Imagining The Future Of Turkey

It is post-election blues time for those valuing Turkey's democracy. Now, the country has switched to the full-fledged presidential system and even those who have devised it have no idea how things will really be when this system is being implemented. 

Elif Shafak, one of the most well-known authors of Turkey both within the country and abroad, reflects on the future of Turkey, jumping ahead to 2025. It is actually really tempting to fast forward time and bypass the coming years which will be like a laboratory test for Turkey's population.

Shafak first starts imagining in a very dreamy way, affirming the "liquidity" of her motherland. But then, she quickly turns realistic and her dream of the future turns dystopian.

What she foresees for Turkey is quite grim:

In the year 2025, these clashes will become much more visible and urgent: between religion and secularism, tribalism and globalism, nationalism and humanism, those who want to monopolize power and never let go and those who believe in pluralistic democracy. The inequalities of class, education, gender and ethnicity will matter even more — and the gaps will widen. While the nation’s young population keeps growing so will youth unemployment and youth disillusionment.

If Turkey is as "liquid" as she first describes it in the beginning of her article, isn't a surprise "happy transformation to democracy" possible?

She longs for such a change, but her pessimism is rooted with a rather deterministic view of time:

Sometimes what we call “the future” can be eerily similar to “the past.” Time does not move in a linear order, it draws circles. Listen to the sound of water under the mega city of Istanbul — moving, searching, longing, not yet sure which way to flow. All I know is that as I write this piece I am longing for democracy to arrive to my motherland.

Time will show what is ahead for Turkey; or what awaits in 2025. Even the next year is difficult to predict when there is such grand systemic transformation under way.