Telling the story of Turkey to foreigners who have no knowledge of the country is becoming a true challenge, especially for those critical of the policies of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, for it risks portraying the country in an absolutely negative light. That would present an unfair image of Turkey, doing injustice to all the accomplishments that make it unique in its immediate neighborhood. Moreover, despite its downward economic outlook and the growing concerns over its current account deficit, Turkey’s economy has been doing relatively well since 2008, when the international markets were swept by monetary crisis. In this light, Turkey’s positive economic trend has had a direct impact on the betterment of the infrastructure in all the provinces, cities across the nation. It’s a direct plus adding to the growth of the country.

While acknowledging all that, one also may ask why some 1,890,615 people visited Anitkabir — the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founding father of modern-day Turkey — on Nov. 10, marking the 75th anniversary of his death. This number of people paying their respects at Anitkabir set a record. When the country was hit by its worst economic crisis in February 2001, for example, Turks did not rally in great numbers around this kind of symbolically important site to protest the government’s bad management, but they have been taking to the streets since the day Abdullah Gul was appointed by the Turkish parliament in 2007 to the presidency or, more recently, during the Gezi Park protests in June 2013. The question is, then, why there is such unrest and discontent in this society, if its democracy is being strengthened and its economy is flourishing? Why do the people feel the need to make such a statement by showing up in massive numbers at Anitkabir?

“It is purely an expression of people’s stand against [the Justice and Development Party] AKP. It is not only about the opposition to established political schools,” Tanil Bora, a researcher and an author, told the Radikal daily on Nov. 13. “People are trying to express their dismay to the AKP and the prime minister concerning their arrogant, authoritative and fascist way of ruling the country and gather around Ataturk to reflect this kind of opposition because he is a legitimate symbol for people to rally around.” 

The reaction is also about the lack of clarity about what the Erdogan government really wants to achieve. Since the AKP came to power in November 2002, Erdogan has brought to the fore all the troubling pages of history in this republic’s life. He called the traumatic events of Dersim in 1937, when the state used massive force to put down a Kurdish rebellion, “genocide” and noted that Ataturk’s adopted daughter Sabiha Gokcen joined the operation as a fighter pilot, dropping bombs onto Dersim. Erdogan also likes to talk about the 1960 military coup as the source of all troubles in the country’s political life, which ended with then-Prime Minister Adnan Menderes’ execution. Then there are attempts to impose certain Islamic conservative values on the nation, such as Erdogan’s recent kerfuffle that boys and girls should not have coed accommodation — as if there were any mixed public dormitories in Turkey. The point is, though, people are confused about whether Erdogan is challenging or trying to avenge the 1923 revolution or the military coups. Which is it?