The Past Lives Within The Present, And

Our Politics Is Very Masculine, Very Aggressive, And It's Very Polarizing. And The Pace Of This Development Has Increased In Recent Years. Erdogan Is, In My Eyes, The Most Polarizing Politician In Recent Turkish Political History.

Almost Half Of The Turkish Population Believes It Is Not Legitimate To Criticize The Government. Interestingly, This Correlates With The Number Of Supporters Of Erdogan's Government.

I See Two Opposite Tendencies In Turkish Society: People Feel Demoralized, They Lose The Interest In Politics And Retreat To Their Private Lives; Or They Become Very Angry And Even More Politicized, And Radicalized. Both Trends Are Troublesome.

In A Normal Democracy, You Protect The Individual From The Excessive Power Of The State. In Turkey, Power Elites Try To Protect The State - As If This State Were Fragile And Needed Protection - When In Fact, It's Too Powerful Already.

I See What You Mean. It Must Be A Huge Relief, And An Easy Way Out, To Think The Devil Is Always Outside Of Us. (…) We Would Stop Looking For Sheitan Outside And Instead Focus On Ourselves. What We Need Is Sincere Self-examination. Not Being On The Watch For The Faults Of Others.” (p. 257).