Lip-Service Democracy

Turkey and Sweden aren’t friends.

Not that they were ever buddies, but since Sweden’s NATO application following Russia’s ballooning aggression and belligerent attempts at border expansion, differences have come to a heads. Which isn’t surprising.

In case you’ve missed what this recent huff is about; kurdish opponents to NATO hung a doll of Erdogan up in Stockholm. And since strong-arm Erdogan is so weak and sensitive to criticism, he throws a hizzy fit. Which sends the weak government of Sweden into conniptions, for desire to please the Turkish authoritarian. Further exasperated when the political backbone of the government, the far-right Swedish brown-shirts send their Danish wild-card Paludan to the Turkish embassy to burn a Quran. Y’know, just to throw some more gasoline on the fire to assist their secret man-crush Putin by driving wedges into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

It’s a garbage fire. Orchestrated by so many malicious cooks that the motivations are starting to blend together. We’ve got socialist kurds, opposed to NATO, finding common ground with Swedish nationalists, who also oppose NATO and the Kurds both, faking a battle with a Middle Eastern hegemon. And splitting a defence pact between worries over alienating Erdogan into taking Turkey over toward Russia’s way, and including two of the pact’s longest standing non-member friends; Sweden and Finland.

One can only pity Finland, who’s standing to the side, facepalming repeatedly, considering leaving Sweden in the dust, having their sovereign future decided by a childish, fundamentalist autocrat and the weak-sauce government of its weak-willed neighbour.

But there’s a silver lining to all this. Because this whole farce makes it painfully obvious who the fifth column in European affairs is. And that’s Erdogan’s regime.

“Sweden must immediately act to prevent hatred filled provocations against Türkiye and fight against those who target Islam. Swedish authorities cannot hide behind the excuses such as freedom of expression and assembly”, the Turkish “Communications Director” (read propaganda minister) Fahrettin Altun says on Twitter, continuing on with a long monologue into justifications for the regime’s insecurities.

A blanket statement that makes it painfully obvious that the Erdogan regime doesn’t understand what a democracy is.

If you’ve read my work previously, you may have noted that I bear a healthy disdain for the atrophied limbs of democracy. Its weak executive ability, its weak popular politics, its weak public, and pre-eminently its weak leaders. A democracy is not a very efficient system of governance. But there’s a system of governance I loathe even more: A system which pretends to be a democracy but in fact is an autocracy.

Because a democracy isn’t a about strength, or quality of leadership, or sacred traditions, or public opinion, or even populism. A democracy is about rights. An attempt to make sure that any given citizen has certain inalienable rights. Usually enshrined in a constitution (preferably one that’s adjusted more often than every two hundred years, America…) which you do not break. Not as a citizen. Not as a public leader. Not as a prime minister. Not as a king. And most definitely not as a foreign dictator.

Certainly those rights aren’t fool proof. Or absolute. Or universal. There’s an argument to be had that they should be, but the consequences of a dumb population come between ideal and practise. But it’s an honest (for the most part) attempt at introducing some humanism into government proceedings. And even if a democracy’s right to assembly and freedom of expression are only weak attempts, fragile attempts, they’re worth protecting. They are, in the very essence of the word, sacred. Freedom of thought, (almost) no matter how despicable the thought. Freedom of expression, (almost) no matter how despicable your expression. And freedom of assembly, (almost) no matter how despicable the people are who you assemble with. Freedom to think, act, and join up, even if those thoughts and acts and relationships aren’t in the best interest of the state, the government, or its leaders.

This is what Erdogan, and his stooges like Fahrettin Altun, in their insecure overreaction to belligerent interests, make painfully obvious. They are not democrats. If a thought, an opinion, a voice, an act, or a group is unpleasant to them, disrespectful of them, they aim to eradicate those thoughts, those acts, and those groups.

That is not what a democratic leader, a democratic party, or a democratic country does. Or at the very least should do.

Yes; I’m well aware that there’re plenty of fair-weather and lip-service democracies around. The US not least of which. No democracy can live fully in accordance to its ideals. That’s another one of the weaknesses of this system. Another reason that democratic rule is so easy to dismantle and dismiss and demonize.

But some countries try to uphold these humanist ideals. With varying success. And some countries don’t. This past week proves two things: That the current (and past) Swedish government aren’t terribly good at trying. And that Erdogan’s regime doesn’t try at all.

/Sebastian Lindberg 24/1-2023

Porcelain Despot Dolls

It’s a joke, see! Erdogan, the vicious traditionalist despot of Turkey, the neo-sultan that has been on his way out of office for half a decade, but has managed to cling onto his throne, pictured bent over and referred to as a bedside sodomy toy. It’s not a great joke – as jokes go – more of a flipped bird safely waved from the side lines, but a joke all the same. And as Erdogan’s Turkey throws a hizzy fit over it, threatening (again) to bar Sweden from Nato, we’re left to ask if it was worth it.

The Swedish comedy show “Svenska Nyheter” has been at this before, flinging shit like an over-excitable monkey at the zoo, particularly keenly at powers wielding leverage against the little Nordic country. It’s almost as if the host and the writers decided way back that the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s jobs were too cushy, and made it their mission to make the cabinet a more interesting place to work in. Because if the state television comedy show can make the Foreign Ministry’s lives harder, it has turned out, they will.

Ancient Greek wisdom from the lips of Sappho tells us not to bite the hand that feeds us. To not piss in the eye of our patrons, gods or mortals both. And right as Erdogan holds Sweden’s Nato fate in his poker playing hands, it seems a poor moment to piss him off with infantile jibes at his expense from a national broadcast satire show. It’s almost as if “Svenska Nyheter” doesn’t want the country in Nato, and decided to take the decision out of the government’s hands.

But then again… right at the moment when bullies believe they have power over you might also be the absolutely perfect time to tell them to go fuck themselves. And what’s the alternative? To dismantle Sweden’s fundamental freedom of expression just because a despot doesn’t understand or like it? That’s not how a constitutional right works, now is it…

I refute Sappho’s wisdom. And if only we had more than just fragments of her poetical works to judge her from, I rather think she’d agree with me. Right that moment when Power decides in its magnanimity to feed us, to throw us a bone, is the perfect time to bite its hand. To tell Power to go fuck themselves, and that you do not recognize their authority.

It might be a short lived stand – Sultans and Grey Wolves alike have killed for much less – but however the die falls, it is the proud thing to do. The honourable thing to do. And the point of journalism, whether satire or otherwise, was never to bow to Power. It was to stand; however vainglorious or dumb that stand might be.

So make your crass jokes. Most of them aren’t very good, and I may look down on you as comedians for making them, but if shitty jokes are the straws that breaks the Sultan’s patience, then let him have it. If his ego, and that of his state, is so weak that it shatters under the weight of a fart joke, let him shatter. Fuck all the porcelain despot dolls around the world, all the Whinnie the Xis and Rocky-Horror Vlads and methane-leaking Receps, and their fragile fucking egos.

/Sebastian Lindberg 11/10-2022

What a Difference A Word Makes

To absolutely no one’s surprise, the tragedy of Samuel Paty’s brutal murder has taken on ludicrous proportions and dimensions in the past week. Just as we expected it would. The tragedy and affront to decency and secular values was quickly picked up by political interests, gutted for diplomatic gains.

Needless to say, France hasn’t been happy about the murder of the school teacher. But in lieu of the French nationalists making noise, the centre-liberal president Macron decided to go on the offensive and declare that “islamists want our future”, and held fast that France would not cede their freedom of expression in the face of terrorism. Needless to say, the Muslim world got miffed, with his Turkish rival Erdogan going so far as to tell Marcon to get his head checked.

Now; French goods are being pulled from stores across the Muslim world in a knee-jerk reaction to not just Macron’s statements, but almost also in opposition to criticism of the murder. And an already acrid relationship between the NATO-allied Turkey and France has taken a sharp turn for the worse.

Last week, I said my piece of what place I think religion should have in a developed society. I made it clear what sanctity I think religion should have in the public discourse. Which is to say, as a tl;dr, none. France, and in large parts all of Europe, have no laws against blasphemy. If you can’t accept that, or think that your particular religion deserves special treatment, I’m sorry to say that I think you can fuck right off. And if you think you should try and enforce your make-believe laws through violence in a nation that doesn’t respect them, then I think you can fuck right off with a lead slug rattling around in your brain cavity.

But there is a choice of word (assuming it’s not just a twist in translation) from the French president, who battled the nationalist and xenophobe Le Pen with tooth and nail just three years ago, that I find highly problematic. Namely, the word “islamist”.

What is that? What is an islamist? According to definitions far and wide, it’s someone who supports a Muslim political agenda. Someone who promotes Muslim values and laws as part of the public framework of a country. A fundamentalist, one might say. In essence, an acronym of “Islamic fundamentalist”.

So what’s my problem? Well, take a look at how that term “islamist” has been used. By whom it has been popularized. By European nationalists. By Orange Hydra supporters world-wide. By the likes of Netanyahu and Benny Gantz to promote their subjugation and occupation and militarization of whatever’s left of Palestine. By the BJP in India to rally antagonism against the Muslim minority in the supposedly secular country. By people that labour to demonize the Muslim population any- and everywhere.

Who cares! It’s just a word, right! What harm can a word do? I’ll tell you, a simple word can make or break anything. And in the simple shortening of the dual concept of “Islamic” and “fundamentalist”, into a single cohesive unit; the “islamist”, political interests have quite literally bridged that divide. In an effort to erase it. To ignore it. To remove whatever distinction there is between being a Muslim and being a fundamentalist. Which, I will have you know, is not necessarily the same thing. Plenty of Muslims should not be considered fundamentalists. Just as a whole lot of fundamentalists out there aren’t Muslim. As previously mentioned, just look at India’s BJP or the galvanized evangelicals of the USA. And yet “Bhuddist-ists” or “Christianists” aren’t words.

Maybe that is not how the word was intended once. Maybe that’s not even what Macron intended in his heated speech. But it is definitely how many, many people will interpret it. How many people have interpreted it. How people will imagine it. How people will internalize it.

At the end of the day, the term “islamist” is intended to cast every Muslim under the same wheel. Whether an agitated user, like Macron, is aware of it or not. It is a popular acronym that has sort of gotten away from the decent discourse and grown into a beast that ignores and obfuscates a very important distinction. A distinction that I think we should be very careful to observe. Because if we do not, we will inevitably bundle a wide spectrum of people together under a unified and vilified umbrella. We will equate the violent fundamentalist and terrorist with the simply old-fashioned and inflexible, that have a hard time adjusting to new social norms, and even with the non-religious who share a culture and ethnic identity with the archaic believers. By disregarding this very important distinction, we will treat them all as enemies of secularism in secular states. And in so treating them, we shall inevitably also make them all the enemies of secularism. And it is utterly inconceivable to me how anyone who truly believes in “liberté, egalité, fraternité” would want that.

/Sebastian Lindberg 27/10-2020

A Turkish Dislike

Imagine the relief of finally being allowed to leave your war-torn country behind. To finally be funnelled toward a better life. Only to be met by barbed fences and tear gas. As you’re being pushed back, those that had hosted and guided you forward, turn on you. With shield and truncheon and gun. And push you into the barbs and the gas.

Sounds like it would suck. Yet that is exactly the position that thousands of refugees have found themselves in this week, when they got caught in a high stakes political game of checkers. Where the Sultan-wannabe Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey used the misfortunes of destitute people for ransom. To force the EU to pay him to fund his nationalistic expansion into war-torn Syria.

Turkey has long had a deal with the European Union. To hold back most of the refugees who have set their sights on dreams of a better life in Europe. To do the EUs gate-keeping, Turkey has been offered money. Cold, hard cash to a despotic family regime. A regime playing games with the likes of the US, Russia, the EU, and all the disparate ruling families in the Middle East.

And now, they want more. More money to fund their imperialistic expansion into Syrian territory. More to sift away into family coffers. And as the EU refuses to change the details of the deal, Erdogan has not just opened his borders, but is said to have actively transported refugees toward Greece.

What Turkey is doing is weaponizing desperate innocents. And when Greece pushes back, Turkey sends armed police to push harder. With all those people stuck in between two armed governments. What Erdogan is doing isn’t just putting diplomatic pressure on the EU. This is a very unconventional act of war. One that is very hard to retaliate against.

There’s a lot that can be said about the nationalistic and xenophobic forces that are sprouting everywhere in the EU. The union is beginning to splinter under the pressure of isolationists and racists. And even the countries that aren’t completely overtaken by bigots and fearmongers need to be very mindful of the churning disgruntlement that racist and populist politicians are only too happy to siphon and channel. There is not a single country in the European Union that doesn’t have trouble with right-wing fundamentalists right now. Fundamentalists that would have a political field day if Greece buckled and all those desperate people came to grasp for their dreams of safety. Which is exactly what Turkey is hoping for. For even if there isn’t a racist government in every single member state of the Union, they all have to factor in that the racists and doom-sayers are slavering for an opportunity to pounce on this political travesty.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the neo-sultan of imperialistic Turkey, couldn’t ever have hoped for a better silver bullet to use against his old rival, the European Union.

“Surely, you can’t mean that Erdogan is using all those people just to stick it to the EU?”, you may say. Surely, I can mean just that. He’s already a war criminal without a verdict. He has nothing to lose. He has been undermining an end to the war in Syria for years by backstabbing Syrian rebel fighters from the safety of his fortified borders. And most recently, as the Orange Hydra was vacating US support from the area, Turkey mobilized military forces to create a “safe zone” in Syrian sovereign territory. A “safe zone” meant to avoid further humanitarian catastrophes, which is turning out not to be very “safe” at all.

But at the end of the day, no matter if you call it a “safe zone” for humanitarian purposes, or a military annexation of a foreign country, it is still an occupation by Turkish military forces. Enacted and perpetrated in complete disregard of how many people suffer. And all that suffering that Erdogan and his troops are party to, he’s shovelling right back at his other neighbour.

It’s a two-front war, where the spoils and devastation from one becomes ammunition for the other.

And it turns out to be very hard to meet a diplomatic war with a power-mad despot that seems to believe that scruples are some kind of cereal.

/Sebastian Lindberg 10/3-2020

An Errant Like

A diplomatic crisis is churning between the US and Turkey. Yes, I’m well aware that they’re getting hard to keep track of, all these diplomatic meltdowns between the despots and crazies of the world, with the news that North Korea has cut its buddy-buddy relationship with the Orange House being perhaps the most prominent one this week. But as Kim has finally gotten sick of the Orange Hydra, closing off a foreign retreat for the impeachable dunce, this Turkey malarkey tickles me a lot more than some Joseon boondoggle.

You see, the US embassy in Ankara had to answer a summons from the Turkish government on Sunday, due to a tweet. No, not an Orange tweet. I’m pretty sure none of the world’s leaders are taking those serious any more. No, it was an unrelated tweet, not sent from American interests, warning that Turkish politics might have to get used to the absence of one of its nationalistic leaders, and ally to despot Erdogan. The US Turkish embassy’s twitter account got caught ‘liking’ the post. Much to the chagrin of the Turkish regime.

Yes. You read that correctly. Erdogan got miffed because a foreign national diplomatic envoy ‘liked’ something on Twitter that he didn’t like.

Maybe I didn’t put my little luddite back in my pants this morning, but what the fuck does a ‘like’ even mean? Does it bear some sort of intrinsic value that I was never briefed on? Because as far as I understood T3h Int3rn3tz, a ‘like’ didn’t mean a gawd damned thing.

For what is a ‘like’? It’s like yelling at people in traffic when you’re safely tucked away in your car. It’s a firm nod or a thumbs up to a stranger that managed to catch their dropped sandwich before it hit the ground. It’s a heartless ‘congratulations’ to an old acquaintance that breaks the news that they’re expecting their fifth child in as many years. It’s politely declining to give money to Amnesty solicitors on the street. It’s a social contract filler.

What it is not is a scalding critique of a violent and despotic regime. It’s not even strictly approval. I don’t think anyone believes, not even Erdogan himself surely, that the US embassy is happy to hear that a regime-allied political party leader is sickly.

And yet, the US embassy suffered a government summons by a prickly political establishment. A political establishment that accomplishes nothing but showing the world how vulnerable and weak they are by escalating a digital snafu into a diplomatic altercation.

So what? Who cares? Well… yeah. Who cares that the failing democracy of United States is getting slapped on the wrist by the ‘never really tried’-democratic remnants of a once-great Turkish empire. It’s not big news. But it is stupid news. Stupid news that illustrates just how bizarre our world has become. A world where something so fickle, so meaningless, so intrinsically worthless as an errant ‘like’ on Twitter can cause two nations to snap at each other.

/Sebastian Lindberg 7/10-2019