Turkey’s warring personality cults
In the absence of well-grounded institutions, politics in Turkey often devolves into a battle of personalities, as we see now between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen.
On Feb. 26, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrated his 60th birthday. On Twitter, though, some of Erdogan’s devoted supporters gave an additional meaning to this important date. Their hashtag went viral in just a couple of hours: #milletindogumgunu, which literally means “the birthday of the nation.”
In other words, according to these people, Erdogan is the embodiment of his whole nation.
