Fateful dead

By Alev Scott

Angry Turks turn on their government at funerals for slain soldiers.

ISTANBUL — Mourners at the funerals of Turkish soldiers killed in the latest clashes with Kurdish militants have blamed the interim Justice and Development Party (AKP) government for recklessly endangering troops ahead of snap elections on November 1.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the elections in the wake of failed coalition talks following June’s inconclusive general elections, and on Wednesday gave Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu a mandate to form a caretaker government in which the two main opposition parties have refused to take part. Images of the protests, including the heckling and dramatic pursuit of Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoğlu at a funeral in Bursa, have circulated on mainstream and social media, adding to the anger surrounding the government’s decision to commit troops to battle in Turkey, Northern Iraq and potentially Syria without a popular mandate.

The protests have also fueled speculation about the likelihood of the AKP regaining its parliamentary majority in November’s elections amid political instability and economical turmoil, as the lira hit a historic low of three against the dollar last week.
A two-year ceasefire with the PKK, an outlawed Kurdish militant group, ended in July, following a suspected ISIS suicide bombing in the town of Suruç that the PKK blamed on the state. In the past month, 60 Turkish police and soldiers and an estimated 846 PKK militants have been killed in clashes in the south-east of the country.
Public anger has grown in the face of the government’s hawkish rhetoric: On August 16, President Erdoğan attended the funeral of a fallen soldier in Çaykara and declared “How happy is the family of a martyr,” as bereaved relatives wept nearby.
The speech provoked calls for his own sons to be sent to war.
On August 19, Energy Minister Taner Yıldız announced his goal was “to die a martyr, God willing,” provoking further outrage in a country where military conscription is heavily weighted against poor families, who cannot afford to pay their way out of mandatory service.

“Those saying ‘we want to become martyrs’ are hanging around in palaces with 30 bodyguards and armored vehicles” — Lt. Col. Mehmet Alkan.

On August 10, Health Minister Muezzinoğlu claimed that if the Turkish people had voted for a continued AKP majority — and by implication the executive presidential system sought by President Erdoğan — in June, “chaos” would not have ensued.
On August 21, while attending a soldier’s funeral held in Bursa, a traditional area of support for the AKP in the west of Turkey, Muezzinoğlu was confronted by an angry mourner who mocked the claim to a chorus of jeers. The minister was later chased from the scene, but nevertheless repeated his message on August 24, at a council meeting in the western city of Edirne: “Chaos exists because Turkey is not governed by a presidential system.”
In the south-eastern province of Osmaniye, the funeral of Captain Ali Alkan was the scene of another protest on August 23, when the fallen soldier’s elder brother, Lieutenant Colonel Mehmet Alkan, pushed his way past AKP deputies, who had taken their place at the front of the crowd, to reach the coffin.
Over the accompanying shouts of support from 15,000 assembled mourners, Alkan delivered an impassioned rebuke to AKP officials who advocate for war: “Those saying ‘we want to become martyrs’ are hanging around in palaces with 30 bodyguards and armored vehicles — there’s no such thing. If you want to become a martyr, go then — go [to war].”
He questioned the government’s failed peace process with the Kurds, also referred to as the “solution” to the decades of civil unrest that reached its peak in the 1990s.

The current spate of anti-government outbursts stands in stark contrast to the usual tone of military funerals in Turkey.

“What kind of deal have you made that the children of our homeland are going like this?” he asked, a rhetorical question directed at the AKP and caught by the many camera crews present. “The ‘solution’ is lying here.” Alkan was later restrained by the AKP deputies’ bodyguards as his brother’s coffin was taken away.
Footage of these scenes has been aired widely on Turkish television, including pro-government channels, and on news websites, and has been met with criticism in some quarters. Within hours of the funeral on August 23, pro-AKP social media users had labeled Lieutenant Colonel Alkan an Alevi as an intended slur. By the next morning, the hashtag #LieutenantAlevi was trending at number 6 on Twitter worldwide. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu reacted defensively to the protests, declaring that “those who are exploiting these funerals are distressing the souls of martyrs.”
“These are powerful images and have real potential to harm the AKP electorally,” said Howard Eissenstat, an associate professor of Middle East history at St Lawrence University, who specializes in Turkey. “The fact that some pro-government media outlets initiated smear campaigns against family members who have protested highlights how damaging these scenes can be.”

The souls of martyrs

The current spate of anti-government outbursts stands in stark contrast to the usual tone of military funerals in Turkey, which celebrate the state and martyrdom of the dead, Eissenstat said.
“The funerals of fallen soldiers have always been nationalized in Turkey, with successive governments using them to underline the virtuousness of Turkey’s war with the PKK,” Eissenstat said. “These images effectively reverse that narrative. I have been studying Turkey for 20 years, and was based there during the darkest days of the dirty war in the 1990s. I don’t remember anything like this. If such protests occurred, they didn’t make the news. ”

“I would expect to see more backlash against Erdoğan and the AKP” — Elmira Bayraşlı, analyst.

The PR war generated by the protests has spurred interest in the AKP’s chances in the November elections. The party’s critics regard the elections as the AKP’s attempt to regain the majority it lost in June. That decision looks increasingly like a gamble.
“The Turkish people want elected officials who represent them and deliver services — not a leader who seeks to garner unprecedented power without accountability and is dragging the country into a senseless war on two fronts,” said Elmira Bayraşlı, an independent analyst and co-founder of foreign policy platform FPI.
“I would expect to see more backlash against Erdoğan and the AKP, who may have finally run out of luck. If the AKP continue their current course it’s hard to see how they will continue to garner the confidence of the Turkish people and regain votes in the November elections.”
Others maintain that, despite growing anger at the AKP, many Turks who would not previously have voted for the party now see it as the only possible solution for achieving security after months of instability and the opposition parties’ failure to form a coalition. The AKP’s performance in November now depends on the fragile balance between public rancor and fear, as the two main opposition party leaders refuse what they call the “indecent proposal” of taking part in an interim government, leaving the floor to the AKP and the third opposition party, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
“The AKP has benefitted from the failures of Turkey’s opposition parties to articulate a coherent vision and set of policy points,” said Bayraşlı. “For the past decade, voters chose the AKP because it brought stability and security to Turkey. The AKP is no longer about security but is focused on power politics. Now that the party is willing to throw the country into turmoil — both economically and into a two-front war — many people will think twice.”