Democracy

I met the Head of the Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation (TÜRKONFED) Tarkan Kadooğlu. 

TÜRKONFED is publishing striking research in recent years and I follow all of it with great interest.

They presented their last report last week, in Izmir—"City-region: New dynamics in local development: From cities of Turkey to a Turkey of cities."

President Prokopis Pavlopoulos on Monday visited the site of the former military police (EAT-ESA) headquarters at Eleftherias Park in Athens, where hundreds of people were tortured during the seven-year dictatorship, to mark the 43rd anniversary of the junta's fall and the restoration of democracy in Greece.

Plans to change the laws that govern the way trade unions operate - as outlined in a letter of intent sent this week by the government to the International Monetary Fund in order to persuade it to join the Greek bailout program - will, arguably, be a very positive development for the country.

In a democratic country, opposition counts. Democratic systems function with checks and balances. They also rely on transparency, accountability and responsibility. In parliamentary democracies, the legislative body is the reassurance of checks and balances.

Ancient Greece is considered to be the crucible of western civilisation. With the invention of the earliest form of democracy, the adoption of philosophy, theatre and the arts their contribution to what we take for granted today can not be underestimated. But they also did some things no so widely known things that we might see as pretty crazy from modern-day standards.

There used to be two states, two democracies that one could always trust: the United States and Britain. In the eyes of Greece, a country locked somewhere between Western Europe, the Balkans and the Middle East, these two democracies carried particular significance.

The Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD), one of the leading business organizations in the country, has raised concerns about freedoms in the country following the arrest of main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Enis Berberoğlu.

When I read that Zeynep Dinçer and Sibel Balkaya from the Gökyazı village of the eastern province of Muş achieved the highest scores in a nationwide high school admission examination, I remembered a debate that happened a few years ago, where a woman asked: "Can the votes of a professor and a shepherd be the same?" 

The referendum results provided hope, but for nothing! Despite all the political pressure, the close race in the votes represented a great success in the name of democratic dissent, but it was a success in vain! The high score of the "no" votes in spite of all the odds feels good, but only as good as the last breath before death. 

Anniversaries are an opportunity for many things - and nothing at the same time. They can sometimes cause us anxiety, but also make us revisit and reevaluate situations.

What do freedom and tyranny mean? How does authoritarianism pose as democracy? And how does democracy stoop to autocracy?