Thread by @AkyolinEnglish

People who support #Erdogan say he made Turkey wealthier, greater, and freer.

Which is true... For his first decade in power, when he had principled & competent people in his team.

Then he began replacing them with yes-men, while turning growingly authoritarian and irrational.

Why Erdogan changed that way?

Lord Acton has the answer: "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Ibn Khaldun also has the answer: Conquerors of a system soon turn into what they conquered.

So, Erdogan began imitating injustices of the past that he once condemned.

Also, in its first decade in power, Erdogan's AKP largely followed the liberal-democratic criteria outlined by the EU.

Then, with a newfound self-confidence, they reverted back to their ideological roots: Us-vs-them Islamism, absolutism in leadership, a conspiratorial worldview.

To be fair, Erdogan is not the only actor responsible for Turkey's downhill slide.

The Gülenists — the "Trotskyites" of this revolution, so to speak — with their secretive and conspiratorial tactics, turned an already paranoid nation even more obsessed with the "enemy within."

And Kemalists, with their oppressive secularism that crushed religious freedoms, helped build all this revengeful "return of Islam."

Turkey will find peace only when every camp admits its mistakes. And when they accept to be equals.

I hope it is time for that, but we will see.