Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, having lost Istanbul to the Opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in local elections held a year ago and aware of his own maxim “Who rules Istanbul, rules Turkey”, has decided to re-enact the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. The recent announcement that Hagia Sophia , the church-turned-mosque-turned-museum, will once again be converted into a functioning mosque exemplifies that strategy.
Mehmet II, the Ottoman Sultan who conquered Constantinople in 1453 from the Byzantine emperor, had converted the most important symbol of Orthodox Christendom into a mosque to demonstrate who was the new ‘Lord of the Golden Horn’. This act was part of common practice in medieval times. The Grand Mosque of Cordoba, constructed in 784, was converted into a Catholic cathedral in 1236 when the capital of the Spanish Umayyad Caliphate fell to Christian arms. However, those were different times when the destruction and transformation of religious monuments were used as demonstrations of power and control. Unfortunately, such acts continue to take place even today as instruments either for shoring up the sagging popularity of regimes or acquiring power by advocating revenge for real or imagined historical injustices.
Editorial | Museum to mosque: On Hagia Sophia
Demand since 2002
A part of Mr. Erdogan’s conservative Islamist base had been agitating for converting Hagia Sophia into a mosque ever since his party came to power in 2002. But Mr. Erdogan had ignored the demand as long as the Turkish economy was booming under his leadership and he was receiving credit for dismantling the military dominated authoritarian power structure the Justice and Development Party (AKP) had inherited from its secular Kemalist predecessors.
All this changed after his re-election for the second time in 2011 and especially from 2013 when the Gezi Park protests against the government’s decision to change the character of the iconic Taksim Square in Istanbul by building a mosque and installing Ottoman-style buildings brought large numbers of protestors onto the streets. Mr. Erdogan’s decision to change the established parliamentary system to a presidential one passed by a thin majority of 51% to 49% in a referendum in 2017. This was an indication of how the wind was blowing. Mr. Erdogan did win the presidential election held under the new system in 2018, gaining over 52% of the votes. However, in the parliamentary elections held simultaneously, the ruling AKP received only 42% of the votes, down from 49% in the previous elections.
These figures do not bode well for Mr. Erdogan for the next round of presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled in 2023. Mr. Erdogan’s authoritarian traits and his disregard for constitutional norms if not the letter of the law (which he constantly rewrites) have been clearly on display since the failed coup of July 2016. Thousands of civil servants and academics have been removed from their jobs and many of them imprisoned for their alleged links to the Gulenist movement.
In recent years, the economy has also taken a nosedive. From a high of 11% in 2011, GDP growth dipped to less than 1% in 2019. The Turkish lira has fallen to approximately 7 to one U.S. dollar from a high of about 1.5 to one in 2011. These figures express the increasing unemployment and economic distress. Much of this is the result of economic mismanagement and Mr. Erdogan’s obsession with massive wasteful projects.
The combination of severe economic downturn and Mr. Erdogan’s authoritarianism bordering on despotism has had a visibly negative impact on his popularity. Changing the character of Hagia Sophia is a part of his electoral strategy to revive his political fortunes by flaunting his commitment to rectifying perceived historical wrongs. Religio-nationalism is the last refuge of desperate politicians. This strategy has worked in some countries. One has to wait and see if it will work in Turkey as well.
Mohammed Ayoob is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of International Relations, Michigan State University
