N.Y.
As coronavirus spreads along Turkey's borders, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ministers remained in denial.
Just last week, Turkey's health minister denied any cases existed in the country, a claim made against evidence
that travelers to Turkey had been infected there.
Ergin Kocyildirim, a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon at the University of Pittsburg's School of Medicine, wrote
a brilliant essay describing both the Turkish government's claim to have established an effective testing kit
and the fraudulence of its claims.
When faced with both local and international disbelief about why coronavirus would bypass Turkey, Turkish authorities took
a dual approach.
As in China, they arrested whistleblowers.
They went beyond simple repression as panelists on the state-controlled Turkish press insisted that
Turkish genes rendered most Turkic peoples immune.
Many Turks, Erdo?an included, may embrace the notion of both Islamic and Turkish supremacy,
but his basic ignorance of science may have condemned Turks to once again prove Darwin correct.
What might have motivated Erdogan to lie about coronavirus and gamble with the lives of 80 million Turks?
Part of the reason might be Erdogan's dangerous combination of arrogance and ignorance.
The Turkish leader's arrogance is reflected in the thin skin he has toward criticism.
According to the Turkish Justice Ministry, Turkish police charged an average of 4,500 people each year from 2014
through 2017 with insulting the Turkish leader for criticizing Erdo?an or speaking about his corruption.
(Full disclosure:
I am one of them).
In 2018, the Erdogan regime initiated 26,000 new cases.
A cracks began to show in the Turkish economy, Erdogan spared no effort to muzzle growing criticism.
Nor is the Turkish leader's ignorance any secret as the crackdown on the free press has meant the
surviving media merely amplifies the conspiracy theories in which Erdogan and his top aides believe, such as the
Jews targeting them with telekinesis, or that bands on migratory birds to be evidence of Israeli espionage.
The Turkish accusation that followers of exiled theologian Fethullah Gülen contributed to the spread
of the virus likely is only a matter of time.
A larger motivation may be fear.
While Turkey's demography is shifting in Erdogan's favor as conservative families from Turkey's Anatolian
heartland grow relative to the Europeanized Turks from central Istanbul and the Mediterranean coast,
the economy is faltering.
In 2010, Erdo?an promised that by Turkey's 2023 centennial, Turkey would be one of the world's top ten economies.
Even before coronavirus, Turkey would be lucky to remain in the top 20 as corruption, nepotism, political interference
in business, and broad mismanagement have combined to send confidence in Turkey's economy into the gutter.
