenists have taken over the military along with other security aparatus of the State, with former allies now coming to blows, paving the way for the failed coup d'etat of 2016. Flying into the eye of the Bosphorus, on FaceTime, in the face of fighter jets swirling round the skies, targeting government sites with fiery missiles, Erdogan rallied Turks to come out to the airport, Bosphorus Bridge, and streets to defend the nation. The sight of all mosques in Turkey calling people to Prayers, past midnight, rallying them to come out to the streets, and stop the tanks, was a scene to behold.
Post coup:
After the coup had been aborted, there was a reckoning, which was brutal, and to date is being used against suspected Gulenists, and their sympathisers. Over 50,000+ suspected Gulenists had been imprisoned, with many still searing in prison cells. For supremacy, he allied with the far-right, and sought to change the Constitution by ridding Parliamentary system, and is now a de facto dictator for life, to which every aspiring leader, even Caesar aspired, but never realised ending up with a dagger at the cape of his scruff by his closest confidante Brutas, and with Anthony standing by.
So much power now rests in the hands of a single man, and his reign shall continue, for he is poised to return on May 28th.
* In Turkish, AK means white, clean; stands for Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice & Development) with a light bulb its sign.
