Hungarian Review July 2013 [antikvár]

MAKING VOTERS COUNT Editorial Note by John O'Sullivan In the relatively brief interval since our last issue, there have been riots and disturbances of a more or less political kind in Turkey, Brazil and Egypt. These riots are separated by periods of three years or less from similar outbursts of popular discontent in London and Manchester, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, and Egypt again. And smaller or at least less noticed disturbances have taken place elsewhere - in France, in Greece, in Sweden. Three years ago these events were seen as a localised or culturally distinct phenomenon: the Arab/Islamic Spring. They were also viewed through a certain lens as strivings towards more accountable government. That explanation served in effect as a justification: oppressed peoples rightly seeking to be democratic as the 19th century British statesman, W. E. Gladstone might have described them. So what are we to make of the three most recent disturbances in countries that are undeniably, if imperfectly, democratic by the clearest test: elections following which power changed hands. Doubtless each national case is different. Nor do we know how any of them will turn out. At the time of writing a coup is taking place in Cairo; it might yet become a civil war. In addition to examining the particulars, however, we should surely ask whether or not there is some general phenomenon taking place before our eyes: a multicultural imitation of the 1848 or 1919 revolutions perhaps. Professor liter Turan's dispassionate and precise dissection of the events in Istanbul seems to raise that possibility, especially when his analysis is set alongside reports of the Brazilian riots. After pointing out that the demonstrators in Gezi Park were drawn from different religious and social groups, but that they were generally civic-minded, mutually respectful and mutually protective, he hazards the theory that a new political animal is emerging in Turkish life: "the socially engaged individual citizen who expects a government to be open to regular communications with citizens, more responsive to citizen preferences, and more respectful of the individual's privacy. Expressed differently, they want more refined democratic governance: limited not interventionist, pluralistic not monistic, inclusionary not exclusionary". MAKING VOTERS COUNT