Erdogan's Ottoman Dreams About Turkey's Past

What Londoners or Parisians would say if their mayor would decide to use the city park in the center of their cities to build another “shopping paradise” and then integrate this facility into his retail chain? And then, what would the people say if they find out that the contract for the construction for this new "consume-palace" was going to the son of the president or chancellor . About  9 month ago I asked myself if Turks are dreaming of a new Ottoman Empire. Since the events on the Taksim square its clear: not the Turkish people, only Erdogan's AKP are dreaming. Their dreams undermine the hopes for Turkey to become an ideal Islamic model for the Muslim world. Erdogan's Syria  policy is contra-productive and leading the way that Turkey is becoming the prey of the Gulf monarchies to be swallowed up by their ruthlessness.

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This is precisely the case in Istanbul: The mayor of Istanbul wants the "Gezi" park for his private business, just another shopping center which he will then integrate into his already huge retail chain. To give this project a bit an "cultural" outfit a reproduced version of old barracks from the Ottoman period converted into luxury apartments to be sold as residential space for upper middle-class investors, - Erdogan's voters.

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Because of this autocratic - neo-liberal "client system" hundreds of thousands of people in Istanbul left their displeasure run free by occupying the Taksim Square. Additionally, the fact that the majority of people in Turkey oppose this so called "logistical support" for al Nursra and al Qaeda terrorists in Syria by Erdogan's government. Many are concerned with Erdogan's attempts to replace the parliamentary system by a presidential system. His term is ending 2015, but he often says he would like to continue “lead” the  AKP and the government. All this factors had contributed to the great participation of the opposition in the recent weeks. So it should not come as a surprise that almost 100 journalists had been silenced with imprisonment for “supporting terrorism”.

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