Our two nations can feel solidarity in how our revolutions turned into authoritarianism. Is there hope for us? Of course“A true patriot of her country and Europe.” This is how I was described during the Ambassador of New Europe award ceremony speech at the European Solidarity Centre in Gdańsk, Poland. My book, Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy (Turcja: Obłęd i Melancholia), was why I was there. It is partly a personal account of the rising authoritarianism that has downgraded people like me to being second-class citizens in our own countries. That is why those words were so meaningful to me: a balm only familiar to those who have felt that warm sting of copper wire through their chest when described as traitors in their own country.The European Solidarity Centre is in the old docks where an electrician called Lech Wałęsa became a Nobel peace prize-winning political leader (before going on to become Polish president). Wałęsa changed his country from being an iron curtain nation to a land of freedom – before the neoliberal system took over. The permanent exhibition – it is probably the best political history museum in Europe – tells the long story of this dramatic historical shift where you can reminisce about how a revolution started, and ended in a rather unfortunate way. Continue reading…

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/31/turkey-poland-rightwing-populism