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by Pia Seidel
«How to Lose A Country...» review: a warning from exile
29.4.2020
Translation: Jessica Johnson-Ferguson
In her book «How to Lose A Country – The Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship» Ece Temelkuran describes the gradual decline of her country and of democracy. It’s a 280-page attempt to spare others the same fate.
When my country is no longer my country. In her very personal book, the journalist, author, lawyer and lecturer is warning us all of the dangers of populism and uncritical thinking. She describes the decline of her country and its democracy and tries to save others from going down the same route.
Ece Temelkuran reminds us that dictatorship creeps in quietly, undermining democracy in small steps. The journalist in voluntary exile experienced this first hand. Ece Temelkuran says her country has been lost since the rise of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
She describes the decline of her country in the book «How to Lose a Country – The Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship». The 280-page book is part autobiography, part witty observation of global events. Temelkuran’s aim is to save us from losing our countries.
For unaffected readers in safe Switzerland, Ece Temelkuran’s book is, above all, great reading material.
The warning
Ece Temelkuran, the Turkish journalist, author, lawyer and lecturer, lives in exile. She’s a thorn in the side of Erdoğan’s regime and has been glancing at her former home through the window of her exile on a Greek island.
She sees a lost home and a world that’s threatening to lose itself. She looks at the US, where President Donald Trump has made populism acceptable again; at England, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson is preaching panic reactions and isolationism; at Germany, where the right-wing extremist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) is gaining social acceptance; at Poland, where sexism and chauvinism are going hand in hand with right-wing views.
And having long been a critic of Erdoğan's regime, as dawn breaks it becomes Kristall-clear that there won't be a place for people like me in this new democracy.
Using the play on words Kristall-clear, Temelkuran compares her situation to the Kristallnacht. In the night from 9 to 10 November 1938, 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps, 267 synagogues were destructed and over 7,000 shops destroyed. The German government legitimised Kristallnacht by letting it happen. Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, takes its name from the broken synagogue and shop windows that covered the streets and glittered in the moonlight in the early morning of November 10th.
Ece Temelkuran's incorruptibility, her determination to remain unintimidated and her anti-Erdoğan attitude made her a persona non grata in Turkey.
The media, ignorance, uncritical thinking and fear are used as pawns by the world's political leaders. Disrespect is part of daily business. Temelkuran compares politics to cage fighting.
Source: pxhere.com
The key figures in the decline of a democracy are those Temelkuran refers to as «real people». Those who swallow everything coughed up by politicians, influencers, demagogues and idealists. But these real people also have the power to save a democracy and make it flourish. All they need to do is be critical.
It was their country now. They were taking it back from the elite, while Trump was busy saying: They call themselves elites. We are the elites. We are the super elites! The real people, who had become the super elites, within the space of a year, were all for separating children from their parents in order to make America great again,...
When the US started to separate children from their parents in 2018, the real people felt no shame. They had lost their shame.
The real people listen to individuals like Katie Hopkins, a right-wing populist columnist who wants to see refugees and migrants dead or back in their own country.
NO, I don't care. Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in water, play violins and show me skinny people looking sad. I still don't care.
Ece Temelkuran is cynical when she quotes US President Donald Trump, who became famous in the reality television series The Apprentice. He hasn’t forgotten the iconic phrase «You’re fired» in his job as president.
Cruel has become cool.
The book is not a guide on how we real people can prevent populism, but it challenges us to look up from our smartphones and take politics seriously again.
Kristall clear
«How to Lose a Country – The Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship» moves between being an anecdote, a commentary and an analysis. The book contains both historical and literary evidence as well as personal stories. As a reader, you suffer alongside Temelkuran. It puts you right in the middle of the action – of both Ece’s personal story as well as global history – and makes you feel her loss.
Ece Temelkuran manages to shake you up, make you angry. Why does the world, or The Sun give somebody like Katie Hopkins a platform in the first place? How do people like Donald Trump become political leaders? With a tremendous amount of sadness, Ece Temelkuran plausibly explains that democracy can be lost anywhere. She describes the betrayal of your personal ideals of democracy and how this can happen in full view of everyone.
«How to lose a country...» is an important book, perhaps even the most important publication in recent years. It’s a warning that readers in Switzerland should also take seriously. The author demands cooperation. She doesn’t politicise. She explains her point of view with facts and a touch of emotion when it comes to her own story.
From a reader’s perspective, it all becomes Kristall clear in the end.
Stephanie Tresch
Video Producer
stephanie.tresch@digitecgalaxus.chMy world moves in 25 frames per second. As a journalist, I report – not because I can, but because I can’t help myself. After all, the world is full of stories that are waiting to be told. Adventures don't wait. From national to international news, hand me a camera and a mic and I've got it covered.
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