Behemoth or the Rule of the Dark Forces

Behemoth

Franz Neumann: Behemoth. Struktur und Praxis des Nationalsozialismus 1933-1944 (English title: Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism, 1933-1944/Translation by Hedda Wagner and Gert Schäfer) ISBN 978-3-86393-048-6 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Franz Neumann scientific study of National Socialism, published during World War II, certainly is the most extraordinary and comprehensive work on the issue that I have read. I have been interested in the subject since I was 15 years old and since then I have read a lot about it.

Neumann was a German scholar who fled from the Nazis in 1933, days after Adolf Hitler came to power, to avoid being arrested. He went into exile first in England, later in the Unites States. In 1943 he started to advised the analysis branch of the OSS, that embryonic intelligence cell that would later become the CIA. In this position, Neumann was able to assess information about Germany from a multitude of sources. It explains why by 1944 parts of his study were no longer up to date. The annex takes this into account and provides new material confirming Neumann’s thesis.

Neumann advanced the idea that the Nazi regime rested on four distinct pillars: the administrative apparatus of Germany (the public service), the army, the industry and the National Socialist party. All four organizations are centralized, governed by the principle of one-man-leadership (the Führerprinzip) with the ultimate authority being concentrated in the person of Adolf Hitler. All four function to a large degree independently from each other, resulting in frequent clashes of competencies and a surprising inefficiency. One can only imagine in horror what the Nazi state could have achieved, had it overcome these obstacles.

Observing the Weimar tragedy

Neumann was born in Silesia at the turn of the century. He graduated as a law student, he played an active role during the short-lived working class revolution in 1918/19 on the barricades and developed an expertise in labour law. As such he was well placed to observe first hand the failure of the Weimar Republic and more specifically the failure of Germany’s Social Democratic Party – Neumann was a party member – to prevent the rise of nationalism and later the Nazi party. This subject is the actual introduction to a more detailed study of how the Nazi state came into being, complemented by an analysis of political and philosophical thinking in Germany during the 19th century.

These chapters alone are interesting because Germany is witnessing some 100 years later the rise of nationalism and racism again, in a climate where certain social strata appear to be receptive for such ideas and at a time where the Social Democratic Party seems to have zero vision of what the future of Germany could look like. Will history repeat itself?

The founders of the new German state in 1945 and the occupying powers in what used to be West Germany wanted to anticipate such a repetition, they had drawn the lessons from the failure of the Weimar Republic. Germany’s political system should be strong enough to resist such an evolution, the industry will certainly not embrace nationalist and imperialist thinking in a globalized economy and the Bundeswehr today is very different from the Reichswehr or the Wehrmacht. But recent political events in Brussels and in Berlin also show that democratic parties may be infected by autocratic, nationalist and racist ideas when they have little else to offer. Such is the case of chancellor Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partner.

The industry, Hitler’s ally

One of the outstanding features of Neumann’s study is the fact that he highlights the paramount role that Germany’s industry played in the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. While his Marxist background may call into question his neutral assessment of the situation, the many arguments and examples he advances make his point almost unrefutable. Neumann’s obsession with Germany’s monopolistic economy makes the book a tiresome read at times. It should be noted however that Neumann never considered writing a bestseller. This study was meant as Neumann’s personal contribution to help bring the Nazis down.

With Hitler, the industry wanted to conquer through war a dominant position in the world economy, a position that France and Great Britain had denied Germany when they had shared the world among themselves in the context of their respective colonial policy. Industrial policy was also a domestic policy issue. Neumann writes that “democratic planning [under the Weimar Republic] failed because all democratic planning needs to satisfy the needs of the masses.” This however would have meant to expand the production of consumption goods at the expense of the heavy industry, Germany’s strong point and a prerequisite for any military ambition.

Germany’s imperialist war

“The ruling classes refused to hand over the power of the economy to democracy”, Neumann explains, ” National Socialism has coordinated the many and contradicting state interventions [in the economy] with only one goal in mind: getting ready for an imperialist war […] Fascism is the dictatorship of the Fascist (National Socialist) Party, the bureaucracy, the Wehrmacht and high finance over the people.” Political ambitions and economic greed were two facets of Germany’s road into disaster.

Neumann’s sociological analysis is no less compelling than his study of the politico-economic forces behind National Socialism. After World War I Germany was a class society and the Nazis were well aware of that. Their aim was to consolidate the ruling elite and to win them while at the same time suppressing any social group that may try to mediate between the ruling class and the state. It boiled down to the atomization of the individual and the dissolution of all forms of social organisations not affiliated to the Nazi party. In each social stratum the Nazis tried to create a ruling elite controlling the other members of that strata through terror and manipulation. As such National Socialism permeate ever layer of society and every type of activity be it politics, administration, economy, leisure activities or culture.

He emphasizes the role of propaganda “to keep the masses from thinking”. The party held the society constantly under tension, and ideology changed with the prevalent mood among the population. The transformation of culture into propaganda became in this context an extremely important stabilization factor complemented by terror against anyone holding and spreading ideas contrary to the ideology of the day.

The rise of the non-state

What is interesting is Neumann’s conclusion that National Socialism never developed a coherent political theory explaining how a Nazi state should function. It rather was a mix of improvisation and opportunistic behaviour. If an unforseen situation arose, party, public service, army and industry would needed to find an ad hoc compromise that could be reversed quickly if the situation changed again. The absence of the rule of law in the Nazi society gave its leaders maximal flexibility and its citizen zero security. Neumann’s description reminds me a lot of George Orwell’s novel “1984” where today’s enemy is tomorrow’s ally and vice-versa.

This led to a situation where society was not held together by a feeling of loyalty. Neumann concludes that the Nazis actually did not rule a state, governed traditionally by a consistent political theory, the power being concentrated instead of being shared among four large independent organisations. Neumann saw the Nazis at the head of a non-state that could not give birth to a feeling of loyalty of the ruled masses. The loyalty to the Führer could only be guaranteed as long as the Hitler delivered victories. So what held the non-state together? Neumann’s answer: the longing for economic benefits, for power, for prestige and most of all fear.

One pillar fails, the regime fails

In 1942 when Neumann published his monumental study, he wrote that all four groups needed each other. The army needed the party, because war could only be won through the total mobilization of the masses for the war effort. The party needed the army because it concentrated the military expertise and power. Both needed the industry to sustain Germany’s imperialist expansion. And all three needed the public service to keep the different interlocking parts of the Nazi system working.

I read this book with a kind of morbid fascination. If the double biography of Hitler and Stalin that I have presented in an earlier post had already been a challenge to read, this book proved to be even more tough. Neumann has a very clear and concise style of writing, but it is this distanced attitude that makes the book attractive in a strange, eery way. At the same time I found many useful reflections  on how easily masses can be influenced by politicians to promote the most abject policies: the extermination of other human beings.

Selecting a music suggestion wuth a relation to this book necessitated some brain work. I settled for the greatest possible contrast despite the fact that German Romanticism and its emphasis on leading a heroic life certainly contributed to the masses’ receptiveness of National Socialism. At the antipodes of Nazism we find Fanny Mendelssohn’s remarkable Lieder:

Longing for Italy, home of Beauty

Mother Nature’s Genius and Her Fight for Survival

Pino Cacucci: The Whales Know. A Journey through Mexican California. ISBN 978-1-907973-88-8 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This book was given to me as a gift by a fellow blogger. Lucky me. Books (and chocolate) are my favourite gifts, and I would never ever have bought this book myself as I would never ever have discovered it on my own. Usually I do not read traveller stories, and perhaps that is a mistake, because I found this small book both interesting and entertaining.

As the title suggests, Pietro Cacucci takes us on a tour through the Mexican part of the Californian peninsula to discover things you and me probably did not know before: The Baja California is nowadays a sanctuary for whales while in the past it was the killing ground of European whale hunters. The whales fared better than natives. Under the rule of Spain they were exploited in the pearl fishing and mining industry as cheap slaves or killed when they tried to revolt against their merciless Christian rulers. Pirates set up their base camps in the 17th century along the coast and engaged in early democratic experiments long before the French stormed the Bastille. Today the region remains a favourite spot of treasure hunters, Hollywood stars and Americans to young to buy alcohol in the US.

While the many scientific details on the region’s wildlife and history that Cacucci has researched, make the book an interesting read, his observations on local wisdom and the social interaction in Mexican California make it a truly entertaining. In Ciudad Constitucion Cacucci earns the praise of a landlady when he puts green chili into his tacos and avoids being treated (and judged) as a gringo. Which reminds me of a bunch of Vietnamese men watching me with the keenest possible interest when I had a super hot Pho Bo as breakfast in the Mekong Delta.

Man has to adjust to his environment to survive and vice versa. Adjustment and survival of both Man and environment is one of the themes of the book. Nature and climate are harsh in certain parts of Mexican California: arid deserts, coasts battered by tropical storms. The Jesuits tried to cultivate the land and to turn the natives into farmers. They failed on the latter point, but succeeded in laying the foundation for a wine industry.

Other challenges are man-made. US fruit companies set up huge and vulnerable banana mono-cultures, leading to the extinction of local banana varieties. Cacucci quotes a scientific journalist predicting the extinction of the banana as such in the near future, and indeed, I saw a piece of news in the “Guardian” recently confirming that a fungus is destroying banana plants in Asia and Africa and threatens now the Caribbean. Varied sorts would have put up a better defence. And one wonders whether the musical improvisations of male humpback whales turned into jazz musicians also fits into such a survival strategy and whether they can charm us sufficiently with their songs to make us change our environmental policies?

What struck me, is Cacucci’s matter-of-fact language. He makes no judgments, he observes and simply tells what he sees and hears and lets the reader develop his own opinion. The one exception to the rule is when it comes to environmental protection. He makes some valid points about Man’s irresponsible behaviour. Above all, this book is a love declaration to Mexican California and its astonishing sea life. There is hardly a page where Cacucci does not get ecstatic about some sort of creature. The author’s passionate feelings for Mother Nature’s genius permeates the book, and, being a nature lover myself, I subscribe to any of his appeals to stop Man on his destructive path.

As for the music, it would appear Jim Morrison of The Doors has been around the place as a student, inspiring him to the song “Ensenada, the dead seal”, Ensenada being a Mexican city on the Pacific coast some 100 km south of the US border. But while reading the book and seeing those humpback whales before my inner eye, I had to think about a wonderful dreamy piece of music evoking gently rolling waves, Maurice Ravel’s composition “Une barque sur l’océan” (A boat on the ocean):

Impressions or a souvenir from the sea

It’s 5 to 12 – About War, Peace and Betrayal

arris Munchen

Robert Harris: München (English title: Munich) ISBN 978-3-453-27143-2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ It seems paradoxical, but the world has never been closer to a devastating war in Asia than today. True, the Singapore summit of US president Donald Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Kong Un has been a brilliant photo opportunity for both politicians. Unfortunately it has raised utterly unrealistic hopes, since there is no consensus on the core issues that lie at the heart of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction program. The pledges made are vague and thus irrelevant.

Without these weapons, the regime in Pyongyang while falter, and that’s why it will not give them up. It has spent years and billions developing them while North Koreans starved, and that’s why it will not give them up. As charming as Trump appeared, the North Korean regime trusts nobody. And that’s why it will not give those weapons up. It may make concessions to ease the present sanctions – and it will try to cheat as it has done on similar occasions in the past. Just like Saddam Hussein in Irak, just like Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Dictators cheat, and at some point Trump will find out. And he will throw a tantrum. An angry tweet screaming betrayal – the emotional reaction of the president is predictable. It will be the start of the war. Male mammals’ reaction to betrayal is an uncontrollable eruption of violence.

The world has seen a similar constellation before. 1938. The British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler meet in Munich. Chamberlain entertains the hope that by asking for a guarantee that Nazi Germany will resolve territorial and political disputes peacefully war over the future of Czechoslovakia can be averted. “Appeasement” – the name of this approach was coined later, but Chamberlain tried to appease Hitler by accepting that certain regions of Czechoslovakia become part of Germany while the rest remains independent. He betrayed the Czechs, but he gained a year that helped the British Empire to rearm. It did not save what was left of Czechoslovakia – Germany annexed it in 1939 – and it did not save peace: From 1939 on, Hitler would declare war to Poland, France, Great Britain, Russia and finally the United States.

In his brilliant novel “Munich” Robert Harris describes the climate in Munich while Chamberlain and Hitler discuss the issues at hand. The novel paints Chamberlain’s initiative in a benign light – and I will have to read up in a history book what his real legacy was – and at the same time it puts two other characters on the center stage. A German diplomat with links to a resistance group, Paul von Hartmann, and one of Chamberlain’s Private Secretaries, Hugh Legat. Both have met before, as students in Oxford, they were friends until k they lost sight of eachother again. In 1938 von Hartmann tries to convince Legat and ultimately Chamberlain of the true nature of the Nazi regime: born out of violence, bound to use violence. Violence against other countries, violence against its Jewish citizen, violence anyone deemed an enemy. Classified information changes hands, the SS is breathing down the neck of von Hartmann. The endeavour fails. Chamberlain is being betrayed by Hitler and his political opponent Winston Churchill will fight the war Chamberlain wanted to avoid.

The German translation by Wolfgang Müller is 426 pages long, it took me less than two evenings to read it. A real page-turner. I loved it. I also love a piece of music that has been written during that time, marked by political tension and the fear of betrayal, Bohuslav Martinu’s Double Concerto:

“Looking for hope that did not come”

Catching a Glimpse of God or Descending into Hell

Voegelin_combo

Johanna Prader: Der gnostische Wahn. Eric Voegelin und die Zerstörung menschlicher Ordnung in der Moderne ISBN 978-3-85165-725-8 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Michael Henkel: Eric Voegelin. Eine Einführung. ISBN 978-3-88506-976-8 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The rise of autocratic politicians to power, the mobilization of masses for openly xenophobic or racist ideas, the radicalization of young people through extremism – this is something that deeply troubles me. My country was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940. Jews started to disappear soon afterwards. A few Luxembourg citizen openly supported the Nazi party. Some helped to implement the antisemitic ideology simply by turning a blind eye to what was happening. Few had the courage to actually do something about it. For me it is clear where the rise of autocratic and discriminating ideologies can lead to. We have been there before. In Germany, in the Soviet Union. In South Africa. In Ruanda.

But what are the mechanisms behind the mobilization of masses for extremist ideas? Why doesn’t mankind learn from history? I found answers in the works of a philosopher and political scientist who stood at the very beginning of the scientific institute where I studied political science: Eric Voegelin (1901-1985), the founder of the Institut für Politische Wissenschaften at the University of Munich. Voegelin’s works focus on the parallels between religion – creed would be the better word – and political ideologies. He left Germany in 1938 after he had spoken out against any ideology, be it based on race biology or on the struggle of classes, and made himself an enemy of the Nazis. He moved to the United States and came back after World War II to found the said scientific institute where I spent many hours between 1989 and 1994.

“God is dead”

Voegelin has become known as a virulent critic of modernity. “God is dead”, Zarathustra says in Friedrich Nietzsche’s monumental work “Thus spoke Zarathustra”, and that is part of the problem. According to Voegelin, humanity has gradually weakened the link between its political reality and the transcendental element, the concept of God. Humanity has since the Enlightenment tried to put man in the center of its world and tried to ignore that rationality can not give an answer to existential questions like the purpose of life. According to Voegelin however, man always has a longing for a transcendental idea, a longing for a creed, and at the beginning of the 20th century it has found it in communism, fascism and – to some degree – in liberalism.

Voeglin’s world where religion, philosophy and political science become interdependent disciplines is a fascinating one, although his works request some background knowledge of Europe’s history of ideas and of Europe’s philosophy. And that’s why I wanted to present here two books that are a short-cut into Voegelin’s world. Michael Henkel’s book is as much a biography as it is an introduction to the different concepts that Voeglin explores in his books: Austria’s autocratic constitution of 1934, religion and politics, the need for a new type of political sciences, gnostic sects as precursors of modern extremist ideologies, themselves necessary and sufficient condition for political system resulting in the violent oppression of non-believers.

Johanna Prader’s book focuses on the one concept at the center of Voegelin’s thinking: the gnosis. This concept has its origin in sects that saw the light at the same time as Christianism started to spread. It is characterized by a dualistic view of the world, a world divided into good and bad. The bad world being the one we live it at a given moment in time, the good world is an ideal construction that adherents to gnostic ideas want to build. They believe in a necessary apocalypse that must occur before the good world becomes a reality and they see themselves as the driving force behind an evolution towards this final battle.

St John, Marx, Hitler

And if this seems familiar, you are right. Such views are expressed in the Gospel of St John. Such views are expressed in Karl Marx’ “Das Kapital”. Such views are expressed in Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”. While the Bible acknowledges the existential link between Man and God, the later two ideologies are anthropocentric and have replaced God by an idealized and inflated concept of man’s abilities.

Voegelin’s works have captured my interest, and I will dig my way through some of his works over the next months, without bothering the readers of this blog however. It is interesting to speculate about what Voegelin would think about political Islam, the rise to power of Donald Trump, a person – not even a politician – standing exclusively for his own, personal interests. Philosophy takes an ironic twist here. Voegelin assessed the British and the American society as the only modern societies having maintained the link to the transcendental element. If Voegelin could study Theresa May’s Not-so-United Kingdom and Donald Trump’s Even-less-United States, he would probably have been terrorized and scraped parts of his theory.

It’s all rather depressive, isn’t it? Relief is at hand. The music of Johann Sebastian Bach, especially his Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, allows me to catch a glimpse of God (if he exists!) and keep the spectre of apocalypse at bay:

Resting body and soul in Bach’s geometry

Turkey under Erdogan – The Descent into Autocracy

Sultan Erdogan

Soner Cagaptay: The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ISBN 978-1-78453-826-2 A month before the general elections in Turkey it seems timely to review a book about the rise to power of the Turkish leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan rules Turkey with an iron fist, but the country appears to be split into one half supporting Erdogan and his policies inspired by political Islam while the other half openly rejects it and is in favour of an open, democratic society. The elections were originally scheduled for 2019. However Erdogan’s policies have triggered a domestic and foreign policy crisis that led to the unsuccessful military putsch in 2016, and his “Justice and Development Party” (AKP) sees anticipated elections as a possibility to consolidate its power.

Cagaptay’s book, published in 2017, is an excellent introduction into the ups and downs of contemporary Turkish politics and a hands-on study of the radical shift in Turkey’s political visions from Kemal Ataturk’s ideal of a secular state allied to the United States and Europe towards a country emphasizing religion as the unique reference point for societal values and gradually alienating the US and the EU. The historian begins with a short description of modern Turkey’s early days starting with the death of its founder Ataturk in 1938 and with the birth of political Islam in Turkey. This is interesting for anyone new to Turkish history, at the same time I would like to point out a detailed account of this time that I covered in a previous post: Andrew Mango’s book “The Turks Today”.

An antidote to Communism

One of the key factors helping Erdogan to rise to power was ironically the military that saw itself for decades as the guardian of Ataturk’s secular society model with religion being a strictly private issue. Out of fear that communism might seduce many young people especially in rural areas, the generals jettisoned their hostility against religious ideas in the public sphere by the 1980s. This enabled Erdogan’s predecessor and mentor Necmettin Erbakan to build a grass-root movement inspired by political Islam.

Erbakan set up a network of religious schools that spread his ideas, and the tolerant attitude of the military allowed its students a great degree of upward social mobility. Religious schools had been in existence for many years, but until then their students had been mostly excluded from society life. From now on they would be able to attend higher education, to work in the public sector and to do lucrative business with the government. The former outcasts started a long march towards integration.

Erdogan scored his first political success at a time when economical liberalization had propelled Turkey from being a backward country with an economy dominated by agriculture to a prospering industrial country with a rapidly growing service sector (trade, tourism). He portrayed himself as a leader speaking for “ordinary folks [who] wanted nothing more than to lead a virtous life”, meaning a pious life without being discriminated, and his party as the only one to really care about the grievances of “ordinary folks”.

He also portrayed Turkey as being the victim of perpetual foreign scheming by the US and the EU. Initially he rejected capitalism and communism alike, writes Cagaptay, and espoused a message of national sovereignty. His vision: Islam as an ethical reference point, moving away from the West and courting its Middle Eastern neighbours as well as Russia. This led him to reach out to Iran, the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, the PLO and Hamas.

Erdogan exploits a political void

With the right-wing Turkish politicians having been discredited by corruption scandals and left-wing parties having been suppressed by the military, a void opened in the 1990s, and this is where Erdogan came in. In 1994 he was elected mayor of Istanbul. Under his guidance the city delivered better public services and the mayor became a popular figure all over Turkey. The economic prosperity of the country played into his hands. He reaped the benefits of the liberalization his political adversaries had initiated without being mixed up in their corruption scandals. At the same time Erbakan won the general elections in 1995 and formed a coalition government with the Center-Right. It faltered however under the pressure of the military who was alarmed by Erbakan’s radical Islamist ideas and the high degree of support in the population.

Meanwhile Erdogan was biding his time. Having learned from the many tactical mistakes Erbakan had made, e.g. a hard-line attitude in religious questions, he adopted a moderate attitude, placating the military. He embraced free market economy and outlined a pro-Western policy. His undeniable personal charisma, his party’s excellent logistical preparation and Turkey’s economic crisis in 2001 helped him win the elections in 2002 while many of the traditional parties did not pass the electoral threshold of 10 percent.

Courting Europe and rejecting it

Erbakan’s resolution to curb the military’s power in the political arena endeared him to European leaders. He pushed economic reforms making Turkey’s business sector more competitive, translating into a rising standard of living, and pushed for accession to the EU. He promised to improve the human right’s situation in Turkey. He seemed willing to find a compromise with the important Kurdish minority.

All well? Not quite. Nobody can deny the economic success of Erdogan’s governance. But improving human rights meant doing away with the last residues of Ataturk’s concept of a secular state. Admonishments from Brussels and Strasbourg, where the European Court of Human Rights is located, quickly dissipated Erdogan’s appetite for an accession to the EU. The Kurds had to be courted, but only as long as Erdogan needed their support in parliament. One of Erdogan’s great talents is to find the right allies when he needs them and to drop or crush them when they have fulfilled their role.

A crucial moment in the political life of Erdogan is depicted in the chapter “The Silent Revolution”, which describes how Erdogan’s party infiltrated all levels of public service and especially the police with the help of a politician that Erdogan now casts as his arch-enemy, Fetullah Gulen, the head of an Islamic Brotherhood. Edogan and Gulen played each other to rise to the top of the state, each tried to use the other, but Erdogan was smarter than his opponent. After the putsch in 2016, Erdogan would single out Gulen as the chief conspirator, helped by the US and the “Deep State”, a notion that embodies the sum of all Turkish conspiracy theories.

Fighting the liberal society

After Erdogan won the elections in 2011, he rapidly transformed Turkey into an autocratic state, emboldened by a referendum on a revision of Turkey’s constitution. The majority of the voters apparently did not understand the finer details of the revision and the referendum turned out to be a vote of confidence for Erdogan’s leadership. After he had stripped the military of its dominant role, he weakened the judicial system by expanding the number of judges and filling the vacant posts with people loyal to his party. He also gained control of the majority of the media through pressure and purges.

The failed military putsch in 2016 was the weakened opposition’s last attempt to stop Erdogan, and while Western politicians condemned the attempt of a faction of the armed forces to topple an elected government, they were appalled by the brutal repression it set off. Top military officers, journalists, politicians, human rights activists were thrown into jail, relations with the US and Europe dropped to a new low point. Managing the flow of refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war and the battle against ISIS were the only shared interests between Turkey and the West. Cagaptay points out that “after a decade of increasingly arbitrary foreign policy and domestic political attitudes, Erdogan’s Turkey will be willing to commit to, at best, a transactional relationship with the United States and Europe”. What’s in for Turkey and what is the price?

The outlook is bleak

Is there any hope then for Turkey to return to a liberal democracy? Cagaptay writes that “the AKP [Erdogan’s party] made Turkey’s middle-class society, and for this it enjoys broad support […] But the flip side of this story is that Erdogan rules with an iron fist while a growing number of middle-class Turks conflictingly and increasingly want a free society.” He sketches a number of conditions for a return to an open society. None of those are fulfilled right now. The opposition is split and there seems to be no common, concrete vision for an alternative societal model since a return to Ataturk’s vision is excluded. It will be interesting to see by how big a margin the AKP will win the elections in June and whether the opposition parties can muster the courage to unify.

Erdogan initiated and shaped change in Turkey. Turkey’s civil society, the United States and Europe need to manage this change. Change is painful – the Soviet composer Dmitry Shostakovich experienced this manifold and reflected it in his Symphony No. 11 in G minor (Op. 103) “The Year 1905”:

Managing change – a matter of life and death