On May 14, Turkey will hold its most important general election since 2002. The parallels between then and now are uncanny. Before that election, a devastating earthquake followed by the collapse of the Turkish lira saw Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the pro-Islamist populist, sweep into power. This year, amid a drastically weakened economy, an even more terrible earthquake occurred. Now Erdoğan is forecast to lose. The ground is always shifting.
The tumultuous state of my homeland is all too familiar. In the last 10 years alone, the country has lived through the nationwide Gezi protests, which originated to protect an Istanbul park from government-backed developers; the influx of more than three million refugees from the Syrian war; unstoppable inflation; and the de-valuation of the Turkish lira. There was a bloody coup attempt and the transformation of the nation’s political system from a parliamentary democracy into a heavily centralized presidential one. And always, there was the ever present threat of earthquakes. Perhaps the only stability my generation of Turks has come to know is the tumult itself.
