06.06.2013 18:00
Less than a week ago, the bustling city of İstanbul seemed a likely choice for the 2020 Olympics, an event which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan promised would be a grand, global coming out party for one of Europe's greatest cities.
Less than a week ago, the bustling city of İstanbul seemed a likely choice for the 2020 Olympics, an event which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan promised would be a grand, global coming out party for one of Europe's greatest cities.
But this week the coming out party began early, when mass demonstrations against Erdoğan's rule were met with police violence and the international community watched with alarm. What a bash the party has been, with acrid clouds of tear gas, three protesters dead, thousands more injured and the prime minister roundly condemned for his provocative handling of the crisis. In the midst of Turkey's largest protest movement in a decade, İstanbul realizing its dream to host the Olympics -- for which it has bid and lost four times before -- has become less likely than ever.
But here's an unlikely suggestion. Rather than hope the world forgets about what happened this past week, Turkey should make a bolder pitch: It should stake its claim to 2020 on the platform of promptly implemented, honest reforms to its troubled democracy. On Tuesday, İstanbul bid organizers evasively assured the Associated Press that despite the violence, "all segments of Turkish society remain united" behind İstanbul 2020. That Band-Aid PR work is unlikely to win even a few Turkey skeptics over.
Take the approach of Simon Anholt, a policy advisor known by the Economist as "one of the world's leading consultants to countries that wish to build global brands." He argues a nation's reputation isn't made by better marketing but through lasting policy choices. "Countries get the reputation they deserve. Yes, there's exaggeration, ignorance and trivialization, but broadly speaking a country is regarded because of the way it is," said Anholt during a 2010 interview on South Africa's hosting of the World Cup. South Africa hoped it could "rebrand" itself if it successfully hosted the games, but the country's vast social inequalities cast a shadow over those ambitions, Anholt argued. The 2008 Beijing Olympics did little to assuage similar impressions about China.
Turkey's narrative for the 2020 Olympics was that of an economically powerful democracy in a troubled region. With that image now shaken, it will need to regain credibility through political bravery rather than by glossing over events. Erdoğan himself knows the limits of image. Having cultivated his political identity as a brash but beloved everyman among Turkey's working classes, he nevertheless understands it is the country's measurable economic transformation -- including the nearly tripling of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) during his decade in power -- that has won him election after election.
Turkey needs to weigh seriously the grievances of protesters and, on Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç did indeed meet with a panel of demonstrators to hear their demands. Those demands included the cancellation of the park redevelopment plan that ignited the protests, the resignation of municipal officials involved in this week's crackdown and an end to restrictions on free assembly. They also called for the release of thousands of protesters and a ban on police use of tear gas.
Those demands, however, are just the beginning of what Turkey needs to achieve if it wants to convince the world it can be a more harmonious place by 2020. Critically for the Olympics, Turkey needs to reverse the opportunistic, unchecked redevelopment of İstanbul, a trend that Games-related construction is likely to worsen. Ankara should reconsider a massive project to build a 30-mile-long canal on the outskirts of İstanbul, and should also ban real estate development near the planned third Bosporus Bridge, which will be built on the waterway's last stretch of forested land. Parliament should also vote down a newly proposed bill that would make it easier to redevelop public parks, and it should give independent panels of experts serious power in shaping the country's major development plans.
President Abdullah Gül might also veto a law restricting alcohol sales that has predictably enraged secularists. Turkey needs better alcohol laws, but it should first allow public debate rather than approve the current legislation, which was hastily rushed through Parliament days after Erdoğan delivered a surprise speech about the dangers of alcohol. Of course, these or similar moves may seem impossible in Ankara, where negotiation and compromise are equated with defeat. But defeat by whom? Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lacks any serious competition from the country's fragmented opposition groups, and Erdoğan enjoys a base that unflaggingly supports him. So why not make serious moves to win back Turkey's hard-earned international credibility and create a more participatory democracy? Unless, of course, Erdoğan's aim is simply to play to his base and hope events pass him by. They are unlikely to do so.
If İstanbul's 2020 bid is based on well-meaning reforms, it would suggest that İstanbul can enjoy the global limelight for all the right reasons in 2020. And anything less than honest reform will also rob Turkey of a chance to remake itself here and now in 2013.
(Cihan/Today's Zaman)