ISTANBUL // A week of unprecedented anti-government demonstrations has changed Turkish politics, creating a new generation of political activists and challenging Recep Tayyip Erdogan's tight grip on domestic policy.
Analysts expect the protests to have profound consequences for the way political decisions are taken and discussed in the future.
"A new baby has been born," Koray Ozdil, a sociologist at the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (Tesev) in Istanbul, told The National yesterday. "There is a new social movement that will establish its own identity."
Thousands of demonstrators have been occupying the Gezi Park in downtown Istanbul for a week to block a government building project there.
A heavy-handed response from police on May 31 against protesters trying to save trees in the park mushroomed into the fiercest wave of unrest since Mr Erdogan came to power 10 years ago.
Three people have died and thousands have been injured in demonstrations that spread across the country against what many see as the increasing authoritarianism of the Erdogan government.
After days of talking tough and dismissing demonstrators as "vandals", Mr Erdogan appeared to change tack on Friday, calling on activists to work with him to protect trees.
"If you want to build a partnership for the environment, come and build it with your prime minister," he said in a televised speech at a meeting with EU officials in Istanbul.
Addressing environmentalists among the demonstrators as "my brothers", he assured them that the government was not planning to build a shopping mall in Gezi Park, a major concern of the protesters.
The Istanbul Stock Exchange, which fell by 6 per cent on Thursday after hawkish remarks by Mr Erdogan, closed up more than 3 per cent following the prime minister's statement on Friday that was seen as the first indication of a more conciliatory stance by the prime minister. Mr Erdogan met members of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) yesterday to discuss the protests.
Mr Ozdil said the current political landscape in Turkey was not equipped to respond to demands brought forward by a movement that was independent of political parties.
While it is unlikely that the movement will coalesce into a unified organisation, it represents a new reality for Turkey, he said. In the longer term, the protests could form the basis of an increased campaign for civil liberties.
"No political actor can act without taking the impact of this group into account," Mr Ozdil said. "The government has to be more sensitive to the demands of this group seeking and protecting its civil rights - at least try not to use a political discourse that would alienate them."
With almost 50 per cent of the vote in the last general elections in 2011, Mr Erdogan's AKP is the dominant political force in Turkey and has nothing to fear from a weak and divided opposition.
Mensur Akgun, a political scientist at Istanbul's Kultur University, thinks that Mr Erdogan could now be facing stronger headwinds from protesters outside parliament.
"Many things in Turkish politics will not be the same after this crisis," he said on Twitter yesterday.
Writing in yesterday's Star newspaper, Mr Akgun predicted that politicians would have to take views and demands expressed by civil society much more seriously in future.
"Civil protests have become an integral part of politics," he wrote, adding that politicians ignored this "new sociological reality" at their peril.
Mr Ozdil said one possible outcome was that Mr Erdogan's government could scale down its ambitious programme of urban transformation that has turned parts of Istanbul into huge construction sites.
A poll conducted by Istanbul's Bilgi University showed that roughly two out of three protesters in Gezi Park were between 19 and 30 years old. More than half of them said this was the first time they took part in a protest.
Strolling through Gezi Park, Savas Halvasi, 50, a tourism manager who supports the protests, said the unrest was an introduction to politics for many of the young demonstrators.
"Before this, many had nothing to do with politics," he said. "Now they are all politicised. That is a gain for Turkey."
Nilufer Gole, a Turkish sociologist teaching in France, compared the Turkish protest movement to the student unrest in France in 1968, which was directed against the government of Charles de Gaulle.
"Like the '68 movement, the Gezi Park movement is an unrest movement that says 'enough' to a 10-year government that is centralising power in one person," she wrote in a blog for the Turkish internet news portal T24.
"The Gezi movement has shown that we have reached a new threshold in democracy," she wrote. "A new [definition of] citizenship is being tried out."
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Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Washmen Profile
Date Started: May 2015
Founders: Rami Shaar and Jad Halaoui
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Laundry
Employees: 170
Funding: about $8m
Funders: Addventure, B&Y Partners, Clara Ventures, Cedar Mundi Partners, Henkel Ventures
Tuesday's fixtures
Kyrgyzstan v Qatar, 5.45pm
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
WWE Evolution results
- Trish Stratus and Lita beat Alicia Fox and Mickie James in a tag match
- Nia Jax won a battle royal, eliminating Ember Moon last to win
- Toni Storm beat Io Shirai to win the Mae Young Classic
- Natalya, Sasha Banks and Bayley beat The Riott Squad in a six-woman tag match
- Shayna Baszler won the NXT Women’s title by defeating Kairi Sane
- Becky Lynch retained the SmackDown Women’s Championship against Charlotte Flair in a Last Woman Standing match
- Ronda Rousey retained the Raw Women’s title by beating Nikki Bella
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Terminator: Dark Fate
Director: Tim Miller
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis
Rating: 3/5
Company%20Profile
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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