Why Are They Afraid Of Criticism?

It is a common ailment of authoritarian governments to detest criticism and accountability. In subversive or dictatorial regimes, outright criticism is already illegal, and these regimes are unwilling to answer to anyone about any of their practices. Things are getting stranger for countries where democratic conventions are not established. In such regimes, the ruling party feels troubled in the face of criticism. They are afraid of accountability simply because they don't want to lose their grip on power. Therefore, they try to discredit those who criticize their actions and control the means and tools by which dissent is expressed. They generally prefer to not accept responsibility for the matters being criticized, account for them or rectify their faults. This is because they suffer from the "affliction of power" and see critics as enemies.
This is the current state of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
"We don't need your advice," they snap in the face of disapproval from opposition parties.
They chastise influential columnists and commentators in the media, making them targets of attacks and threatening media bosses to silence unpopular columnists.
They contrive to bankrupt dissident newspapers and commercial organizations, abusing their power and authority by violating laws and conventions.
They categorize civil society organizations as pro-government and anti-government, threatening to shut down the latter.
Foreign media organizations also suffer from the repercussions of this mentality. Representatives and correspondents of foreign media organizations are monitored and when they pen critical news stories are accused of being agents or spies.
The ruling party can ban social networking sites such as YouTube and Twitter. We already have a president who publicly advertises his hatred of the Internet and social networking sites. Of course we can guess that the main reason for his repulsion is that he knows he cannot take the Internet and social networking sites under his total control.
We can safely maintain that a ruling party's democratic litmus test is its attitude toward opposition and criticism. Although he became president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan continues to act as if he were still the leader of the AKP, bickering with opposition parties and making comments about every matter as if there were no government or prime minister to deal with them.
Erdoğan and the AKP rush to label every criticism as "treason" or "betrayal" and use these accusations as a veil to cover up their authoritarian mindset. With this strategy they indulge in cheap and crude nationalism to win over the hearts of voters and discredit criticisms. Thus, they hope, their antidemocratic mentality and practices will be tolerated by the public.
However, political history tells us this is not the case. How many dictatorial regimes managed to survive by banning criticism and opposition?
Our recent past is also rife with instructive examples. We don't need to go back too far; the ruling parties of the 1990s made frequent use of phrases such as "treason," "traitor" and "for the sake of the homeland," and worked hard to extend their political life. But they couldn't escape oblivion.
The day it refused to be answerable for the Uludere tragedy -- in which 34 Kurdish villagers were mistaken for terrorists and killed by military air strikes on Dec. 28, 2011 in Şırnak's Uludere district due to false intelligence -- the AKP became another party. On that day, it opted to become a pro-state and pro-status quo party. Such a party could not be expected to act differently in the face of the Gezi Park protests or the graft and bribery scandal.
But efforts to cover up the facts only help to worsen its fate.

CAFER SOLGUN (Cihan/Today's Zaman)