Can corruption converge with religion? This is a question asked in dumbfounded tones by many ordinary Turks as they watch their president on the campaign trail at home and abroad for the ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP). Not only is he violating the constitutional provision that a president must remain non-partisan, there he is holding the Quran a Kurdish translation this time and claiming in pious tones how he was raised in the embrace of this Holy Book, after which he recites a few Quranic verses. He is addressing the Popular League in Munich. Oddly, thousands of audience members and television spectators harbour doubts; they think his piety is affected. Former Minister of Culture Fikri Saglar, who is fielding himself as a Republican People's Party (RPP) candidate for the Mediterranean city of Mersin in the upcoming parliamentary elections, is one such sceptic. In fact, he doubts that the president is a Muslim at all. The reasons he cites for this are many: the abuses of power and embezzlement of public moneys under his premiership, the indulgent blind eye given to cronies involved in cases of nepotism and bribery, and now the exploitation of Islam to promote himself and his party. Saglar added: “A person raised on the Quran should not incite Muslims against his brother Muslims and should not inflame sectarian and ethnic hatred and strife.” Such criticisms are not about to divert Erdogan from his tours and speechifying. In fact, he takes them as occasion to reach into his quiver of religious rhetoric and take pot shots at his critics for “making war against what God has revealed from the seventh heaven to his Prophet Mohamed, may peace be upon Him.” They are all supporters of Fethullah Gülen, he declares, referring to the Islamic preacher who was his erstwhile companion and mentor and is now his nemesis. Then with a sarcastic smirk, he charges that the pro-Kurdish Democratic People's Party (DPP) has vowed to abolish the Bureau of Religious Affairs and that the RPP will close down the schools for imams and preachers. Hold on a minute! Is this not the accuser here, the same Erdogan who had just asked Albanian authorities to close down Turkish schools in Albania during his recent visit there? He charged that these schools were opened by a “terrorist movement” that is “spreading poison”, referring to Gülen's faith-based Hizmet Movement. But was it not Erdogan, in person, who inaugurated the Turgut Özal College's elementary school in Tirana in 2005, when he was prime minister? Evidently this slipped his mind, as did the fact that former President Abdullah Gül and Speaker of Parliament Cemil Çiçek visited this school at Erdogan's personal request. But now Erdogan wants to shut down this and other schools in Albania as well. Not surprisingly, this intervention stirred angry reactions in Tirana. One came from Ilir Kulla, who had served as advisor to the Albanian president from 2007 to 2010. Albania is a country that respects the law, he said, and the schools in question pay their taxes and provide education in line with Albanian law. “We have no reason to close those schools.” The wonders that Erdogan comes up with never cease. The faithful are to be blessed with lives of immeasurable comfort and prosperity, he pledges just around the time when the Ministry of Family and Social Planning noted in a report that some 30 million Turkish citizens are recipients of food aid. Against the backdrop of such widespread poverty, Zühal Topçu, deputy chairperson of the National Movement Party (NMP), could not help but point to the elegant armoured vehicle used by Mehmet Gormez, director of the Turkish Institute for Religious Affairs. The vehicle, worth about a million Turkish liras ($400,000), stirred such an outcry that Gormez felt compelled to announce that he would hand it in and use an ordinary car to serve as an example for others. He had been granted the luxury car by Erdogan at the time when Erdogan was prime minister. Erdogan, now president, refused to accept Gormez's offer. “May Mehmet Gormez forgive me, but an elegant car of that sort is appropriate to his office,” said Erdogan. If they are so determined to squander public funds, they should go ahead and build a specially designed Jacuzzi room for the head of religious affairs, a political activist remarked sarcastically. Addressing the ruling officials in Turkey, she added: “You could manifest your power through the exercise of justice instead of through luxury palaces and fancy planes or the millions of dollars in those shoeboxes that everyone has seen.” Perhaps ultimately Erdogan has no other choice but to turn to faith as his last resort to save his ambitions from his political adversaries. For the moment, however, he clearly sees it as the handiest tool to drum up support for the JDP and to use against its opponents in the crucial legislative elections scheduled for 7 June. After all, the public now knows by heart all his “accomplishments” which he has decided to re-inaugurate, yet again, in the run up to the polls. Moreover, some of these have proven to be not as magnificent as marketed. The high-speed train could theoretically soar between Ankara and Istanbul in three hours, were it not for breakdowns along the way. Then there is the problem that it does not go all the way to Haydarpasa Station, on the Asian shore of Istanbul, forcing passengers to scurry with their luggage to another form of transport in order to reach their destination. Meanwhile, growing segments of Turkish opinion are becoming increasingly anxious over the state of mind of their president. For a time he was heralding a rebirth of Ottoman grandeur with himself as Padishah. Now he dons the turban of a pious sheikh. Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the NMP, Turkey's second largest opposition party, lashed out against Erdogan's pretences. The president who is seeking to change the system of government into a presidential one has no compunction about using the Quran and the religious symbols that all Turkish people respect in electoral politics. “The Turks have always lived with the lover for the Holy Quran. They have breathed it throughout the long ages of their history. He should go wave the Quran in the faces of the enemies of Islam. What he is doing reeks of hypocrisy.” Bahçeli, both an ardent nationalist and a conservative Islamist, added in his recent meetings with the public in Sparta and Burdur in southwest Turkey: “Erdogan is trading in religion. The latter is innocent of him. Was the Quran revealed for him to use for his political aims? What does one make of such insolence? What right does he have to exploit the Book of God Almighty to achieve his illicit ends? How will Erdogan repent for these sins in both this world and the next?”
