On Aug. 6, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of Turkey's main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), appeared on a mainstream TV channel for an interview. This alone is newsworthy, as it is rare to see any politician other than presidential candidate and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on mainstream TV in Turkey. One of Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse columnists, Amberin Zaman, was among the journalists interviewing Kilicdaroglu.
Kilicdaroglu, explaining how convincing the arguments of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) have become, said: “The AKP voter base accepts whatever Erdogan tells them as the absolute truth.” At that point, Zaman asked, “Is it not to be expected from a Muslim majority country, where Islam puts the community, not the individual, at the center, and the education system does not encourage critical thinking?” The interview continued as Zaman and Kilicdaroglu went on to explain how propaganda is more effective on the masses when there is limited access to information and critical thinking is not supported.