Considering My Debt to Istanbul in the Wake of the Elections

This is Views from the Metropolis, a monthly column by Paul Osterlund on Turkey’s urban transformation due to development, conflict, and migration.

The sun was out on June 25th and the weather was forgiving. Summer had arrived but had not yet made the air feel like dragon’s breath for Istanbul’s 15 million residents. Despite the pleasant day, most of the passengers on a city bus passing through three opposition neighborhoods in the central part of the city looked depressed, their expressions ranging from blasé to crestfallen.

It was the day after an election that saw Recep Tayyip Erdoğan capture a resounding victory, setting the stage for the transformation of the country’s age-old parliamentary system into an executive presidential arrangement, effectively granting Erdoğan one-man rule for the next five years. For the nearly half the country that didn’t want this to happen, it was a bleak, confusing day. There were various reports of fraud, mostly small-scale efforts that wouldn’t have affected the outcome. Television news networks continued with their constant coverage of Erdoğan, giving the opposition candidates a mere fraction of his time. The elephant in the room, and an issue that is still being debated, was how the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) managed to increase its votes in many provinces of the Kurdish-majority southeast and eastern part of the country, particularly while they lost votes in their own strongholds in the western coastal provinces.

Main challenger Muharrem Ince from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) had launched a marathon campaign, staging upwards of a hundred rallies across the country in under two months. The 30 percent of the vote he captured was impressive, but not nearly enough. Spellbound by his effective campaigning and charismatic performances, those eager to see change after a decade and a half of Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s rule had been convinced that Ince was the man for the job. Candidates from far-right and Islamist opposition parties together pulled in just 8 percent of the vote, while Selahattin Demirtaş from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP) got slightly more—even though he had to conduct his campaign from behind bars.

Though one local writer referred to the election as “uneventful” in an op-ed for the New York Times, many in Istanbul were on the edge of their seats. Surveys had suggested Erdoğan might fall short of the 50 percent mark required to capture victory without going to a second round, and opposition party politicians were tweeting reports of positive results in the hours after the polls closed. But those hoping Erdoğan would lose would again be disappointed.

Living in Turkey as a journalist is not easy. It never has been, although the crackdown against the press has intensified over the past half-decade, particularly in the aftermath of the 2013 Gezi Park protests and following the failed 2016 coup attempt. Erdoğan has wrangled control of the mainstream media while few opposition outlets remain. More than one hundred stations and publications were shut down shortly after the coup attempt. One hundred and fifty journalists are currently in jail, while others continue to lose their jobs, be threatened by trolls online, get slapped with court cases, or—in the case of foreigners—face deportation.

Living here, I constantly question what I write, tweet, and even say in my DMs. I have practiced self-censorship on almost a daily basis, carefully choosing topics and avoiding certain interesting stories because they seemed too risky. I thought perhaps I just had to ride out the storm until things got better. I now realize this was naive. As a result, I am no longer so afraid to say and write what I want, what I think.

There are still plenty of reasons to be concerned. In the aftermath of the elections, Erdoğan’s alliance partner—Devlet Bahçeli, from the MHP—targeted hundreds of journalists in a newspaper ad, claiming they had defamed his party. A mob boss and jailed confidant of Bahçeli’s then published a hit list containing the names of six journalists on his Instagram. Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu brazenly threatened the CHP and HDP, later appearing by Erdoğan’s side at the opening of a new mosque in the capital of Ankara—a sign that the president endorsed his behavior. An outgoing CHP parliamentarian and outspoken Erdoğan critic was promptly arrested after losing his parliamentary immunity.

The threat-laden atmosphere following the election was business as usual, as Erdoğan and his coalition of conservatives and far-right nationalists are sure to continue to stoke the flames of a tense, polarized environment it largely helped to create. Today’s Turkey is a place where about half of the population is utterly dismayed by the state of affairs, while the other half couldn’t be more thrilled. The local elections next year are a reminder that more than eighty mayors from the HDP were removed from office in the east and southeast during the state of emergency and replaced with government trustees. HDP candidates are likely to once again win public support in that part of the country, but will the state allow them to carry out their mandate?

One of the most striking consequences of Erdoğan’s control is the continued defiling of Istanbul. An economy beholden to the construction sector has swapped much of Istanbul’s precious green space for concrete, while skyscraper after residential high rise slice through its blue skies. This will continue unless (or until) the construction sector collapses. In this column, I’ve attempted to describe the many ways in which the city has and is changing under Erdoğan’s rule. Sometimes it is difficult to conceive of the Istanbul I first encountered in 2007. Today’s version is a vastly different place.

The next several years will be difficult for dissidents, activists, journalists, artists, and all those simply attempting to live their lives here. Informants and sycophants lurk around every corner. Many foreigners and locals alike have made a beeline for Europe or elsewhere, and it is understandable. Others have refused to submit and resolve to keep resisting.

As for me, I have no plans to leave. Home is home, even when it is difficult to be here. I’ve spent nearly eight years in Istanbul, four of them trying to tell the stories of this city. I became a writer and the person that I am while living here. I’ve tried to be a proactive resident and give back to the city, because it has enriched me and given me more than I can describe. To it, I owe everything.

More than ever, I feel there is important work that needs to be done here. Many important issues are sucked into the vortex that is the state media agenda, never to see the light of day. Everyone here knows there may be consequences to staying and writing about what is happening, but that’s part of the deal. It’s hard to remain optimistic at times. But losing hope can mean gaining power if it helps you discard your fears and tell the stories that need to be told.

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