Trump versus Brexit: Populist ideology and Fascist rhetoric

When Communism became a force in the political world in the late 19th and early 20th century, the last place people expected it to take hold was in Russia. The tsar ruled his empire with an iron grip and with (at the time) perhaps the most sophisticated secret police network on the planet. The idea that this state could be overthrown by Communists appeared ludicrous.
But it was precisely the overbearing nature of the state that helped to bring about its own downfall. This was it's own Achilles heel, as it brought about an equal and opposite reaction from beneath. All that was needed was the right circumstances. The 1905 revolution, itself brought about in part by the national humiliation of the Russo-Japanese War, was the turning point, followed by Russia's debilitating engagement in the First World War. The instability this caused gave further evidence of the actual fragility of the status quo and encouragement that only another small push would be enough to overthrow the state completely.
This was achieved in February 1917 with the initial liberal Kerensky government, whose own fragility was then ruthlessly exploited by the Bolsheviks in the autumn of the same year. After fighting a civil war to maintain their grip on power, through sheer brutal force of will, the Communists stayed in power for the next seventy years.


The politics of emotion

The rise of Populism in the USA and the UK, so that they now appear as the "standard bearers" of the ideological movement, is perhaps as similar a surprise to the establishment as the victory of Communism was in Russia. Populism was never meant to be able to succeed in Britain and the USA, as the political system meant that marginal and divisive ideologies would always be battling against the well-organised machinery of the establishment. And yet here we are: "Brexit" has utterly transformed British politics as powerfully as Trump has transformed American politics. Whatever happens, politics will remain changed by these two forces for the foreseeable future. Even though Trump may only be president for a few years, his politics and rhetoric will shape ideology and culture in America for years to come; Brexit, by its very nature, will transform Britain for (potentially) decades.
Brexit and Trump are two sides of the same coin: two different faces of Populism. As an ideology, Populism is the politics of emotion, appealing to the lowest common denominator in the electorate. In a different setting, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey is an earlier exemplar of this, who set the trend and "wrote the playbook" for others to follow. Erdogan and his Islamist agenda have now dominated Turkey for fifteen years, and look to continue to do so for a long time to come. Unlike in Russia, where it was always easy for one man to dominate politics, Turkey's political environment was more well-grounded and relatively pluralistic, if imperfect. It took an inflationary crisis for Erdogan and the Islamist agenda to take control of the democratic machinery, then use emotional rhetoric and authoritarian tactics to keep control of it. In a different setting, we see echoes of the same trend happening with Brexit and Donald Trump.
The financial crisis was the common spark that created the agenda for Brexit and the politics of Trump. In seeking a simple answer to the problems that the lowest rungs of society were struggling with, in Britain the reason given was "Europe", while in America it was "Globalisation". In identifying a complicit establishment that was seen to be working with foreign powers against their own people, we see the common narrative that runs through the rhetoric of Brexit and Donald Trump; the same rhetoric seen in Populism time and time again. This common narrative is the divisive rhetoric that creates "winners" and "losers", "us" and "them": Populism is about the "losers" regaining their self-respect and sense of control, by removing the power of a corrupt establishment. It is by its nature a violent and radical creed.
The violent undercurrent that runs through Populism is why it appears as the ideological kin to Fascism: both share a narrative that divides society, that creates enemies to be hated, that creates a belief that those in power are by their nature corrupt, that creates scapegoats to explain its supporters' difficulties in life, that creates a justification for the use of violence (both rhetorically and physically), and the use of extra-judicial powers. All these themes can be found in the rhetoric of Brexit and Donald Trump. This is what happens when the politics of emotion is unleashed.


"America First"

The politics of Donald Trump are the politics of the ego-driven Populist. Nearly forty years ago, the younger Trump was asked of his interest in politics, and his stated reason for not wanting to get involved was because he thought his ideas were too radical for mainstream opinion. Given what we know now about his politics, we can guess that he understood that he knew his views were those of the extremist (Populist? Fascist?), and that he had no chance of becoming elected on such a platform.
It is clear that those views never changed; he simply discovered a way to get around the barriers to entry for such a platform: by becoming part of the establishment, and taking control of the agenda from the inside.

Both the UK and the USA have notoriously-difficult systems for outside parties to break into, which was why Populism was never really meant to happen there. In the USA, Trump got around that through a combination of strategic planning and fortuitous timing. As with all extremist agendas (be it Communism or Fascism), they can only succeed under a very specific set of circumstances. Trump saw that these were coalescing in his favour as Barack Obama was reaching the end of his second term.
While some of his rhetoric mirrors that of Erdogan in Turkey (and his role models seem to be dictatorial authoritarians), his personal style is more like the bombastic Mussolini (or perhaps more accurately, Trump's Italian near contemporary, Berlusconi). In essence, Trump's "ideology" is simply whatever he happens to think at that moment: as he has few coherent thoughts, he flips from one idea to the next; any inconsistencies pointed out by his critics are then decried as "fake news". In this way, Trump's America (and his vague ideology of "America First") is really a kind of personal rule, a dictatorship of the ego. It is up to those around him to put his chaotic thoughts into some kind of coherent agenda. And as his is a "personal rule" (not unlike England's Charles II), those working under him can be fired at whim, or are forced out if unable to deal with the day-to-day anarchy. This explains the unprecedented rate of attrition among White House staff, as well as the poisonous atmosphere.
As the nature of Trump's Populism is highly-personal, it also follows that his supporters are deeply-loyal towards him, and thus deeply antagonistic towards his critics. This is how Trump has divided America; by dividing friends and families in caustic ways not seen for generations. To his supporters, Trump is a kind of "saviour", speaking a language that relates to them in a way no other politician has before. For this reason, they are forgiving (or even dismissive) of any perceived personal faults, because to them he represents something more than just a man: he represents an idea. Whatever that "idea" is depends on the person, but the necessity to have belief in the idea is more important than questioning the reality that is the man. So to his supporters, Trump is a symbol, a symbol that cannot be seen to be imperfect; for his supporters to accept that Trump could be wrong would mean accepting that they could be wrong.
And here lies the inner pathology of Populism: because Populism appeals to those who are life's "losers" it follows that these people also lack self-esteem; they see Populist rhetoric as making themselves feel better about themselves and boosting their ego. So if Trump succeeds, they feel as though they are succeeding (regardless of the reality); "America First" to them means "Me First". It is when that fragile sense of ego is tested in the real world when the trouble really starts, and when the violent rhetoric becomes something much more dangerous to everyone else.


A divine cause

The "personal rule" in the style of Donald Trump was also attempted in Britain after Theresa May became Prime Minister. As the "Brexit Prime Minister" (or as the Polish government recently called her, "Madame Brexit"), a decision was taken that May's initial personal popularity should be exploited. This resulted in the Conservative government being re-branded as "Theresa May's Team", and by the time of the local elections in 2017 and the snap election soon afterwards, it was all about May and her agenda.
The fact that this then spectacularly backfired during the campaign once it was seen how she lacked any noticeable charisma or strategic thinking showed how this approach only works with the right kind of personality. While Trump's egomania and bombast have been the primary source of Populist rhetoric, in Britain "The Brexit Agenda" was carried forward mostly due to the charisma of Nigel Farage as the iconic leader of UKIP. The fact that, unlike Trump, he remained outside of the conventional party system meant that he was unable to personally take advantage of this when the moment came. In the end, it was May's decision to ape large parts of UKIP policy for the Conservative government that meant she was the main beneficiary. Once the EU referendum was won by the leavers, and therefore that the Conservative government had carried out a key UKIP aim, May's was in the right place at the right time.

But, unlike Trump and Farage, she didn't have the right personality, and this is what has made Brexit much more of an ideology of its own than any one politician's personal crusade. In this way, Brexit has become almost a kind of national religion in Britain, where no one person can claim divine ownership. It is a form of Populism that manifests itself as a transcendental faith, above personality. Whereas Populism in America is deeply-personalised in the ego of Donald Trump, in Britain it is something above personality and a movement in its own right. This is why Brexit cannot be stopped: it has been divined as "the will of the people".
In Britain, Fascist rhetoric is now used routinely in the Brexit-supporting media. While Donald Trump's tweets in support of Britain First demonstrate where his inner loyalties really lie, Theresa May uses the language of the delusional fantasist to describe Britain's future outside the EU, while presiding over a government that is routinely degrading Europeans that live and work here legally. Meanwhile, she makes efforts to befriend "rogue" governments like Poland who are now under sanction from the EU.

Outside of the USA and Britain, the people who support Trump and Brexit are not the friends of democracy. That should tell you all you need to know.

ISIS and Islamofascism: are they the modern-day Nazis of the Middle East?

The "caliphate" that de facto controls a huge swathe of territory across Eastern Syria and the West and North-west of Iraq is the "new normal" in the Middle East.

The rise of ISIS/ ISIL/ the "Islamic State" was due to a number of factors. I've talked about these factors before, when ISIS spectacularly came onto the radar nearly six months ago: the main one being the collapse of central power and authority/ legitimacy in both Iraq and Syria. As nature abhors a vacuum, so it is the case with humanity.

The "Nazis" on the Euphrates

In many ways, it could be said that ISIS are to the modern Middle East what the Nazis were to Europe in the 1930s and '40s. The rise of fascism that began in the '20s was a result of perceived "humiliation", economic deprivation, and loss of cultural identity: a violent counter-reaction to the modern Western values and socio-economic orthodoxy that was commonplace after the First World War.
In the search for simple answers, the Nazis in Germany took the ideas of Italian fascism, and applied them to their own circumstances. Adolf Hitler wanted to create a "thousand-year reich" that would extend from the Atlantic to the Urals. As he saw it, Germans were historically the "master race" of Europe, so they should take what was rightfully theirs: subdue the nations of the "lesser" Europeans, and cleanse Europe of Jews, who he saw as behind a worldwide conspiracy against Germany.

Change some of the names, and the ideology of ISIS is little different: Modern-day "Islamofascists" have created a brutal, despotic, anti-Western de facto state in the heart of the Middle East, and will use any means at its disposal to expand across the entire region; in the same way that fascism in Europe once brutally expanded across the entire continent, Islamofascism has the same aims today in the Middle East. Islamofascism is a reality, not a point of view: Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the forerunners of ISIS, and ISIS are simply a more updated, tech-savvy offshoot of the same ideology. The only difference is that ISIS are applying their selfsame ideology with greater efficiency on the ground, and have honed to brutal near-perfection their methods of recruitment, warfare, and the iron fist of how to govern conquered territory, with a combination of "charity" and the ruthless application of power. Also, having lots of money to pass around - through oil revenues and the product of mass larceny - doesn't do any harm, either.

The irony here is that Al-Qaeda - once the most-feared terror group in the world - are now looking somewhat irrelevant compared to ISIS (as brilliantly summarized by John Oliver here); in the same way that Hitler's brutal form of fascism made Mussolini's earlier ideas seem "quaint" by comparison?

Here to stay?

No-one in the West has a real plan of how to defeat ISIS. Part of the problem is that ISIS appeals to disaffected Sunnis in Iraq and Syria in the same way that the Nazis held an appeal to large segments of German society in the 1930s. This is not to say that masses of Sunnis have suddenly become Islamic extremists: like the Germans in the thirties, they simply have little alternative on the ground, and would rather hold their noses to the reality rather than choose the chaotic alternative. They are not going to rise up against ISIS, because there is no-one who can rise to fill the hole that ISIS have filled in the Middle East.

For foreseeable future, ISIS and their "Islamic State" look to be a semi-permanent feature of the new
Middle East. As the Nazis filled the hole left by the weak authority of Weimar Germany left by Versailles, modern-day ISIS claim their legitimacy comes from the injustice of the Sykes-Picot Treaty that divided up the Sunnis of the Levant and Mesopotamia between Iraq and Syria. This is the core of their claim to be the representatives of Sunni Islamic values (whatever they may be).

The campaign to defeat ISIS isn't helped by the politics and rivalries of the Middle East. Turkey, a key member of NATO, seems to be turning a blind eye to ISIS: Ankara's policy seems to be a case of live-and-let-live; allowing recruits from Europe pass almost without hindrance across Turkey's border with Syria, and meanwhile seeming to give ISIS a free rein for its adherents to operate in the south of Turkey, moving against Syrian exiles that oppose them. While it many be too much of a stretch to say that this is because of shared Sunni Islamic values, it is more likely the case that the Turkish authorities (rightly) fear the consequences of going against ISIS: the thought of terrorist outrages in Turkish resorts would fill the government with dread. In this very real sense, Turkey's hands are tied. It is partly for this reason why they did so little to help the beseiged Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, just across its border.

The Arab Spring has spawned many conflicts: from Syria, to Libya, and now to Iraq once more, thanks to the summer blitzkrieg by ISIS. The road to Kobani, the looting of Mosul, the uprisings in Syria, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia were all partly inspired by the renaissance of political Islam that first happened by the ballot box in Turkey twelve years ago.
Turkey is now the main player in much of what happens in the Middle East, and is as much a victim of its own success. As the progenitor of the ideology that led to the Arab Spring, having ISIS as Turkey's southern neighbours is partly a consequence of that: by stirring Sunni Arabs to do the same that devout Sunnis in Turkey did democratically in 2002. Except that there were no democracies in the Middle East, so how else to achieve it? The result in Syria was a civil war, that could only benefit the extremists.

ISIS is now the wolf at the door of many Middle Eastern governments, a monster that few know how to tame. People would do well to read the history books again.

Putin, Erdogan, and the new authoritarianism of the 21st century

I wrote last year about some of the differences between the cultures and politics of the East and West. As I said back then:

"Easterners may well therefore look at the current economic and ideological malaise in the West as being a direct result of their "freedom". What a Westerner considers freedom, an Easterner could instead call "weakness", or "moral degradation". The USA is currently struggling economically; the UK is moribund; the Eurozone has become a German economic protectorate. So while the East is prospering because it has found a formula that marries Eastern authoritarianism with Western elements of Capitalism, the West is failing (and getting comparatively poorer) because of weaknesses in the structure of its ideology."

The current "Ukraine Crisis" looks like a test case of these two ideologies and perspectives. It is the countries of the East and the developing world that look at what Vladimir Putin is doing with implicit approval, or at best, transparent indifference.

This attitude even extends into Europe. The rise of nationalism in Europe in recent years is married with an attitude of hostility to an out-of-touch bureaucracy in Brussels. Nigel Farage in the recent European debates in the UK was able to clearly articulate the view of many Britons who are tired of EU expansion for the sake of it, sabre-rattling in affairs that are far from our shore (as the Ukraine Crisis has shown), and European intransigence of the self-determination of various movements across the continent. And that's before even getting on to the effect European migration has had on the European economy. In many ways, the EU is ruled more like the bygone Austria-Hungary than any contemporary organisation or pseudo nation-state.

Managing democracy

Both Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan have shown themselves to be masters of "managed democracy".

I wrote last year about how these two contemporary authoritarian leaders compare to some of Europe's earlier faces. Both leaders came to power on a wave of popular support after an economic crisis: in Russia, it was after the 1998 default led to an economic breakdown, and Putin's rise to power the following year; in Turkey, it was after an inflationary crisis destroyed the reputation of the established secular parties that led to Islamist AKP coming to power in 2002.

Since those two leaders have come to power, they have held a firm grasp of the art of politics. In recent years, with the "Gezi Park" protests that started in Turkey last summer, and anti-Putin protests of late 2011, both Putin's and Erdogan's hold of the popular will has looked far shakier than ten years ago. But what has to be remembered is that, in both cases, Putin and Erdogan presided over an almost unprecedented economic expansion in their countries, that lasted until the financial crisis. It was this surge in living standards that explained their popularity. While the liberals of Turkey and Russia decried the creeping authoritarianism that was apparent from the first few years, the people who lived outside of these circles felt either untouched by it, or never cared. Not for the first time, people in the East were more than willing to sacrifice personal freedoms for the sake of economic gains. In the West the attitude is that both personal freedom and economic freedom go together to create socio-economic progress; in the East, the opposite view prevails.

With Russia's "United Russia" party, and Turkey's AKP, these two authoritarian leaders were able to create a "managed democracy" that applied Western PR techniques (such as accusing the opposition of going against progress and wanting to "turn the clock back") as well as gathering as broad a coalition of support as possible.

When the financial crisis started to bite, that's when the strategy for both Putin and Erdogan began to be refined.

"One Of Us"

The financial crisis didn't initially have a huge effect on either of Putin's or Erdogan's support, perhaps due to the amount of good-will that had been stored up by the unprecedented growth in both their countries. Their support base was able to cut them considerable slack.

In Russia, things only seriously started to turn against the "big tent" approach for Putin when he announced his candidacy for the presidential elections of 2012. When that happened, and the financial crisis finally started to seriously eat into Russia long "oil boom", Putin faced his first serious signs of dissent in December 2011. This made him re-make "United Russia" into a party of low populism, using the renaissance of the power of the Russian Orthodox Church, and appealing to the innate distrust and hostility towards the values of the West.
In this way, the members of "Pussy Riot" were almost a gift sent from God, validating all the Kremlin's propaganda about Russia's liberal opposition being a group exclusive to the swanky parts of Moscow, with values alien to most Russians, and never venturing into "real Russia" over the Volga or the Urals. Putin's thousands of miles of travel across Russia are as much a way to give the impression of standing up for "real" Russia, instead of the perceived narrow perspective of the Moscow or St Petersburg liberals.
And again, with the onset of the Ukraine Crisis, this is another almost God-sent opportunity for Putin to decry as another Western plot to demasculate Russia's influence, allowing him to ride of a wave of popular nationalism. For Putin, ruling Russia is about him, or who else? Only Vladimir Putin is truly "one of us", he wants Russians from Vologda to Vladivostok to think. Russia may be corrupt and inefficient, but could anyone else do things better?

In Turkey, Erdogan's popularity began to wane gradually after the financial crisis. The ineffectiveness of the secular opposition perhaps allowed Erdogan to think he was almost untouchable; there is little to suggest otherwise. His government passed progressively more authoritarian laws, neutering the historic power of the military so that it was full of AKP yes-men, as well as the judiciary, and making journalism a career where it was dangerous to criticise the Prime Minister too openly. As a result of this, Turkey had the highest number of journalists in jail in any developed country. Journalists didn't get killed, like in Russia; they were simply thrown in prison instead.
This all came to a head with the dispute over "Gezi Park" in May 2013. Like Putin, Erdogan, after initially being unsure about how to act, followed the same strategy as Putin, calling his opponents Western puppets. In a more incendiary manner than Putin, however, the result of the "Gezi Park" protests has been a radical polarisation of society between secularists and AKP-minded Islamists. While the opposition in Russia has been quite effectively marginalised by its own flawed strategy, the Turkish opposition has shown itself to be more ingenuous. This has resulted in a harsher, more polarising strategy from Erdogan. His rhetoric, like that of Putin, comes from low populism (with a whiff of Islamic values). The AKP is popular in the working-class suburbs of the major cities and the regions of Turkey, especially in the East. A similar point could be made about Putin's "United Russia". The corruption scandal that emerged in Turkey in December last year was seen by his supporters as another example of a Western conspiracy.
So far, Erdogan's "divide and rule" strategy has worked well, following from successful recent local elections. The talk of Turkey's role in Syria has led some in the opposition to fear that, like Putin, Erdogan may also want to flex his muscles...

The new role model?

Nationalism and authoritarianism has always been an ideology based on the root of populism. The rise of nationalism in Europe is seen as a rejection of the "metropolitan liberalism" of the ruling establishment, be that in Westminster, Brussels, or Paris. The politics of UKIP, for example, are clearly populist, as well as seeming economically libertarian. They are Britain's newest "working class party", as unlikely as it may seem. The same can be said of the FN in France, or many of the other nationalist parties in the European parliament. After creating a "liberal consensus" across Europe, the EU establishment has itself created the conditions for authoritarian nationalism to thrive; this form of populism is seen by many as the only effective way to oppose the status quo.

Putin and Erdogan have shown themselves to be "role models" for nationalist parties in Europe. Dismissing the "establishment" in Europe or Westminster as out-of-touch with the concerns of everyday people, nationalists across Europe look at the actions of Putin and (to a lesser extent) Erdogan with envy. "Intellectualism" and "bleeding heart liberalism" is increasingly scoffed at across Europe.  It's no wonder that the likes of Nigel Farage have a sneaking admiration for Vladimir Putin's gall in Ukraine: he is showing them how authoritarianism is done.

Erdogan's Neo-Ottomanism, Political Islam, Fascism and Anti-Semitism

Last month I wrote about some of the divisive and fear-mongering language that Erdogan and his ministers have used since the rise of the "Gezi Park" movement.

Over the last few weeks, the language has become more aggressive and paranoid: the latest salvo from the AKP is the accusation from the Deputy Prime Minister is that the "Jewish diaspora" is also involved with foreign conspirators in a plot to destroy Turkey's economy.
As well as blaming the foreign media (and even threatening legal action against CNN), Erdogan himself has rounded on his those Turkish journalists who have reported on the protests, using the example of Selen Girit, a Turkish BBC correspondent, who he called a "traitor". The purpose of such appallingly-aggressive language is clear - to threaten all domestic journalists into not daring to criticise the government. So while critical foreign media are called "conspirators" who want to destabilise Turkey, critical native journalists are called traitors.
As well as the war on the media, there is a clear trend of victimising foreigners. In the last two weeks, a British teenager was attacked until unconsciousness by Turkish men in the tourist resort of Marmaris because he was seen kissing a Turkish girl in a bar.
Apart from such vigilante attacks, the state itself has deported two foreign women for being involved in the protests, even if only incidentally: a Swedish tourist was deported for being seen to chant along with anti-government slogans; while a French foreign student was deported for being in a DSP (Democratic Left Party) building during mass disturbances with the police.
The message here is clear: for foreigners to mind their own business, and not interfere with Erdogan's "national will".

I wrote last year about Kaiser Wilhelm's plan to ally himself with the Ottomans in order to raise a "jihad" against the British and the Russians. Linked to this is the rise of anti-Semitism, which was first exported from Imperial Russia (using the propaganda tract "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion"), to post-war Germany, where it quickly got the attention of would-be Nazis. Anti-Semitism then spread to the Middle East, the Nazis (and other Fascist movements) taking up Kaiser Wilhelm's old cause of raising trouble with the West through the force of Islam, by forming loose alliances.

The gradual rise of Political Islam

Like Fascism, the rise of Political Islam in the Middle East in the inter-war period grew through a perceived "victim complex", and a desire to purge society of impurity.
Most of the Middle East had been under the power of the Ottoman Turks for centuries, but hadn't had power in their own right. Similarly, Egypt had been under the power of the British Empire. Organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood grew in the 1930s, as Fascism was becoming a force to be reckoned with in Europe. They had spread across much of the Middle East by the Second World War. Both political creeds were viciously anti-Semitic and against what they saw as Western immorality; their answer was pure authoritarianism and tight social control. Both creeds blamed the Jews for much of their plight.

Political Islam was kept under close watch by the various regimes around the Middle East, so as Fascism was defeated in Europe, Political Islam and organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood were not allowed to spread. Meanwhile, the Jewish state of Israel was created out of the ashes of old Palestine, adding further insult to injury. The Cold War gave another reason for the West to financially prop up secular dictators in the Middle East, in competition with the Soviet Union. Neither "The Great Satan" or the atheist Soviet Union wanted anything to do with Political Islam. While Nasser of Egypt was the nearest thing that the "Arab Street" had to an "anti-Semitic idol" in the Cold War, it all ended in humiliation in the Six Day War of 1967. The re-match, the Yom Kippur War six years later, fared little better, leaving Arabs feeling humiliated and impotent.

That idea received a shock with the Islamic Revolution in Iran, making the West realise its complacency in thinking that Political Islam could be forever kept down on a diet of bullying and political marginalisation. Yet, there was still no other method that anyone could think of. While the Arabs remained divided by borders drawn up after the First World War, the strongest Arab state in the Middle East was Saudi Arabia, followed by Egypt. As one was a hardline Islamic state, and the other a secular dictatorship, the chance of the two ever getting their act together seemed remote in the extreme. It would take a revolution to bring Political Islam to the fore, and no expert thought that was conceivable.

Turkey, another Muslim secular state, provided the answer. As I've described before, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was able to "break the mould" in Turkish politics in 2002, becoming the first party of Political Islam to gain a foothold in a Middle Eastern country.
Erdogan's path to power, and his manner of maintaining it, became an exemplar to other would-be parties of Political Islam across the Middle East. For ten years, he had successfully deceived the West into thinking he was a true democrat, gradually consolidating his grip on power through a smokescreen of "democratic reforms" on a path to eventual EU membership - destroying the influence of the military, judiciary, opposing parties and the media in turn. At the same time, he has taken baby-step after baby-step towards an Islamic state in Turkey, so that by the time of the Arab Spring, Erdogan was the benchmark that Arabs could use to bring Political Islam to power across the Middle East.

In Egypt, Political Islam's biggest "success story" in the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood has overstepped its mark. Unlike in Turkey, Egypt's military had not been yet "neutralised". let alone filled with government sympathisers, so it would have been much wiser had the Muslim Brotherhood's President Morsi taken a much more careful and gradual approach like Erdogan. Instead, the Muslim Brotherhood showed their cards far too early, and it is difficult to say what the next step for them will be.

Neo-Ottomanism, the main force of Political Islam

In the meantime, Erdogan's "Neo-Ottomanism" is more and more becoming a force to be reckoned with. With Egypt's future still uncertain, the other Arab governments dominated by Political Islam will continue to look to Erdogan as their mentor.
Erdogan and his ministers are increasingly looking back to the old Ottoman Empire as their inspiration. The secular symbols of Turkey are, one by one, subtly (and sometimes not-so-subtly) being discarded, and being replaced by an increasing affection for the "old ways". Erdogan himself had implied years ago that he was keen to restore some of the old symbolism. The replacing of Gezi park with an Ottoman-era barracks is but one small sign of that.
The expansion of Turkey's ties and alliances with the Middle East, and the rapid frosting of relations with the West is a statement of Neo-Ottoman geopolitics put into practice: to restore Turkey's relations, power and influence so that it is comparable with that before the First World War, when the Turks controlled much of the Middle East. "Neo-Ottomanism" is therefore a kind of localised neo-colonialism; except that while Western Neo-Colonialism is resisted by its erstwhile "colonies", the contemporary Middle East is largely embracing Neo-Ottomanism, as a means to an end: as the coming-together into an informal alliance of a restored "Ottoman Muslim" power that protects the conjoined interests of Political Islam in the Middle East.

"Neo-Ottomanism" as the main agent of Political Islam in the Middle East might therefore be more similar to the politics of Fascism than one might think. Neo-Ottomanism might not threaten the political integrity of Europe, but it does put the Arab Spring in a new light. The Syrian Civil War can be seen as a battle between a (failed) "secular" regime and a militant force of Political Islam. In this way, Neo-Ottomanism has the same kind of stake in the Syrian Civil War as the Fascists had in the Spanish Civil War.

The battle for Syria has become a symbol of the wider future of the Middle east: "Neo Ottoman" Political Islam (and supported by the Gulf States), or Iranian-backed satellite? Iraq is another toy for the larger forces nearby to play with, squeezed between Turkey's Neo-Ottomanism and Iran's Shia theocracy in one direction, and with the Syrian Civil War boiling over in another.

Europe in the 1930s was an ideological battleground between the forces of Fascism and liberal democracy; but also behind that was the threat of Communism, which tempted liberals to indulge Fascism as the "lesser of two evils", and then allowed Fascists to claim "democratic" support.
The Middle East in the 2010s faces a similar ideological battle between the forces of Political Islam, and the varied regimes of the "old order" still allied to the West; but also behind that is the threat of Iran. Thus in the Middle East of the 2010s, Iran has become the bogeyman that Communism was to Europe in the 1930s. While in the Europe in the 1930s it was Fascism versus Communism, in the Middle East in the 2010s it is "Sunni" Muslim Political Islam versus "Shia" Islam Iranian-style theocracy; ideological battles in Europe are instead sectarian battles for control in the Middle East, with liberals used as pawns in the same manner.

Thus the initial indulgence of Political Islam by Westernised liberal Arabs compares with European liberals' indulgence of Fascism in the 1930s.

Following this comparative logic, as Mussolini pre-dated Hitler's rise to power by a decade, so Erdogan pre-dated the rise of Political Islam in the Middle East (i.e. The Arab Spring) by a decade. Hitler learned from Mussolini's example. However, Morsi failed to learn the proper lessons from Erdogan's careful, incremental approach to applying Political Islam (and, fatally, never had the support of the army), leaving Erdogan as the unopposed ideological leader of Political Islam in the Middle East, with no near-comparable rival in the scene.
Thus, in an ironic way, Erdogan may actually benefit politically from Morsi's fall from power: giving greater ammunition to the "victim complex" trait that Political Islam shares with Fascism, sowing further unrest in Egypt, and giving Erdogan further scapegoats to use for his own advantage. The fact that Erdogan's AKP supporters have so clearly allied themselves with Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood tells you how closely-linked the two are.

The rise of Political Islam back in the 'thirties was originally intended to restore the old Islamic caliphate, which had resided for five centuries in Istanbul. Day by day, the Islamist Turkish government distances itself from the West, and opens its arms more and more to the East. Turkey is building a hospital in Gaza, in partnership with the Hamas government (and doubtless to Israel's fury); Turkey is looking to buy a missile system from China instead of the West, that would render it incompatible with NATO.

To what end are these symbolic moves?

The anti-Semitism coming from Erdogan's ministers is more likely opportunism rather than paranoia, but whatever its reason, its purpose is to cement the divisions in Turkish society, between an "us" and "them"; leaving it unspoken but obvious that "they" are not "real" Turks.

And in the cynical numbers game that Erdogan and his ministers are playing, they hold all the trump cards. And if "they" don't like it, it goes without saying, "they" know where the door pointing West is: in the other direction, the East beckons with open arms.

Why religion and politics don't mix: From Northern Ireland to Syria, The Arab Spring and Turkey

I wrote an article last year about the relationship between intelligence and free thought. While religion provides the function of giving a moral code to humanity, it also takes away from humanity the ability to arrive at a judgement using their own intellect. When that judgement is a political one, the influence of religion should be looked at even more critically.   

The link between church and state (or religion and politics) has been severed in Europe for as long as anyone can care to remember. In America, that link is more nuanced, but still there on paper, if not always clearly there on the floor of Congress.
Secularism has been established in the West as the method to separate religious teachings from the official business of government.
In the UK, the most recent example of an openly-religious leader was former PM, Tony Blair, who waited until he stood down as premier before converting to Catholicism; then again, there were his infamous shared prayer-meetings with former US President, George W Bush, which were ridiculed in the British press. In a secular state, when a premier's private religious views become openly-displayed habits, ridicule is probably the best reply to remind a politician that religion is a private matter outside of the realm of government. So he then made sure to keep his religious sentiments more to himself.

Staying in the UK, the problem of what happens when when religion and politics fuse together is seen daily across the water from London, in Northern Ireland. The clash of two Christian branches, Catholicism and Protestantism, led to a sectarian conflict. After the thirty years of "The Troubles", the religious divides are as sharp as ever, even if the violence has subsided. The politics of Northern Ireland are divided as always; the Catholics voting one way, the Protestants another.
Not long ago, the province was ruled by Rev. Ian Paisley, a hardline Protestant priest. While his rhetoric had undergone a massive toning-down compared with his earlier days, Paisley had been the recipient of the polarisation of the two sides. Until the late '90s, when the "peace process" had begun in earnest, the main Protestant party was the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP); after this point, Protestant views became more intransigent against surrendering their position in favour of the Catholics, and flocked to the more hardline Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), represented by Paisley. So for a time in the 2000s, Paisley became the provincial head of government, in tandem with his Catholic deputy (and former terrorist) Martin McGuinness.  More recently, trouble has flared up again from the Protestants, who rioted as a result of a compromise with the Catholics over the flying of the British flag from government buildings in the province. But the UUP are finished as a political force, and the hardline DUP still hold sway over the Protestant vote in Northern Ireland, demonstrating that religion is often anathema to moderation.
For Brits who live on "the mainland", the politics of Northern Ireland is an unfathomable mess.

The same can be said of Syria, but in this, Syria's "troubles" are far more extensive, horrifying, and potentially explosive.
Like its neighbour Iraq, Syria is a religious melting-pot of four or five major religious and ethnic denominations: Sunni Muslims, Alawite (Shia) Muslims, Druze (Muslims), and Christians (of a few different Orthodox churches). And there are also the Kurds, too, who are a significant ethnic minority in the east. Given the delicate religious mix, it has seemed sensible that secularism would be the best way to avoid a sectarian war. That had been the case during the French Mandate between the First and Second World War, and also after Syria became independent.
Things became more complicated (and a ticking time-bomb of resentment) when Hafez Al-Assad, an Alawite, took power in the sixties. Although he officially continued the secular (and quasi-socialist) form of government, he began to fill the government with fellow-Alawites, who were far outnumbered by Sunni Muslims in the general population.
This reached a head when there was a Sunni "uprising" in the early eighties, which was brutally suppressed, and also suppressed to the outside world. It was only finally after the "Arab Spring" in 2011, when Hafez's son, Bashar, was in power, that the Sunnis were able to properly make their voices heard against the persecution and maltreatment from the Alawite-led "secular" government.
The problem with the Assad regime in Syria was not that it was secular; it was that it was clearly not secular, but favoured the Alawites (and to an extent, the Christians) at the expense of the Sunni majority. The rebellion against Bashar Al-Assad's government then quickly took on a religious dimension, which has broadened ever since, attracting the attention of Al-Qaeda-linked fighters to the Sunni Muslim side. The original aims - to make Syria a "free" country - has become confused amidst the conflicting aims of two major factions fighting on the ground against the regime, as well as the conflicting aims of the foreign powers (the West and the Gulf States) that supply them.
The rebels' political aim of "freedom" has now become merged with the religious aim of creating a Sunni Muslim-majority state, which has spurred-on horrifying levels of violence and reprisals on both sides.
For the West, the politics of Syria has become and unfathomable mess.

Thus in Northern Ireland, thus in Syria.

The "Arab Spring" that first sprouted in Tunisia, which toppled regimes there and in neighbouring Libya and Egypt (as well as, indirectly, Yemen), was meant to be about freedom and democracy.
These states had been ruled for decades by secular dictatorships. During the Cold War, America tolerated this as it feared what the result would be if the Arabs gained the right to vote with their religious conscience. Iran was a short lesson that matched its greatest fears: what had originally been a "democratic" revolution against Iranian Shah, turned into an Islamic revolution when anti-Shah secularists, lacking a clear leader of their own, sided with the Muslim conservatives to install Ayatollah Khomeini as an "apolitical" leader.

The "Arab Spring" took its inspiration from contemporary Turkey, which had put some of the West's fears of mass Islamic revolution across the Middle East to rest.
While the Arab world had been under the thumb of American-backed secular dictatorships, Turkey had been a secular democracy since the around the Second World War, or thereabouts. To be fair, its form of "democracy" was far from perfect, and in some areas bore little relation to the West, such the strong weight that the military had over how the country was governed (and intervened directly when it felt necessary). Furthermore, grievances by ethnic and religious minorities tended to be swept under the carpet in the name of unity.
But some conservative Muslims felt that for too long Turkey's secular democracy was not properly representative of its religious values, and that the various official parties had brushed their views under the carpet like with other marginalised groups. One person who held this view was Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had been istanbul's mayor during the nineties.
Knowing how Turkey's political system effectively banned religious parties from parliament, he created the AK ("Justice and Development") Party, which was not overtly religious; conservatively Muslim in values, but capitalist in economics and tolerant and pro-European in outlook (or so it seemed). Once his party came to power in 2002, he emphasized the need for "democratic" reforms that broadened freedom of (religious) expression; similarly, he sought to "democratise" Turkey by removing the influence of the army. It was this, and the steps to improve Turkey's economy, that earned him the respect of the West. It was for these reasons that the West had felt reassured by the "Arab Spring's" inspiration from Turkey.

We know now that this story does not end well. As in Turkey, as in The Arab Spring.

While Erdogan in Turkey was "democratising" the country, the West was wilfully ignoring the real purpose for the "reforms", while also ignoring the obvious signs over the years of creeping authoritarianism and Islamification, as I've explained before.
The same process can be seen in the Middle East, post-Arab Spring. While Arab states are ruled by AK Party-like groups, they make the claim that because they are the largest party, it means they have a mandate to implement Islamic policy. Thus they subvert the purpose of democracy for religious purposes to mean Islamic majoritarianism. All those who therefore do not subscribe to a religious government are therefore against the popular will.
The hideous irony is that two years on from the Arab Spring, with his reaction to the Gezi Park protests, Erdogan has finally been recognised by the West as the religious authoritarian he was all along, while using the masquerade of democracy to achieve his aims; and now the Arab Spring bears all the hallmarks of following the same pattern as Erdogan's "Turkish Spring" at the ballot box in 2002.

This is another example of why religion and politics don't mix. The result is often ugly.

Pakistan is another example of what happens when you have religious parties in a (supposedly) democratic system. Politicians then start using religion as a weapon against their enemies; the same has been done in the past in neighbouring India during the rule of the Hindu nationalist BJP. Religion was used as a weapon there by Hindu politicians to blame Muslims; the result was massacres and the destruction of religious sites.

Let the religious leaders stick to the religion, in the confines of their religious places. Let politicians stick to the politics, in the dull confines of their drab government buildings.
Let the religious leaders deal with personal morality, and the politicians deal with social policy.
And never the two should meet!

Erdogan, the AKP, and the language of Fascism

Ten days on from my last article about the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the language coming from Erdogan and his ministers has reinforced the point I made comparing him to other authoritarians in recent European history.

Erdogan praised "his police" as "heroes"(see link) for dealing with the harsh conditions while dealing with protests. This is a hideous contortion of the truth for two reasons: not only were the police tactics absolutely brutal at times and inexcusably disproportionate; Erdogan's "heroes" were forced to work without breaks even for food, sometimes for days - surely with Erdogan's knowledge. There are two possible reasons for this: either Erdogan and his allies knew that the police were loyal to man, and could push the police to the limits; or second, and following from this, they also knew that ill-treated (and thus short-tempered) police would make a stronger "impression" on the protesters. Considered how appallingly cynical much of what has come out of Erdogan's mouth in the last few weeks, anything is possible.
In the meantime, the police's brutish behaviour is praised as heroic, while peaceful protest (and social media) is damned as akin to terrorism, and thus worthy of the strongest response possible. Thus language is used by the AKP (like Fascist regimes before) to create the opposite meaning.

It is clear that the police are effectively working as the AKP's foot-soldiers. Erdogan, as I said in my previous article, has followed in the footsteps of previous authoritarians. In order to control the country and prevent him from being kicked out in a coup, Erdogan needed to neuter the army. This was done through the "Ergenekon" scandal that erupted several years ago, which was then used to make a widespread overhaul of the pro-secular military top ranks, replacing them with Erdogan place-men. At the time this was done in the name of "democratising" the establishment from military interference, which gained Erdogan some Western plaudits.
In a similar manner (though in different circumstances), the "Night Of Long Knives" in 1934 was used by Hitler as a way to gain the trust of the army, who at the time were still loyal to President Hindenburg, and were seen as protectors of the constitution. The "Night Of Long Knives" was a wholesale destruction of the leadership and power of the SA (the main Nazi militia), who were seen as a threat to the army (and whom the SA's leader, Ernst Rohm, wanted to replace). Hitler claimed there was a threat of a coup by the SA, and used this as an opportunity to gain the eternal trust of the army and destroy the rival power-base of the SA.
Hitler used the threat of an SA coup to gain the trust (and control) of the army, and the respect of President Hindenburg for "saving the country" from the SA; in the same way, Erdogan used the "Ergenekon" scandal as a way to gain effective control of the army, and the respect of the West for appearing as a "democratic reformer".

Over the last few weeks, the rhetoric from the AKP has become increasingly intolerant of "Western morals", resorting to outright lies to create further polarisation and hatred of the protesters.
Erdogan, for instance, has continually stated as a bland fact the complete lie that protesters drank beer, and other disrespectful behaviour in Dolmabahce mosque, in Besiktas, Istanbul. The imam of the mosque itself has stated that no such behaviour happened; regardless, Erdogan continues to state this lie as truth; clearly continuing Hitler's maxim that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it is true.
Furthermore, Erdogan has said at a rally that headscarved women were being attacked; meanwhile, Turkey's Deputy PM, when seeing a woman standing in a bikini in Istanbul's central Taksim Square, stated he "could barely restrain himself", such was his anger. He then went on criticise the woman for thinking that "nudity is freedom", while seeming to completely misunderstand that "nudity" requires no clothes at all; the woman was simply wearing what any Western-minded woman would wear at a beach - she was not nude.

Using "facts" to fit into a moral agenda (such as in Erdogan's "National Will" rallies), is as old as the hills in the language of authoritarianism. Phrases such as Erdogan's use of the "national will" is redolent of Fascism; though he uses it with a supposed democratic connotation, its real meaning is much darker, implying that those against him are against the "national will" and thus unworthy of his supporters' respect. The use of religion gives an even further sense of righteousness, and less need for respecting the wishes of one's (infidel) inferiors. Violence thus lurks just barely beneath the surface, as the police (and zealous AKP supporters) have been keen to demonstrate.

Thus Erdogan's AKP and his supporters are fighting a "moral battle" against the forces of Western immorality, like the Fascist regimes of the past, and Putin's of the present.

But the earlier woman's "nudity" is another example of facts being besides the point when dealing with authoritarians. "Facts" are malleable with Fascists and authoritarians; the same with truth. The truth is whatever a Fascist is saying at the time. If it contradicts what he said before, then his previous contradiction becomes "disinformation" or a "wicked distortion", as Erdogan has seen saying repeatedly of the Western media.
The Western media are the new target of Erdogan and his AKP. In behaviour that would have seemed unthinkable before, the Turkish government is fighting a war of words with Germany, the UK (over historic allegations of phone-tapping), the EU in general, and also the USA. Such a sudden backlash by another European country has not been seen in Europe since perhaps the Second World War. Serbia had its fair share of attacking Western media in the recent past, but Turkey is probably the only major European country to have resorted to such vehement rhetoric and propaganda against the foreign press in living memory. The fact that Turkey is now at the strongest position it has been in compared to other powers since before the Second World War, is also another unprecedented development.

Where does Erdogan intend to take this? His foreign policy has been described as "Neo-Ottomanism". Like how Mussolini was intent on restoring the ancient Roman Empire, Erdogan seems eager to recreate his own, "soft-power" version of a reconstituted Ottoman power across the region.
While Erdogan seems to have no desire for using the military directly, he has already done much of the hard work over the last ten years, making Turkey as the de facto power-broker and trade giant in the Middle East, and the bridge between the East and West. Though Erdogan appears to be doing his best to burn those bridges westward, he is reinforcing them to the East.
It seems when he looks to the Middle East and the way the Gulf States (not to mention Iran) have managed Capitalism with Islamic authoritarianism, Erdogan perhaps sees his future vision for Turkey. But Capitalism and authoritarianism (regardless of if religion is in the equation) is a recipe for Fascism.

Erdogan's behaviour all fits in with that of previous Fascist regimes, as I said in my previous article about Erdogan and authoritarianism. The only difference is in the detail.
Sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade. If the "spade" is Muslim, Christian, pagan or atheist, it makes no difference.

From Hitler and Mussolini to Putin and Erdogan: A short history of authoritarianism in modern Europe

Authoritarianism as an ideology has existed since time immemorial. In the twentieth century, the term became synonymous with Fascism amongst the left-wing, and with Communism amongst the right-wing. It has become the stick to beat your enemies on the other side of the political spectrum with.

The end of the Second World War was assumed as many to be the end of authoritarian government in Europe. After the tragedies brought upon Europe by Fascism, no-one thought it would ever happen again. The modern EU, and its precursor, the EEC, are attempts to stamp out its ideology; though the irony is that, by now, some in Europe (especially on the political right) see the modern EU as little more than an authoritarian super-state. Many people in Southern Europe see the EU's bureaucracy as ran from Brussels, but financed from Berlin. Whatever your point of view, authoritarianism never truly dies; it simply learns to adapt to the new rules, and morphs accordingly.

The ideology is simply about the concentration of power in the hands of the state, and an erosion of freedom, accountability, inclusion and democratic principles: in other words, tyranny.
Authoritarianism in Europe can be simply explained through the (male) personalities that have helped to define it.

After the First World War, Europe was economically weak. The European nation-states were broadly (if imperfectly) democratic, but wracked by political weakness after the legacy of the war. For many states, all it needed was a strongman with a vision, and a bit of good fortune and timing, and the house of cards could come collapsing down.

Mussolini

With the rise of Bolshevism in Russia, this was Europe's bogeyman at the time. All major countries were affected by civil and political strife because of this. Benito Mussolini in Italy was the first person in a major European country to strike a blow for authoritarianism, with his "Fascist" party.
Mussolini's "March on Rome" in 1922 was basically a coup d'etat against the elected government. At the same time traditionalist yet revolutionary, Mussolini's party appealed across class divides. As he was a charismatic speaker with a hypnotic personality (Hugo Chavez being a contemporary, if ideologically-opposed, comparison), he held on to power through force of will.

It is often forgotten now that Mussolini's early years in power involved coalitions of Fascists with other parties. His path to an authoritarian police state was a gradual one over several years.
He changed electoral law to raise the threshold for other parties to enter parliament, and increasing use of propaganda was used to discredit parties opposed to Mussolini's "reforms". After excluding more and more parties from parliament, by 1926, Italy was a one-party state; a strong personality cult around Mussolini was created, as well as youth organisations to add to the militant (violent) wing of the party, to intimidate any remaining opponents. Before long, anyone in state employment (such as teachers) had to adhere to "Fascist" principles, while the media became tightly controlled so that they were obliged to follow the government line. Although there was technically a "free press", in reality, all media outlets needed licences issued by the government, though this fact was not widely known to the public.
Under Mussolini, the Italian economy became an amalgam of socialist and capitalist ideas; on the the one hand providing subsidies and agricultural projects for farmers, while on the other destroying union power and encouraging "prestige projects", that gained Italy international economic credibility, as well as a fortune for those capitalists with links to the government.

For more about the "economics of Fascism", see here.

Hitler

While Mussolini was the yardstick for any aspiring authoritarians in Europe to follow, there were people like Hitler in Germany who wanted to take things even further. While Mussolini was learning the the ropes of government, in 1923, Hitler and his "Nazi" Party attempted a coup in Munich in 1923. This landed Hitler in a short term in prison, and while Germany's "Weimar" government was able to find a way through the same crisis years that had brought Mussolini to power in Italy, when the Great Depression hit in 1929, the mainstream parties of Germany suffered from a lack of credibility and vision.
By now Hitler had made the "Nazi" Party one of the biggest parties in the country, with its own militia, the SA. The SA had an ugly reputation, mostly for beating up Communists and Socialists. 1932 was the pivotal year, when the economic crisis and mass unemployment sent many voters to either the Nazis or the Communists. Political violence increased. President Hindenburg met with the then-Chancellor (equivalent to Prime Minister), von Papen, who represented the main moderate rightist party, after election in the autumn. Neither Von Papen nor Hindenburg liked Hitler, or took him too seriously, but at the same time took the rise of the Nazis as a worrying threat to Germany's stability. As the Nazis were the largest party, von Papen suggested offering the Chancellorship to Hitler, with von Papen as the vice; effectively there to keep Hitler under control, but allow Hitler to take the blame for any blunders, or so he thought.

But Hitler was no political novice, and was able to turn the tables on von Papen very quickly. The Reichstag fire in February 1933, shortly after Hitler assumed office, was used for Hitler to gain emergency powers. Von Papen was quickly sidelined, and for the next eighteen months, Hitler set about "Nazifying" the rest of Germany. Under the cloud of crisis, attacks on Jews increased, concentration camps for political opponents (and some Jews) were established, while the general air of menace increased. The Gestapo (secret police) were established, which massively increased the surveillance of the population. There was a move towards "co-ordination" encouraged by the Nazi government, which led to massive self-censorship, and encouraged a willingness to fall in behind the revolutionary air of Nazi Germany.
While all this was happening, however, the increasing role of the SA, and its leader, Ernst Rohm, was a source of political infighting amongst the Nazi hierarchy. Rohm wanted the SA to replace the regular German army, who were loyal to President Hindenburg. By the late spring of 1934, the political infighting and casual violence of the SA was of such concern to von Papen and Hindenburg, that Hindenburg was seriously considering a coup d'etat to have Hitler replaced. By now, Hitler was equally paranoid about Rohm and the SA's power, and in the "The Night Of Long Knives" later on that summer, had Rohm, other SA leaders and any perceived allies in the Nazi party, killed.
Hitler then spun this as a successful counter-attack against a Rohm-led coup d'etat, which earned the respect and gratitude of Hindenburg. Soon after, Hindenburg died, and Hitler abolished the title of "President", and made himself "Leader" as well as Chancellor of Germany. From this point on, there was no looking back.

Franco

Apart from Mussolini and Hitler, the most successful authoritarian leader in Europe was Franco in Spain. In simple longevity and endurance, Francoist Spain (whose Fascist ideology was called Falangism) long outlived Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Franco borrowed heavily from Mussolini and Hitler, but was much more like Mussolini in that his ambitions were mainly internal rather than external. Franco wanted a strong state; he was less interested in recapturing the colonies of the former Spanish Empire, as it was a practical impossibility.
In this sense, Franco's longevity could be down to learning from the "overstretch" that brought about Hitler's fall, and similarly, Mussolini's disastrous alliance with the Nazis. He emphasized Spain's Catholic heritage, as well as the Capitalist (and staunchly anti-Communist) side of Fascism, in its own Falangist style. Franco's emphasis on neutrality during the Second World War, and the fact that he was staunchly anti-Communist when the Cold War began, meant that Franco was left to his own devices, or seen as a friend of Capitalism to America and the West. This is what allowed Fascism to endure in Spain until Franco's death in 1975.

Putin

Authoritarianism in Russia is nothing new; in fact, Russia has hardly known any different. In that sense, comparing authoritarianism in Russia to that in Europe is a little unfair. That being said, I said earlier that authoritarianism is best seen through its leading personalities, as most authoritarian regimes need a strong leader in order keep them in power. In Vladimir Putin, postmodern Europe has its best exemplar of how to create and maintain an authoritarian state.
As a KGB man in the Soviet Union, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Putin initially retreated into anonymity. The Russian state in the 1990s resembled many of the qualities of "Weimar" Germany: a weak central state, an economy out of control, with a military of uncertain political loyalty. In another sense, though, it was worse. Corruption exploded, with the rise of the "oligarchs", who took advantage of the state's weakness by making newly privatised industries their own private fiefdoms. Putin entered into President Yeltsin's cabinet in 1997, where he quickly rose, becoming Prime Minister in 1999. By this time Yeltsin was seen as a political liability and incapable of effective (or even sober) leadership, leaving Putin ideally placed in the forthcoming presidential elections when Yeltsin resigned at the end of 1999.

Putin saw his role as recapturing the functions of the Russian state that had been allowed to fall away during Yeltsin's tenure; that even included actual territory, such as Chechnya, which had been effectively independent since 1991. Putin saw that Chechnya was brought back into the fold by whatever means necessary, in a brutal war that lasted through the winter of 1999-2000.
Under Putin, the oligarchs were brought under control of the state. Those that didn't abide by Putin's rules were either forced into line, imprisoned, or forced into exile. At the same time, other oligarchs that were Putin allies came into prominence to challenge the "old" oligarchs.
While the economy improved significantly under Putin's watch, the media came under unprecedented attack from the state. Some critical journalists were killed, while others were imprisoned. Meanwhile, the media in general was regulated tightly by the state. Opposition media outlets were allowed, but the impression seemed to be that they served a purely cosmetic function - even providing the government a useful scapegoat when necessary. It hardly needs to be mentioned that the legal system in Russia is tipped heavily in favour of the status quo.
The same can be said of opposition parties. Putin's party, "United Russia" have an overwhelming majority of seats in the parliament, with the opposing parties giving a fig-leaf of democracy. Election procedures are widely seen to be rigged. Meanwhile, like in previous authoritarian (Fascist) states, there is a widespread youth wing to Putin's party called "Our Russia"; these zealous teenagers have been known to vandalise and intimidate other "enemies of the state", while the police turn a blind eye. The same can be said of any hooligans who attack democracy campaigners, or social liberals.
The constitution has also been amended to suit Putin's wishes. The constitution allowed for only two consecutive presidential terms, so before he stepped down to swap places with Dmitri Medvedev, his Prime Minister, he boosted the powers of the PM at the expense of the President. Then, during his term as PM, the law was changed to increase Presidential terms from four to six years. As agreed with Medvedev, they swapped places once more in 2012, so that now Putin may potentially run for another two consecutive terms, but now for twelve years rather than eight. So Putin can be president until 2024.

Erdogan

I wrote last week about Erdogan's role in the Gezi Park protests, and when looking at his behaviour over the twelve years of his premiership, his behaviour more fits that of an authoritarian than a democrat. I compared him before to Britain's demagogue-like former-PM, Margaret Thatcher, but although she did largely reshape Britain in her own image, it was because of her economic ideas, and she did not tinker massively with the inner workings of the state, such as the judiciary, the military, media regulation and so on. Erdogan has, and that's what makes him less of a democrat and more of an autocrat. Yes, he has been working within the confines of a democratic system, he has also been reshaping that system to fit to his own wishes. Circumstances simply force him to player a longer and more cunning game. Mussolini did the same thing before; so did Hitler; so has Putin.
What makes Erdogan seem out-of-place compared to those above is the fact he is Muslim. But Franco was passionately Catholic, and used his faith too to explain much of what he did to Spain. Erdogan uses his faith to explain the need to make social reforms so that they, so he implies, more closely reflect the ideas of the devout majority. But this is not democracy; it is ochlocracy - rule of the mob, where a demagogue most feels at home. Authoritarianism uses the same techniques to stay in power; it is called "divide and rule".
While Erdogan says he is happy to abide by the democratic will, he has already moulded the political system to his benefit. The electoral system was altered to raise the threshold for parties to enter parliament, limiting number of parties in parliament.. He has also intimidated the media so that they dare not criticise him or face prison (Turkey has the highest numbers of journalists in prison in the world at the moment). Meanwhile, the judiciary have already been filled with Erdogan place-men, and the military, once a strong force in the background of Turkish politics, has been emptied of Erdogan critics so that it no longer can disrupt the political process (or replace any politician that oversteps the boundaries). He has hugely expanded the number of Islamic schools, using education as a tool being another common method of "spreading the word". Education (as a form of indoctrination) is one of the most valuable weapons in the authoritarian armoury.

Peaceful protest, like in Gezi Park is met by overwhelmingly disproportionate police force. Using the language of authoritarianism, peaceful protesters are seen as equivalent to terrorists, thus justifying brutal police behaviour. Like in Russia, now that Erdogan has the support of half of the population, the "other fifty per-cent" (the mostly secular, Western-minded opposition), are seen as a useful scapegoat for all Turkey's problems. They are the "roadblocks to reform".
Foreign conspirators are blamed for unrest; another common authoritarian (and fascist) scapegoat, blaming the Western media for spreading "disinformation" (i.e. the truth). For ten years Erdogan has courted Western attention, and has seen Turkey's economy grow massively as a result. Now that Turkey has grown self-sufficient, and paid off its debt to the IMF, Erdogan no longer needs to worry about Western opinion: they have served their purpose. Erdogan's careful nurturing of the Middle East and the Gulf States (as well as Russia and the Far East) in tandem with the West, has meant he can now safely ignore the West's haranguing and focus on the East, using the West and "Western immorality" instead as a useful scapegoat for any internal dissent. This follows the same path that his contemporary Putin followed (in initially flattering the West in his first few years in power, before using them as a scapegoat when Putin no longer needed Western investment). Previous authoritarian (Fascist) dictators made this approach typical.
Like Putin, Erdogan wants to become President, once he has altered the constitution to give him greater powers. The Gezi Park protests, now that the media, judiciary and military are under Erdogan's thumb, may be seen as a vehicle to advance his cause; an opportunity for him to destroy the secular half of the country through provocation, stoke up fears of violence from his opponents, then use the "emergency" to make a further, irreversible power-grab.
This is a standard method of gaining power by authoritarians; engineer a crisis, and seize the opportunity.

Authoritarianism never dies; it simply learns to adapt to the rules of the game.

Read here for more about Erdogan and his ministers' Orwellian use of language to achieve their aims.

Gezi Park and the Turkey Protests; Erdogan and the "Turkish model"

The so-called "Turkish model" has been said to have been the main inspiration for the "Arab Spring". Turkey's political model of marrying Islam within a democratic state was supposed to be the exemplar for the Arab world. In the space of a few days, that "exemplar"'s political model has been seriously shaken, if not shattered.

It's worth remembering on what basis Turkey's political system operates. Turkey was founded by Ataturk, who wanted to create a secular (non-religious) state out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. As Turkey was a Muslim country, this required an authoritarian government to bring about this social change, and a multi-party democratic system only came properly in practice years after Ataturk's death.
It was only after the Second World War that Turkey began to experience a functioning multi-party system, although this also included intermittent periods of military rule. Religion and politics were still kept well apart. Prior to the "breakthrough" of the AKP in 2002, there had only been one government by an openly-religious party: that of the "Refah" (welfare) Party in the mid-nineties, which was quickly removed after only a year in office for overstepping the lines between secularism and Political Islam.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamist AK Party "broke the mould" in 2002. After the mistakes made by the "Refah" Party in the nineties, Erdogan realised that to gain a real breakthrough, his party had to find a balancing act between adhering to secularism while still appealing to the views of the many Turks (perhaps as many as half) who were practising Muslims. This "balancing act" has paid-off at the ballot box, by keeping Erdogan in power for a third consecutive term, something unprecedented in contemporary Turkish politics.

But by "breaking the mould" of secular Turkish politics, Erdogan was also able to effectively re-cast a new one that would give him and his party an in-built advantage. As the AK Party was the only major party that was moderately religious, and whose standpoints were generally moderate, this meant the AK Party ruled the roost over a crowded field of secular parties. In other words, while the "Muslim vote" could well remain united behind the AK Party and Erdogan (as long as they appealed to them), the "secular vote" was effectively splintered - by leftist, centre and rightist parties.

This is a simplification, though, because in reality many secularists have also voted for the AK Party as they approved of their economic policies and tolerated the AK Party's (seemingly) mild Islamism. But over time, Erdogan has shown more overt signs of Islamism and authorianism, as well as an intolerance for criticism. In his first term, Erdogan seemed eager to look as harmless as possible, but over time it seems his true nature underneath gradually began to appear. Laws began to appear to remove some of the "secular restrictions" on freedom of religious expression (such as wearing headscarves in public buildings); this then turned to restrictions on freedom of speech and a covert censoring of the press. Journalists became covertly harassed and some jailed. The military were also "reformed" so they were more acceptable to Erdogan's liking. Abdullah Gul, Erdogan's former foreign minister, became President. And then there were also the more obvious signs of "creeping Islamisation": the government making laws to restrict certain types of public behaviour and more conservative social policy, and finally the laws to restrict the sale of alcohol. Which leads us to Gezi Park.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it was the brutality of the police response to a peaceful "sit-in" by environmentalists in a small leafy park in the middle of Istanbul's modern centre (next to the city's main square) that what provoked the mass response.
It would be a simplification to say that the protests are by the "other fifty percent" who are secularists rather than Islamists, but this is still largely true. While there are some devout Muslims who are showing solidarity with the movement, the majority of demonstrators are secularists who want to preserve Turkey's founding values, and also see Erdogan personally as a natural authoritarian who has eroded the rights of Turks during his time in office. A third issue is the anti-Capitalism platform, who see Erdogan and the AK Party as shameless capitalists who have made great strides with Turkey's economy, but at the expense of civic and environmental issues.
So in this way, the "Gezi Park" demonstrators are pro-secular, anti-authoritarian and anti-Capitalist. Or more exactly, their supporters may come from a wide spectrum of political beliefs (from anarchists and communists, to right-wing nationalists, including gay rights and environmental campaigners), but they are united in their acceptance of each other. If there is one thing they all agree on, they would agree that they stand for freedom of expression and respecting each other and the shared environment. They see Erdogan as embodying the opposite.

The protests have been compared to the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement, but it would be more accurate to say that the protesters have simply learned from both these past experiences, and applied a strategy and tactics to suit the situation. The widespread nature of the demonstrations, still ongoing in different cities across the country after a week (with no signs of disappearing), is evocative of Tahrir Square and Egypt two years ago, but Turkey is not a dictatorship, and its Muslim population do not feel under-represented.

The protests seem to have a life of their own. There are no leaders. The group of demonstrators are so disparate that it might seem hard to understand what keeps them from arguing amongst each other (as they had been for the last ten years), but as I said, it seems to be the bigger picture - their dislike of Erdogan and the aggressive police - that unites them.
The spirit of "Gezi Park" is that of live-and-let-live, or so it seems. Since the police left Gezi Park and Taksim on Saturday (1 June), barricades were constructed on all the roads leading up from Besiktas (where the police retreated to), leaving Gezi Park and Taksim Square as a virtual "police-free" state. Since then, a self-contained (if crowded!) community has established itself in the park and environs, right in the middle of the city centre; complete with shops, a library, art open-air art galleries, as well as tents. To all intents and purposes, like Christiania in Copenhagen, this looks like the spontaneous creation of a community of free-will and free speech: where people care for each and respect each other, without the need for laws or police (or money) to control them. The difference is that the Gezi Park community is overtly a political forum as well as a place of freedom of expression and behaviour.

In some ways the protests are also reminiscent of the Poll Tax riots against Margaret Thatcher in her last years in office, who - like Erdogan - was a populist demagogue in many ways, using divide-and-rule tactics to run the country, and became more and arrogant, dictatorial and aggressive as time went on. She was finally ousted by her own party. Some claim that she was a psychopath; many populist demagogues are.

Erdogan's style of rule therefore has more parallels with that of Thatcher's in the UK than Mubarak in Egypt. But since then the nature of protest has changed and matured, become more inventive and dynamic. People like Erdogan are left to feel like political dinosaurs of a different age when events suddenly are changed by a new dynamic. Like Thatcher, who was forced from power without really understanding why it happened, Erdogan refuses to see the need to adapt, as he has never needed to before, and would consider it a humiliation to do so.

His populist and divisive tactics may well finally work against him now.