Populist opposition

As various polls have shown, Turkish society remains profoundly divided. Some Turks feel that the current turmoil, which involves the army and now the judiciary, is taking away some of their certainties, leaving them uncertain about the future. The policy changes on the Kurdish issue or on ties with Armenia, for instance, have been so rapid and profound that, inevitably, public opinion will need time to adjust to a different way of thinking.

It will also take some time for the outside world to take stock of recent developments in Turkey. Columnists like David Shenker, whose recent column in The Wall Street Journal warned that Turkey was drifting away from the Western orbit, clearly view events in this region through a narrow prism. But I was also asked to explain what was going by several open-minded American friends who found the situation confusing and were somewhat puzzled. The polarization reflected through the media further muddles the issues.

Polarization, of course, is not new in Turkey, nor is it limited to Turkey. Americans are perhaps best placed to understand that the society is divided and radically different views of government coexist, because polarization is also a major feature of American life these days.

In the past couple of weeks, I had the opportunity to talk to several prominent civil society activists, journalists and academics in the United States. US society was deeply polarized under George Bush, but it appears to be even more so under Barack Obama.

As the current administration attempts to reform the healthcare system and ensure that all Americans have access to medical treatment, the attitude of the opposition, whether it is the actual Republican Party or its supporters within the media, has been every bit as challenging and inflexible as that of the Turkish opposition parties.

At a recent demonstration on Capitol Hill, demonstrators were waving placards comparing Obama to Hitler. While its own supporters deplore that President Obama is a lot more timid than the candidate they had voted for, its opponents on the other hand manage to accuse him at the same time of being a Nazi and a communist.

Right-wing Americans seem to believe that universal healthcare, common throughout Europe, would mean death for little old ladies and for the American way of life. Their extreme views have forced the administration to lower the bar and introduce a much more diluted version of the initial reform.

Aside from media outlets that are clearly partisans, many mainstream publications choose, for the sake of journalistic fairness, to give as much airtime to blatant lies, including cooky notions that under a public healthcare system death panels would decide who lives or dies, than to rational arguments and empirical evidence.