The New Republic Daily
Report
06/11/11
The Strongman: Can Turkey’s Democracy Survive Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan? Suzy Hansen
The Esenyurt District of Istanbul is classic new Turkey:
pastel-colored office buildings with plastic-looking facades, rows of high-rise
apartment buildings organized into little vertical gated communities, skeletons
of shopping malls waiting to be filled with Mango and Starbucks. On a recent May
afternoon, the prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, made a campaign
stop there. The people who gathered to meet him were both covered and
loose-haired, lower-middle class and middle class, and they eagerly sandwiched
their way through security checkpoints. When the neighborhood square was packed
with hundreds of people, supporters of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development
Party—known as the AKP—cued thumping techno music, and the prime minister rode
in on a luxury bus bearing license plates that read, “AK 1.”
As the crowd rushed toward him, Erdoğan stood at the helm of the bus, straight-backed and stony-faced; at times, the only things that seem alive in his face are his dark eyes. The prime minister conveys a mob boss’s strength: reassuring with an undercurrent of menace. The party workers scurrying around him were slick and finely dressed, confident and loud, as if they owned the place—which, in a sense, they do.
Continue reading "The Strongman: Can Turkey’s Democracy Survive Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan?"
Love It or Hate It, Malick’s ‘Tree of Life’ Reminds Us Why Movies Still Matter David Thomson
What Books Should a Soldier Take to War? Elizabeth D. Samet
06/11/11
The Strongman: Can Turkey’s Democracy Survive Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan? Suzy Hansen
The Esenyurt District of Istanbul is classic new Turkey:
pastel-colored office buildings with plastic-looking facades, rows of high-rise
apartment buildings organized into little vertical gated communities, skeletons
of shopping malls waiting to be filled with Mango and Starbucks. On a recent May
afternoon, the prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, made a campaign
stop there. The people who gathered to meet him were both covered and
loose-haired, lower-middle class and middle class, and they eagerly sandwiched
their way through security checkpoints. When the neighborhood square was packed
with hundreds of people, supporters of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development
Party—known as the AKP—cued thumping techno music, and the prime minister rode
in on a luxury bus bearing license plates that read, “AK 1.”As the crowd rushed toward him, Erdoğan stood at the helm of the bus, straight-backed and stony-faced; at times, the only things that seem alive in his face are his dark eyes. The prime minister conveys a mob boss’s strength: reassuring with an undercurrent of menace. The party workers scurrying around him were slick and finely dressed, confident and loud, as if they owned the place—which, in a sense, they do.
Continue reading "The Strongman: Can Turkey’s Democracy Survive Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan?"
Love It or Hate It, Malick’s ‘Tree of Life’ Reminds Us Why Movies Still Matter David Thomson
What Books Should a Soldier Take to War? Elizabeth D. Samet
