Burak Uçar is just 18 years old, with curly hair, a fine mustache, a ring adorned with a nationalist symbol and the tired legs of someone who has been standing for more than four hours. In Istanbul on this weekend of Eid-el-Fitr, the Muslim festival marking the breaking of the fast of the month of Ramadan, many young people stroll in the streets with their families or meet with friends on the terrace of cafes. Burak is patiently waiting to be able to visit the TCG Anadolu, the new flagship of the Turkish fleet which has cast its moorings in this port in the very center of Istanbul.
This aircraft carrier is 232 meters long, 32 wide and 58 high. Soon it will be equipped with helicopters, but also with new generation drones manufactured by the Baykar company – headed by the son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan -, which has done so much harm to Russian forces in Ukraine since the start of the war. .
“It is a source of immense pride to see what my country has managed to do in recent years, we have become a respected country, a central player on the international scene”, considers the young Burak. No doubt, on May 14, he will vote for President Erdogan, whom he also thanks for having converted Saint-Sophie, nearby, into a mosque. As an engineering student, he already dreams of a career path in aeronautics and the defense sector.
Like a desire for something new…
Sitting on the lawn, not far from there, Mikail Furkan, 19, and Serkan Kaya, 20, in tracksuits, jogging and cap, also came to admire the iron and aluminum juggernaut, before turning back in front of the long queue. The two computer science students are not stingy with superlatives to describe the ship, and they too hope to be able to pursue a career in this rapidly expanding defense sector.
To the question of the vote, they nevertheless oppose an embarrassed smile. “We haven’t decided yet,” says Mikail, before detailing the criteria that will guide their choice in the voting booth: “We would like to have a president who implements policies to protect us against the damage of earthquakes, the climate change and recurring droughts.” Priorities which are not those displayed during his campaign by Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “We would also like him to bring us closer to Europe, and for the president to be simple, close to the people, like those leaders of Northern Europe who go to work by bicycle”, imagines Serkan, in a possible allusion to the pomp Erdogan’s endless convoys and his gigantic 1,000-room palace, built in Ankara in 2014.
In the crowd leaving the ship, a mother, veiled, scolds her teenage daughter, short hair and cap on her head. “Anyway, you always criticize everything! It’s because of that kind of mentality that we didn’t build this boat sooner,” her mother admonishes, making her blush even more through the thick shadows of her makeup.
Young people, the first victims of the economic crisis
On May 14, there will be 6.4 million first-time voters (out of 64 million voters) born and raised under the increasingly authoritarian reign of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who came to power in 2003. A generation whom the reis failed to transform, as he had promised, into “a pious generation”. On the contrary, these millions of voters could punish him harshly at the ballot box. According to most opinion polls, they would be a large majority to choose the opposition and Kemal Kiliçdaroglu.
“Things have to change, starting with the economic situation,” said Amed Sabak, 23. This computer science student is unable to acquire the technological tools he needs, “nor to imagine going on vacation or being able to do the shopping without calculating everything”, he says. The grant granted by the State, very low, does not allow him to continue his studies without the help of his family.
In Istanbul, on April 23, a crowd comes to greet the new warship of the Turkish Navy, the TCG Anadolu.
© / SERHAT CAGDAS / ANADOLU AGENCY / AFP
In recent years, the whole of Turkish society has been hit hard by an economic crisis and galloping inflation: officially, the rise in prices during the year 2022 stands at 67%, when Enag, a group of independent economists, estimates the general rise in prices at more than 112%. And young people, who are less well paid, are particularly affected, while the unemployment rate in this category of the population, around 20%, is almost twice the national average. Nor did they experience the first glorious years of the Turkish economy under Erdogan.
A campaign that does not speak to young people
Less politicized than the previous ones, the Turkish generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2010) rejects even more the polarization of society, greatly aggravated under the reign of Erdogan, especially in its identity aspects. “I am Kurdish and I would finally like the State to consider my identity in a peaceful and respectful way, hopes Amed. After all, there are many English-speaking or French-speaking schools in this country, so why not Kurdish-speaking schools? Kurdish is the language spoken here, in Mesopotamia, for millennia…”
With a campaign propped up on questions of “terrorism” and his nationalist outbursts on the supposedly central power acquired by Turkey in international affairs, President Erdogan seems to be missing out on the concerns of young people. When he mentions her in his speeches, it is, as in a speech of April 24, to encourage her “not to turn her back on marriage and the sanctity of the family” and to warn her against the “dangers of LGBTism”.
“All my life I’ve heard about Erdogan and I’ve heard people talk about Erdogan, and I’m sick of it,” says Cemre Önen, a 19-year-old law student, more enthusiastic about getting rid of of this cumbersome and authoritarian tutelary figure than to elect an opposition whose program only partially convinces it. “My generation is connected to the Internet and social media, we see how things are elsewhere in the world, and we know that it is not normal to live in a country where you cannot say freely, in public, what we think of the leaders”, she laments.
Her city of Izmir is already largely won over to the opposition, and, around her, the children of conservative and ultranationalist voters change sides: “People of a certain age, even if they criticize the current situation, prefer an evil that they know on an uncertain horizon… They continue to vote for power for fear of chaos. But their children, they vote to change the system”, observes the young woman.
The exit from the Istanbul convention against violence against women, decided by Erdogan in 2021, and his surprise alliance a few weeks ago with two radical Islamist parties – which are calling in particular for the repeal of certain laws on domestic violence – are an additional source of concern for her. “If Erdogan is re-elected, I will do my best to go to study, then work and live abroad,” predicts the young student. She is not alone in her case: according to a survey published in 2022 by the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation, 73% of 18-20 year olds questioned would like, if they had the means, to go and live abroad. Flight as the only horizon, for a whole generation.