Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest waltz into absurdity suggests that he might actually be mad. At a campaign event on Saturday, Erdogan welcomed a nervous six-year-old girl, Amine Tiras, onto the stage. That was fine. But then Erdogan jumped off the deep end.
He declared that “[Tiras’] Turkish flag is in her pocket. If she becomes a martyr, God willing, she will be wrapped with it.” Looking directly at the girl, Erdogan remarked “She is ready for everything, aren’t you?” For a kindergartener, the prospect of dying in battle is likely not an exciting one. It was unsurprising then, that Tiras started crying in response to her not so dear leader’s commentary. Becoming bored of Tiras’ crying, Erdogan soon shoved her off towards a staffer.
Erdogan’s latest show from the asylum evokes Christopher Hitchens’ memorable description of former Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chávez.
After visiting Venezuela in 2008, Hitchens described how Chávez believed himself to be the reincarnation of the 19th-century Venezuelan revolutionary, Simón Bolívar. Hitchens then regaled us with an exchange between Chávez and the actor Sean Penn, in which Chávez resisted Penn’s claims that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
Chávez explained that bin Laden’s responsibility could not be believed because the moon landings were faked by the United States. Hitchens’ punch line is the key:
“As Chávez beamed with triumph at this logic, an awkwardness descended on my comrades, and on the conversation. Chávez, in other words, is very close to the climactic moment when he will announce that he is a poached egg and that he requires a very large piece of buttered toast so that he can lie down and take a soothing nap.”
This psychological assessment deserves equal application to Erdogan. The latest rally incident makes it increasingly clear that, like Chávez, Erdogan’s misplaced sense of destiny has detached him from reality. Where Chávez thought he was the reincarnation of Bolívar; destined to lead Venezuela into a utopian future of socialist resistance against the United States (how’s that working out?), Erdogan believes he is the reincarnation of Kemal Ataturk; a bold leader destined to reshape Turkey and the Middle East.
Unfortunately, Erdogan has a lot more religious populism than the founder of the Turkish republic and much less of his intellectual curiosity. There’s also abundant evidence that Turkey’s current leader is unstable.
Erdogan recently engaged in a foolhardy excursion into northern Syria. While Erdogan claims this action is about protecting Turkish national security, it’s actually an ego trip designed to make him appear confident and in control. Unfortunately, it’s not working: The Turkish army is struggling to push back Kurdish rebel forces.
Over the past year we’ve also seen Erdogan repeatedly use his bodyguards for political violence, threaten Israel, and the U.S., and Greece and Cyprus, and possibly attempt to assassinate a soccer player in Germany (which seems more likely based on Turkey’s decision later the same month to ban the player from their leagues for life), and destabilize NATO.
Of course, in Erdogan’s decision to build himself a $1 billion+ palace with hundreds of rooms, the signs of his untrammeled ego were always there. But now it’s clear that the palace metaphor has found its way into Erdogan’s mind.
Anyway, the video below shows what happened on Saturday.
