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On tours of Cappadocia in central Turkey, tour companies take tourists to a certain point in the breathtaking landscape where they announce “This is where Star Wars was filmed.” I always chuckle to myself as especially the Western tourists look around confused, thinking to themselves “But Star Wars was filmed in Morocco and other countries, not Turkey!” The tour companies are actually referring to a 1982 Turkish B-movie, “Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam,” starring Cuneyt Arkin. Although the movie’s title literally translates to “The Man Who Saves the World,” it sometimes gets translated to “Turkish Star Wars” – possibly because the opening scene of the movie includes actually plagiarizes footage from George Lucas’ 1978 Star Wars film. The Internet Movie Database (IMBd) provides the following synopsis of Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam: “Two space cadets crash-land on a desert planet, where an evil wizard seeks the ultimate power to take over the world.”
In the real world of Turkish politics, I’m not sure if Prime Minister Erdogan is the evil wizard, a space cadet, or both. I am fairly certain, however, that he and his loyal Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP) followers have not seen George Lucas’ Star Wars films. If they had, they would never have done what they did last week at an AKP rally in Izmir. Too busy trying to rule his world to attend the rally, Mr. Erdogan instead projected a giant holographic image of himself to the auditorium full of his party members. Looming over everyone in the darkened meeting hall, the larger-than-life projection of Master Erdogan warned his loyal followers that “We are going to elections in the shadow of attacks prepared by treasonous networks.” Watching a video of the hologram’s speech, I half expected Emperor Erdogan to suddenly brandish a light saber for dramatic effect.
In George Lucas’ Star Wars films the evil Sith Lord emperor also addresses people via holographic image. He likewise manages to use the manufactured excuse of threats from mysterious dark forces to suspend democracy and seize authoritarian power for himself – in order to defend the Galactic Republic, of course. Those who might have stopped him fail to do so. The IMBd synopsis for Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith sums up the last movie in the series: “After three years fighting in the Clone Wars, Anakin Skywalker falls prey to the Sith Lord’s lies and makes an enemy of the Jedi and those he loves, concluding his journey to the Dark Side.”
The parallels between this reality and sci fi are not perfect, of course. Darth Vader was tall and menacing, while Foreign Minister Darth Davutoglu is short and jovial looking. Perhaps Minister Davutoglu can don a mask in the future and change his slogan to “Zero problems with neighbours – or else!” This would at least be catchier than “Zero problems with neighbours – except for the interest rate lobby, financiers, the Jewish diaspora, the BBC, the Economist, CNN, Lufthansa, capulcu (looters), marginals, dark forces, global assassins who kill by telekinesis, the EU, Israel, Cyprus, Syria, Egypt, Mr. Maliki, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Armenians, Fethulla Gulen (a ‘fake prophet’ who is a ‘disguised Christian’), large numbers of police corruption investigators, half the Turkish judiciary, members of the secular media, the treacherous head of the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TUSIAD) and anyone else Leader Erdogan and his aides have identified in the last couple of weeks as an enemy seeking to destroy Turkey.”
Meanwhile, Turkish columnists Yusuf Kanli describes Lord Erdogan’s manner:
A bald, bold, tall leader yelling at everyone at every opportunity. People are scared of him. Bureaucrats are scared of him – his people are unable to report to him things that might enrage him. Constantly stressing he, but only he, knows everything and far better than anyone else. He has been the absolute ruler, not only on state affairs, but even personal issues, such as how many kids a Turkish family should have...
In the real world, naturally, I have no idea if the knights of the secretive Jedi Gulen Movement are the good guys of the story. The Gulen movement is suspected of being behind the high-level government corruption revelations that so enrage Mr. Erdogan today. Fethulla Gulen does exhibit a Master Yoda like aura, at least, living on his compound in self-imposed exile on another planet and preaching a version of the Force centered on love and patience rather than hate and anger. I just don’t know enough about his religious movement and how they operate or what they truly want.
I do know, however, that Turkish government ministers and bank presidents with shoe boxes of millions of dollars of cash hidden in their homes, foundations headed by Mr. Erdogan’s son that get mysterious multi-million dollar grants, and government threats to prosecutors uncovering these things generally signals something rotten in the halls of power.
David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since August 2010. He is the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and author of The Kurdish Nationalist Movement (2006, Cambridge University Press).
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