In her new book, award-winning Turkish novelist and political commentator Ece Temelkuran lays out the seven steps from democracy to dictatorship. “Some of these steps might be invisible to people even when they are living in it,” she says, “so I wanted to make sure that people of the world, especially Western societies, can see what is happening to them so they won’t lose time like we did in Turkey. I hope they won’t end up losing their country as we did.”
Excerpt from the interview. Link to audio of the full conversation below.
The book is “How To Lose a Country: The Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship” by: Ece Temelkuran
They first of all terrorize the narrative, the social sphere, by saying “We represent real people.” Then they ask for respect, and when they gain respect and when they sit at the table of conventional politics, they start elbowing out the other actors of the political sphere until they are the only ones sitting at the table. They keep terrorizing basic human reasoning and the political consensuses.
Another thing that separates right-wing populism from fascism is that it happens in such an “entertaining” way, so to speak. You don’t recognize that there are authoritarian aspects in right-wing populist regimes. When I say “entertaining,” I think American people will recognize what I mean by looking at how much Americans laugh at Trump.
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“The sixth one is design your own citizen. This common pattern of right-wing populism is especially important for women because every right-wing populist leader starts designing its own ideal citizens by meddling with women, by messing with women. Nowadays it’s happening in the United States by abandoning abortion rights. It’s incredible. It’s so backward, but it’s not only the United States. Even in Germany, where women’s rights are so advanced, German woman are all of a sudden dealing with this situation as well. They’re trying to get back their abortion rights and so on. In Poland and in Hungary it’s happening the same way. It happened in Turkey 10 years ago.
They design women, and they think that designing women is easier than men, so they attack women first. That’s why women in all these countries that are subject to right-wing populism are the first ones to respond, to react.
It’s not a coincidence that we see all these women out on the streets when right-wing populist leaders take the stage. It’s like that in Britain, in Turkey, in Hungary, and in United States. It was the first day of Mr. Trump’s presidency that women took to the streets, which was amazing, and which gave an amazing motivation—
The seventh common pattern is designing your own country, which means the last step starts with people feeling, This is not my country anymore. It’s not the country I know. It’s changing. The ground is shifting. I am standing where I stood always, but somehow the world around me is changing.
The very end, which I hope doesn’t happen in this country or in the European countries, is criminalizing the opposition, stigmatizing them, and finally making them feel completely insecure and under attack so that they really literally leave the country.”
How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship. by Ece Temelkuran
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