Görlach Global: Istanbul and Hong Kong - Two Victories of Democracy | World | '
It is the second victory for the Friends of the Free World Order within a few days. First, the mass protests of Hong Kong's Beijing President Xi revealed his limitations. And now – exactly a week later – the Istanbulers have also given the Turkish ruler Erdogan a lesson in democracy: With almost 800,000 votes ahead of the candidate of the opposition, Ekrem Imamoglu, was elected the new mayor of the 15 million metropolis.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan was once the head of the city on the Bosporus. With the result of the election of March 31, the "Sultan", as he is called by his followers, was not satisfied. Imamoglu had already defeated the candidate of Erdogan's AKP – with a narrow margin of 20,000 votes. The AKP forced a repeat of the election. It hailed criticism from all over the free world, but also the Turks themselves did not like it. Tens of thousands have interrupted their summer vacation and have returned to Istanbul just to vote. The now immense advantage of Imamoglu speaks volumes.
Turning point for Erdogan
For President Erdogan, who had started as a successful modernizer of Turkey at the beginning of the millennium, there is now a turning point. Now it is clear that he will not be able to maintain the power that he intended to cement with administrative damage and constitutional change. In the past polls, whether it was the election of the president or the plebiscite on the constitutional amendment, slightly more than half of the citizens voted for Erdogan in secular Turkey – the opposition could not prevail against him. Nevertheless, the opposition has stayed awake and has now achieved its first major victory. The result shows that civil society is still there in Turkey.
The new mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, has his voters celebrate
The attacks on this civil society began after the failed coup attempt in July 2016. Since then, unwelcome journalists have been jailed without trial, publishers intimidated, officials dismissed by the thousands, and the critical public harassed. It is quite conceivable that the Erdogan opponent and preacher Abdullah Gülen could have planned a coup against the Turkish president, as he claims. Nevertheless, Erdogan and his government have so far failed to find evidence of this accusation. And that's why you have to look at those who want to interpret the actions of the Turkish government primarily as a purge of the enemy camp.
Crack also in the Turkish community in Germany
Not only in Turkey itself, but also in Germany, the Turkish community has since cracked, opponents and advocates of Erdogan argue violently. Politics in Germany, on the other hand, struggles to respond adequately to this dispute, in which President Erdogan is not a neutral observer. Actually, she would have to close down the arm of the Turkish religious authority, the DITIB, because she earns more money for political propaganda in the matter of Erdogan, than for the salvation of Muslim souls.
Erdogan's rhetoric in this dispute is similar to that of China's President Xi: Be and always remain Chinese or Turk, no matter what passport you have. It is obvious that such claims are aimed at disrupting the international order based on the cooperation of nation states that define themselves over their citizens. Russian President Putin has at least made the effort to distribute Russian passports to people in the Crimea in order to disguise the annexation of foreign territory as a protective measure by Russian citizens.
Around one million people were in Hong Kong on two weekends in a row on the street
Do not let any more of the "Strongmen" please
In the past two weeks, however, it has become clear that people are no longer content with the so-called "strongmen", the strong men they like to call themselves. This is the good and beautiful lesson from the events in Istanbul and Hong Kong. Democracy is still – unlike what populists around the world want to believe – the desired form of government by far the most people. Democracy in this context also means a state order based on the recognition and enforcement of human rights.
However, only one battle was won in both countries, not war, as the saying goes. How Presidents Xi and Erdogan will respond to the victory of the Democrats in Hong Kong and Istanbul in the medium and long term is not yet clear.
Alexander Görlach is a Senior Fellow of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and a Senior Research Associate at the University of Cambridge at the Institute for Religion and International Studies. The post-doctoral linguist and theologian was also a Fellow and Visiting Scholar at Harvard University in 2014-2017 and a visiting scholar at National Taiwan University and the City University of Hong Kong from 2017-2018.
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