Як втратити країну. Сім кроків від демократії до диктатури.

by Ece Temelkuran

Навіть якщо ви вирішите триматися якомога далі від політики, прибічники популізму все одно знайдуть вас.

Озброєні власним набором цінностей і технологій, вони проникають до урядів і керують життями мільйонів, маскуючи диктатуру під демократію. Дебати, домовленості, аргументи та контраргументи — на прикладі різних країн Едже Темелкуран простежила загальну картину зростання правого популізму й визначила «сім кроків лідера-популіста» — сім кроків, щоб перетворитися з блазня на диктатора.

Авторка поєднала досвід держав, які вже постраждали від цього божевілля, з досвідом західних країн, чий опір триває. Політичний світ потребує співпраці та глобального діалогу. Він вимагає реальної демократії, а не її ерзаців. І саме ця книжка скромно закликає розпочати цю розмову.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Sociology, Philosophy, Journalism, Social Justice

240 pages, Hardcover

First published February 7, 2019

About the author

Ece Temelkuran, Turkish author, was born in 1973. She is a daily columnist of one of the most popular Turkish newspapers for ten years and a prize winning journalist. Her primary concerns that she addresses are the contemporary criticism of popular culture, masques of politics, women issues, and all other deteriorating identities of humanity. She uses various forms of dramatic sentimentalism and black humor together, combined with her postmodern style, creating space for tactful connections to everyday life. She is the author of three experimental literary fiction books written in the form of poem in prose, and a documentary book on hunger strikes. Lately she published two collections of articles from her column. Temelkuran is the pioneering signature of her generation with opposing voice as a young intellectual, and always brave to tell about “never to talk subjects” of Turkey.

She graduated from Faculty of Law, Ankara University in 1995. She started her journalism studies at Cumhuriyet newspaper in 1993. She worked on women’s movement, Southeast Issue in Turkey and also political detainees. Her first book, “All Women Are Confused “ was published in 1993.She was chosen as the “Journalist of the year” by German government and then she made a research on Women movement in Germany in 1993, the same year when she was chosen as the Journalist of the year.

Her research book “My Son, My Daughter, My State-The Mothers Of Detainees- From Homes To Streets.” Was published in 1997. She was awarded by Office of Doctors since she had a research paper “Virginity Test is A Crime” for Cumhuriyet journal.

Her poem- prose books “From the Edge” and “Voice Of The Inside” were published by Everest. She went to Brazil in 2003 and to India in 2004 to observe World Social Forum. She examined the nation movement after the economic Crisis in Argentina. Her books that include newspaper articles Voice Of The Inside and From Outside were published by Everest in 2005. She took the Idea and Democracy Award by the Office of Doctors in Turkey with her book “We Are Having Revolution Here, Senorita!” (Everest, 2006). She was also awarded by Diyarbakır Democratic Platform with her book “What Should I Tell You?”. Ece Temelkuran, who deserved the award of Freedom for Idea by Ayşenur Zorakolu, keeps writing on her column “From The Edge” at Haberturk newspaper and her latest books “The Deep Mountain” (2008) and “Sounds of Bananas” (2010) are published by Everest.

Reviews

[Kiki Dal · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are Trump, Erdoğan or Nigel Farage don't read it. Otherwise, highly recommended.

P.S. Even if you don't agree with everything , you will see the point.

[Manny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ece Temelkuran, who, to my shame, I had barely heard of, wrote How to Lose a Country in 2019 to warn complacent Westerners that it absolutely can happen to them too. She'd watched in horror as Erdoğan's AKP methodically turned her country into a dictatorship: by the time people started to offer serious resistance, it was too late. She sees the warning signs in Trump, Brexit, Marine Le Pen and others. Impressively, the book is not translated. She wanted to reach people directly in English, the world language, and she succeeds.

Temelkuran is a novelist, and she has the novelist's skill for creating a memorable image. The one I liked best is her advice on how useless it is to try and refute a populist's facts or appeal to their sense of shame. As she says, expecting to be able to engage them in rational debate is like playing a game of chess with a pigeon: the pigeon just knocks over the pieces, shits on the board, and flies off claiming victory. Your superior understanding of the Sicilian Defence is not going to help you outstrategize them. Indeed, the only memorable line from the Trump-Biden Presidential debates in 2020 was Biden's exasperated "Ah, will you shut up man?" I wonder how much this helped him win the election: at the time, I remember it resonated.

Following what she saw in Turkey, Temelkuran is good at breaking down the stages by which a populist takes over a country. I thought her analysis agreed quite well with that in Liv Strömquist's underrated Uppgång & fall (inexplicably, available in French translation but not in English). As both authors point out, the Left has lost its way and no longer connects properly with the underprivileged workers whose rights it was supposed to be protecting. Far too often, left-wing parties come across as defining themselves by exclusion: they theorise too much and don't welcome people who have "the wrong views". This has created an open opportunity for right-wing parties who uncomplicatedly seek power and are happy to take anyone who's frightened, disappointed and angry. In Turkey, Russia, and the US they have set up Devil's bargains with organised religion. As Altemeyer argues at length in The Authoritarians adherents of fundamentalist religions are brought up not to use rational argument to question authority figures. If you can tap into that, you have a ready-made power base.

An aspect I hadn't thought enough about, which Temelkuran focusses on, is how authoritarians treat women. Women are already offered a bad deal by society; they often lack self-confidence, have been brought up to be self-effacing, and present a soft target. By taking away their rights you can paradoxically win many of them over, a kind of political Stockholm syndrome. Particularly weird and creepy is the phenomenon of the Dictator's Daughter. I had not previously heard of Sümeyye Erdoğan, the perfect, obedient woman who is presented as a role model to the AKP faithful. She does look rather scarily like Ivanka in a hijab.



There's more, these were just my personal highlights. What a disquieting book; I couldn't put it down. As the Margaret Atwood quote on the cover says, essential reading.

[Karen Witzler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update 2026 January -- with the US action in Venezuela and announcement that money generated by oil will go to offshore accounts the process seems to have been completed.

Recommended for everyone to read right now.

Your doctor gives you the diagnosis: you have Dying Country Disease. The seeds were planted 30, 40 years ago, a virus lying dormant until the optimal environmental conditions occur. You go home and frantically begin to peruse medical sites. How long will I live? What is the treatment? What are the symptoms? Is it early or late? Eventually you settle on a survivor's story. She suffered the Turkish variant, but you read in cold fear as she perfectly describes everything that has happened to your country. Fundamentalisms, Constitutions, Legislative Bodies are different in each case, but the marks of the disease process are unmistakeable. You are left in no doubt that your diagnosis is correct.

Temelkuran breaks down the process by which a mafia-like populism, like a virus, overtakes the mechanisms of democracy and consumes it to the core. At each chapter heading of the 7 Stages, I thought - oh the US is at Stage 1 - Stage 2 - Stage 3 - oh my fucking god... She's got it, she's seen it, lived it, she doesn't know how it ends, but you need to fight it now, because you've damned sure got it, too.

Some of the saddest parts were interviews with British Labor members with whom Temelkuran participated in panel discussions about what to do next for their country -- who were dismissive and assured her she was mistaken.

I urge all US readers who fear for the upcoming election to read this book - NOW. For me, it has been the best of the journalistic and academic efforts to explain the current crisis that I have yet encountered. - 2026 Update - it is too late, they did it.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Author is Turkish and so uses her own country as the Awful Example of how democracy can be frittered away while you are watching cat videos on Instagram. Turkey is a complicated country but there is a pretty simple split between the vast Anatolian countryside and the Westernised, more affluent, more liberal, secular, less religious cities. Guess which group votes for Erdogan – that’s right.

Elections are coming up in May and as a distant observer from England I can’t see how they won’t be tossing him out on his ear – they have been suffering from over 50% inflation for over a year (it peaked at 84% in December – how do people live??) and this was all due to Erdogan’s own brilliant economic experiment – and then of course they have had this terrible earthquake; and we have all seen the footage of devastated streets where this and that building is still standing and those built later have fallen down, in spite of new strengthened regulations brought in after the last earthquake – so what has been going on?

Either of those two disasters should be enough to terminate Erdogan’s presidency but alas, for his followers they don’t matter. They see him as their champion – against the machinations of The West, and against the impieties of those subversives in Istanbul. He is their guy. He is like the (abusive) father of the nation – they just can’t imagine life without him. So they will vote for him again in May. The Polls are neck & neck between the AKP and the CHP. We will wait and see.

Ece Temelkuran’s book is simply fizzing with outrage. She scampers hectically from one topic to another – Paris Hilton, post-truth, hijab wearers, Nigel Farage and Brexit, whataboutism – it’s a farrago, she helterskelters over too many topics, covers too much ground, and gives the reader a mild migraine. We begin suffering from indignation fatigue. And this is a shame : if ever a book’s heart was in the right place this one’s is.

Two throbbing stars looking for an aspirin.

Final note - my entry for this year's award for the Most Ridiculous Blurb is the one on the front cover by some guy named Andrew Sean Greer :

Essential reading for everyone on Planet Earth

Do you have any favourite ridiculously over the top blurbs?

[Rosemary Standeven · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a timely book about the slow but sure way that democracy is being eroded around the world, written by a journalist who has first-hand experience of her country’s descent into dictatorship. Ece Temelkuran feels that she has lost her country – Turkey – since the rise of Erdoğan, accompanied by the curtailment of freedom of speech and the imprisonment of all dissenting voices. Turkey, as it has become, is no longer her country.
This book is a warning to all those of us who are lucky enough to still live in free, working democracies. It outlines the danger signs to look out for, the slow and insidious changes – that if not challenged – can all too easily lead to tyranny. “For those who have already lost a country, the way not to lose one couldn’t be clearer. Our mistake wasn’t that we didn’t do what we could have done, rather that we didn’t know that we should have done it earlier. We were too busy doing what might be called pseudo-understanding”.
The author wants to make it clear, that this sort of erosion of democracy can happen ANYWHERE. She points out the recent rise in populism and the far right throughout the world, with particular attention given to the victories of Trump in USA and the Brexit vote in Britain.
The book is very well-written and engaging, and really makes you much more aware of what is going on politically and socially, around you. There are several of her points that particularly struck me.
1) “human nature needs meaning and desperately seeks reasons to live, creates fertile ground for the invention of causes, and sometimes the most groundless or shallowest ones.” … We need to “recognise that a cause and its ability to provide meaning can be more powerful than any war machine man has ever made.” “The masses’ desperate craving is met with a simple story in which the villain is obvious: the elite, the witch women, the foreigners, the traitors, or whoever.”
Belief in the righteousness of the cause becomes akin to belief in a religion, so rational arguments will not change opinions. Just because something is blatantly untrue, does not mean that it cannot be believed and accepted – or the truth can just be declared irrelevant. “Countless people in several countries have found themselves … having to defend the truth against those who just don’t feel like believing them.” Instead of trying to understand and debating with your opponents, your time is much better spent enlarging your own supporter base, and convincing people who are either wavering, or not currently engaged – build a bigger movement.
2) Each cause needs an enemy to take all the blame for the supporter’s real or imagined woes: “‘It’s not you,’ he told them. ‘It’s them who prevent us from being great.’ He gave them something solid to hate, and they gave him their votes”. “they had become the ‘oppressive elite’ – if not ‘fascists’ – despite the fact that some of them had dedicated their lives to the emancipation of the very masses who now held them in such contempt”.
3) Keep an ear out for the phrase “real people”, roughly translated by ‘anyone supporting the cause’, but never fully defined. In the Brexit debate one is continually reminded that ‘the People have spoken’, and their decision must be obeyed or democracy will fall. It is apparently democratic to destroy the country and its economy in a slender vote based on misinformation, hatred and lies, but is NOT democratic to have another referendum, now that the situation (and the potential damage) has become much clearer.
4) “It is better to acknowledge – and sooner rather than later – that this is not merely something imposed on societies by their often absurd leaders, … it also arises from the grassroots.” “It is not the emperor who pushes you to the edge of the arena to become merely a disassociated observer, but his subjects.”
5) Once a dictatorship starts to form, many people have a vested interest in seeing it continue. “This giant web that connected big finance and daily bread to political grants … formed the bedrock of Erdoğan’s support, and enabled his devotees to transform the state apparatus until the state became synonymous with its leader. … Eventually the idea that ‘When Erdoğan is gone, Turkey is destroyed’ was not just a myth manufactured by the propaganda machine, but a solid political reality that meant an entire lifeline would be cut if Erdoğan lost power.”
I would highly recommend this book to anyone with the capacity for rational thought – regardless of their political leanings. Dictatorships are just as prevalent on the left as on the right.
If the warning signs are ignored, it may soon become too late to save your country.
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

[Piyush Bhatia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just re-visited this book amidst the Afghanistan crisis...

"It is a well-known fact that by and large, popular perceptions, more than the ground reality, shape election outcomes."

In an era of democratic distemper, this book offers a checklist for such growing populist tendencies around the world. It discusses the current breakdown of democracy ( in the true sense of the word ) in the global world. The author has brought forward such interrelated trends in a number of countries, manifesting that the very idea of democracy - Freedom(Liberty), Rule of Law ( Lex Rex ), Judicial Review - the very foundation on which the edifice of a country is built, is dwindling and eroding the idea of "we the people".

Such populist propensity has diffused not just in the authoritarian regimes, but even to the core of the world’s liberal democracies (the United States and Europe - as the author points out ). It is high time that the nations realize this and respect the idea of dissent.

After all, "in a democracy, one need not agree - except on the ground rules of how they will disagree".

An interesting book to develop political awareness and learn to make "informed" political decisions.

[Anika · Rating 4 out of 5]

This highly intelligent, passionate and also very horrifying account is a book of the moment. The author has lost her country already (she's living exiled in Zagreb) and issues a warning: To all those other countries whose residents seems to be astonished, if not completely baffled by certain election or referendum results and the consequences. Questions such as: How did Trump become president? How did the Brexit become a thing? How come there's a right wing party in my country's parliament? Any of this rings a bell? If so, read this book. No matter how far your country is or isn't: How to Lose a Country is an impassioned plea, a warning to the world that populism and nationalism don’t march fully-formed into government; they creep. So true.

Ece Temelkuran uses her experience: Of how her motherland Turkey became "her" president Erdoğan's state with all its consequences. She presents seven steps to look out for, seven steps Erdoğan and his party took to transform Turkey. "Create a movement", "terrorise language" and "remove the shame" are three of these steps. Each step (chapter) is filled with examples, little anectdotes serving as warning signs - and even I, who's always wary on this topic and quite careful (if not pessimistic), was astonished by the amount of parallels to be found. Horrifying indeed.

So, what can be done? Or rather, what shouldn't be done? Ece Temelkuran dwells on these questions, too, and even though she doesn't have a general solution (then again, who has?), it becomes clear that reading this book and starting to see is clearly the first step on a very long way. But we need to start down this path, otherwise, the other side (and their followers, aka the "real" people of [insert your country here]) will take just another step. And another. And then, it might be too late to become aware, let alone act upon it. National solutions won't be enough, says the author, and mocking the face on front of the movement won't make the movement go away. An international, broader, louder debate is needed.

The chapter "Create your own citizen" is the one that spoke to me most, for it is also focussing a lot on women's issues/feminism - as it details how women are always the first to "go down" in such a system. Be it a president who doesn't even try to hide his misogyny, be it a party who promises to bring back "the good old structures" (as in, you know, bring women back into their deignated role as housewife and mother only - sister, if that's your choice, all the power to you, but it should be a choice, not the only default option).

Ece Temelkuran is a gifted journalist, she's got a knack for stringing together episodes and seemingly random tidbits which don't seem to fit at first - but when you take two, three steps back and look at the larger picture, you see a work of art.

This is one of the books to read these days. The German version, Wenn dein Land nicht mehr dein Land ist oder Sieben Schritte in die Diktatur is out on April 1st 2019. Highly recommended.

[Maria Bikaki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Τι είναι πατρίδα; Αναζητώντας απάντηση σε αυτήν την ερώτηση, θυμήθηκα την ταινία του μεγάλου Θόδωρου Αγγελόπουλου «τι είναι το αύριο;» ρωτούσε η ταινία και η απάντηση ήταν ο τίτλος, Μια αιωνιότητα και μια μέρα . Νόμιζα πως πατρίδα είναι μια τεράστια έκταση γης που το περιβάλλει, η οποία είναι κυρίως η φαντασία σου……….Κοίταξα τους ανθρώπους που επιβιβάζονταν στο αεροπλάνο για την Κωνσταντινούπολη και έπειτα κοίταξα την κάρτα επιβίβασης μου Ενώ προσπαθούσα να αλλάξω το εισιτήριο μου, κι αντί για την πατρίδα να πάω κάπου αλλού, αισθάνθηκα για πρώτη φορά ότι η Τουρκία δεν ήταν με τίποτα η χώρα μου. Η δική μου πατρίδα ‘ήταν στην πραγματικότητα ένα τραπέζι, όχι η απέραντη έκταση γης που στην πραγματικότητα ένα τραπέζι, όχι η απέραντη έκταση γης που το περιέβαλλε. Ένα τραπέζι που μου άνηκε. Η γη γύρω μου με είχε αποκηρύξει ή, τουλάχιστον, έτσι με είχα κάνει τότε να πιστέψω.

Η απέραντη έκταση γης στην οποία νόμιζες πως άνηκες δεν γίνεται να συρρικνωθεί μέσα σε μία νύχτα τόσο πολύ ώστε να γίνει τραπέζι. Πρέπει να περάσουν χρόνια. Ίσως θεωρείς δεδομένο ότι η αιτία της συρρίκνωσης είναι η καταπίεση και ο φόβος που αυτή γεννά. Αλλά στην πραγματικότητα η συρρίκνωση δεν ξεκινά τη στιγμή που ένας γελοίος αναλαμβάνει την προεδρία ή ένας ψυχωτικός αυτοκράτορας αρχίζει να εκτοξεύει διαταγές προς το έθνος από το παλάτι του. Δεν ξεκινά καν τη στιγμή που συνειδητοποιείς ότι οι άνευ προηγουμένου παραβιάσεις της δικαιοσύνης έχουν καταντήσει ρουτίνα. Εκ των υστέρων, είναι σαφές ότι η διαδικασία ξεκινά πραγματικά μόνο όταν η θεμελιώδης έννοια της δικαιοσύνης έχει υποστή σοβαρή βλάβηκαι από τη στιγμή που έχει εξαφανιστεί η ελάχιστη ηθική από την οποία αγνοούσες ότι εξαρτιόσουν. Και αυτή η εξαντλητική, αυτή η τρομακτική ανηθικότητα σε εξαναγκάζει να ψάξεις για κάπου αλλού. Σε σε σπρώχνει ο αυτοκράτορας στις άκρες της αρέναςγια να γίνεις ένας απλός αποστασιοποιημένος παρατηρητής, αλλά οι υπηκόοι του.

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[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship - now available in German!
Turkish journalist, lawyer and activist Ece Temelkuran issues a warning to all of us who take our liberal democracies for granted: It can't happen here? Oh, it can happen anywhere! Temelkuran experienced how Erdoğan changed and re-structured Turkey, she was part of the protest movement and suffered repressions and threats that came with her criticism of the government - now she lives in exile, in Zagreb. Her first-hand knowledge is the strength of this book, and she uses her experience to point at same general strategies that leaders trying to undermine democracy employ to manipulate the public and pervert the system.

I was particularly impressed by her reasoning around the loss of shame: When wars become a televised spectacle, when a blond heiress on reality TV comments the struggles of the poor and the working class with "that's hot", when social media celebrate detachment and even cruelty as cool - then that's the perfect environment to instigate fear and jealousy. If the lack of compassion and empathy turns against those who helped to establish the system, it will be too late for them, and the dictator has won. Temelkuran also talks about the oppression of women, the perversion of the term "the people", the war against reason and many other phenomena that plague various countries at the moment (or should I say: again?).

This book is not classic non-fiction, it reads rather fragmentary and shifts between anecdote, commentary, and analysis - and it also offers no recipe to stop right-wing movements. In fact, a pivotal question is whether people should try to understand supporters of Trump et al., and Temelkuran points out one important factor: As long as people are glued to their devices trying to dissect and comprehend what's behind the craziness wannabe and real dictators are flooding the world with, they are not out there acting against very real policies that compromise their home countries. Outrage is not enough, and it is still possible to lose one's country.

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 5 out of 5]

When did you become so cruel?

I put the above quotation at the top of this review because it is a question with a seemingly elusive answer that the author finds herself repeating throughout the book.
Twitter mobs laugh and mock a retired professor who committed suicide after being judged to be out of line with society being constructed by Turkish President Erdogan.
When did you become so cruel?
White House staffers mock the brain cancer of Senator John McCain with a “He’s going to die anyway”.
When did you become so cruel?
An 18 year old girl in Texas shoots herself in front of her parents because of cyberbullying which social media mocks for days.
When did you become so cruel?
Perhaps the better question the author suggests is not simply “when did you become so cruel?” but rather “Where do all these cruel people come from?”
“How to Lose a Country” is author Ece Temelkuran’s warning to America about how her country became an authoritarian dictatorship not by a single Reichstagian like fire, but instead through hundreds of small smoldering ones that eventually engulfed the country and remade it in the image of its ruler. While Temelkuran lays out the seven steps she believes this transformation took, the most important and tragic for her is the complicity of the people in allowing it to happen. Politicians with no higher moral goal than the baseness of their own power, people seduced by promises of security and a return to a mythical time where the nation was strong (a kind of make Turkey great again), and the complicity of far too many academics and journalists who rather than exposing the slide into authoritarianism, believed objectivity about good and evil would insulate them from the tortures, exiles, and murders that were to come.
None of this however would be possible without fundamental changes in society itself.
The author looks at the 1980’s where Neoliberalism takes off and ethical and moral considerations began to take a backseat to accumulating wealth for accumulation’s sake. The “we” of community bonds and empathy for others began to be replaced with “I” and “achieving” no matter what the cost to others.
With the rise of reality television in the 1990’s and cruelty no longer having the social stigma it once did (the author cites Survivor and Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie’s reality shows as examples of cruelty and mockery becoming accepted norms). This would lay the groundwork for where we are today where empathy is seen as weakness and everyone seemingly has a grudge against everyone else.
The “we” has reemerged in the present day but rather than a community “we” it is a grudge based “we” against “elites”, scientists, media, or whatever targets the strongman of the day says are the reason for your life not being what you want and. It has created a vacuum that authoritarians like Erdogan and Trump have been eager to exploit as “men of the people” despite their backgrounds and policies reflecting nothing of the sort and an unwillingness to engage anyone not considered as the author says “real people”.
In this dystopian world, there are no shades of gray, only “real people” and “ enemies of the people”.
There is a wonderful imagined dialogue the author presents between Aristotle and a “populist” that illustrates the dilemma rational people face when confronted with those who believe in a distorted reality:

ARISTOTLE: All humans are mortal.
POPULIST: That is a totalitarian statement.
ARISTOTLE: Do you not think that all humans are mortal?
POPULIST: Are you interrogating me? Just because we are not citizens like you, but people, we are ignorant, is that it? Maybe we are, but we know about real life.
ARISTOTLE: That is irrelevant.
POPULIST: Of course it’s irrelevant to you. For years you and your kind have ruled this place, saying the people are irrelevant.
ARISTOTLE: Please, answer my question.
POPULIST: The real people of this country think otherwise. Our response is something that cannot be found on any elite papyrus.
ARISTOTLE: (Silence)
POPULIST: Prove it. Prove to me that all humans are mortal.
ARISTOTLE: (Nervous smile)
POPULIST: See? You can’t prove it. (Confident grin, a signature trait that will be exercised constantly to annoy Aristotle.) That’s all right. What we understand from democracy is that all ideas can be represented in the public space, and they are respected equally. The gods say¦
ARISTOTLE: This is not an idea, it’s a fact. And we are talking about mortal humans.
POPULIST: If it were left up to you, you’d kill everybody to prove that all humans are mortal, just like your predecessors did.
ARISTOTLE: This is not going anywhere.
POPULIST: Please finish explaining your thinking, because I have important things to say.
ARISTOTLE: (Sigh) All humans are mortal. Socrates is a human …
POPULIST: I have to interrupt you there.
ARISTOTLE: Excuse me?
POPULIST: Well, I have to. These days, thanks to our leader, it is perfectly clear who Socrates is. We know very well who Socrates is! You cannot deceive us any more about that evil guy.
ARISTOTLE: Are you joking?
POPULIST: This is no joke to us, Mr Aristotle, as it may be to you. Socrates is a fascist. My people have finally realised the truth, the real truth. The worm has turned. You cannot deceive the people any more. You were going to say, “Therefore Socrates is mortal” right? We’re fed up with your lies.
ARISTOTLE: You are rejecting the basics of logic.
POPULIST: I respect your beliefs.
ARISTOTLE: This is not a belief; this is logic.
POPULIST: I respect your logic, but you don’t respect mine. That’s the main problem in Greece today.

While we can laugh at its seeming absurdity, would this conversation really be out of place on CNN or Fox News in 2019? Would anyone even be troubled by what is being said here? Or would we just laugh at the “populist”, call him a deplorable and dismiss him.
The problem Temelkuran sees is not in failing to engage him or her (how does one engage with one who denies the basic tenets of logic or truth? As Temelkuran writes, its akin to playing chess with a pigeon, you can’t win and it will just knock over all the pieces, shit on the board, claim victory and leave a mess for you to clean up) but in not taking the danger of them seriously enough.
She argues this is what happened in Turkey and that the more they became embedded in society the harder it became to dislodge them.
Turkey perhaps lacked some of the democratic firewalls and traditions that Western democracies such as America and the UK believe insulate themselves from their country slipping into a dictatorship. And yet the author believes that this confidence in their ability to withstand their own Erdogan is dangerous in and of itself. The author recounts an exchange with a woman at a book event in London who asked after the failed coup of 2016:

“ ‘So, what can we do for you?’
“The woman in the audience brings her hands together compassionately as she asks me the question; her raised eyebrows are fixed in a delicate balance between pity and genuine concern. It is September 2016, only two months after the failed coup attempt, and I am at a London event for my book Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy. Under the spotlight on the stage I pause for a second to unpack the invisible baggage of the question: the fact that she is seeing me as a needy victim; her confidence in her own country’s immunity from the political malaise that ruined mine; but most of all, even after the Brexit vote, her unshaken assumption that Britain is still in a position to help anyone. Her inability to acknowledge that we are all drowning in the same political insanity provokes me. I finally manage to calibrate this combination of thoughts into a not-so-intimidating response: ‘Well, now I feel like a baby panda waiting to be adopted via a website.’
This is a moment in time when many still believe that Donald Trump cannot be elected, some genuinely hope that the Brexit referendum won’t actually mean Britain leaving the European Union, and the majority of Europeans assume that the new leaders of hate are only a passing infatuation. So my bitter joke provokes not even a smile in the audience.
I have already crossed the Rubicon, so why not dig deeper? ‘Believe it or not, whatever happened to Turkey is coming towards you. This political insanity is a global phenomenon. So actually, what can I do for you?’"

As the author writes, institutions are nor “powerful, abstract beings” like we imagine them to be. They are run by people who “may be too paralyzed to act”. If we abdicate our responsibilities to preserve our democracy in the belief that our institutions and those in charge of them will save us, history tells us otherwise. Without a vigorous effort to maintain the basic building blocks of democracy such as free and fair voting and a willingness to speak up in the face of evil, any democracy no matter how well it believes itself to be insulated, can slip into darkness.

[Tuncer Şengöz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bu kitaba yazıldığı dille, İngilizce yorum yapmaya niyetlendim, daha sonra vaz geçip Türkçe yorum yapmaya karar verdim. Ana diliniz olmayan bir dille okuduğunuz bir kitap, ana dilinizle ifade edebileceğiniz duygular yaratır mı? Yaratırmış.. Çünkü bu kitap İngilizce dilinde yazılmış olsa da çok Türkçe bir kitap.

Türkiyede basılmadığı için kitabı ancak yurtdışından temin edip okuyabiliyorsunuz. How to lose a country sorusunun bir başka cevabı da bu işte. Ben kitabı Atina seyahatimde bir kitapçı bulup satım aldım, uçakta okumaya başladım ve elimden düşüremedim. Beklentilerimin ve tahminlerimin çok ötesinde başarılı, çok iyi bir kitap. Okurken biraz kötü hissettiriyor, bitirince bir burukluk hissi bırakıyor ama zaten bir ülke yitirilirken bunları hissetmiyorsanız oturup kendinizi sorgulamanız gerekmiyor mu?

Bu sene okuduğum edebiyat dışı kitaplarının en iyisi. Bu kitabı birkaç yıl sonra tekrar okuyacağım. Umarım tekrar okuduğumda, başta ülkemiz, yitirdiklerimizin hepsini geri kazanmış oluruz.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

It feels like we have been in a living hell for the past decade. The rise of populism and nationalism in numerous countries across the world is driven by divisive figures who are being funded by unaccountable billionaires who have their own agendas for world domination. Having a malleable population who are susceptible to the fears that inflamed by the rhetoric by these individuals leads down a path that I thought that we’d never see again after the 20th century.

So how do we go from what feels like a proper democracy to a fully-fledged dictatorship?

According to Temelkuran, there are seven distinct steps on this path from democracy to dictatorship. She writes this from the experience of having lived through the coup in Turkey and the yearning that she has to live back in her home country once again. In each step, she explains the warning signs that she saw and how they can differ in each country.

She documents how an unknown political party in 2002 began a movement for the ‘real people’ of the country. They claimed all the way through this process that they were the true representatives of the country and that it was their aim to fix the dysfunctional problems that the country had. They won the elections, and seventeen years later, they are still there. They have changed everything for the worse…

These themes are present in all political systems around the world, and the UK is not immune; Farage and Brexit come to mind. The problem is that the mainstream politicians don’t really have any answers to some of the intractable problems that are facing our society at the moment. Educated individuals with liberal and progressive views are portrayed as enemies of the people who do not understand. The new politicians demand respect; they do not think about earning it, and it is a one-way street, too. They show no respect for other views. People who do not show respect or deference to them are held in contempt and often threatened.

It is only later that the ‘real people’ come to understand that they have been fed a lie. The truth that these politicians spout changes constantly; a figure who is seen in a glowing light at the beginning can become an enemy overnight. No one dares question the narrative, so they get away with it.
Temelkuran looks at how the populists control the narrative, attacking the character rather than having a rebuttal to the discussion, claiming things that are true when they aren’t, because lots of people think that (commonly known as sheeple).

The narratives that populists have are often seen as infantile. But it gives them the ability to arrange the narrative to suit their agenda. Trying to pin them down to anything is like trying to nail a jelly to a wall. If you choose not to follow the party line, you become a target for all their ire. This is something that Temelkuran has been on the receiving end of. These people are slippery bastards.

Another crucial indicator in the slide to dictatorship is the erosion of shame and empathy. This can be seen in the shocking response to the plight of refugees and migrants who are fleeing wars and other conflicts. People have a very fluid relationship with the truth, hence the rise of the most ridiculous conspiracy theories, including one where a lad had to prove that he was a student at a school that suffered a mass shooting after the trolls in the gun lobby claimed it was a hoax and he was an actor.

Popularists rely on distractions. They say something controversial and watch as the media furore kicks off and people get agitated by it, then as people are concentrating on that change something fundamental to suit them. Later on, when it has all died down, declare that neither side is in touch with the ‘real people’. It is, of course, all nonsense, but it means that the changes they made have slipped by, unnoticed by the majority.

When they are in power, authoritarian leaders ensure they are involved in everything and that you only get something if the leader has approved it. Even the wealthy stay wealthy if he wants them to remain that way, Russia under Putin is a good example of this. As their power grows, it becomes easier to change the rules to suit themselves and the opposition is left voiceless and often imprisoned…

With right-wing authoritarianism comes hard-line misogyny; women start to lose control over how they can look after their bodies; birth control and abortion are obvious indications. If you don’t fit their ideal image as a citizen, then they don’t want you. The harassment and then beatings of those who don’t conform are first reported as ‘isolated incidents’ but they are not. They are part of a concerted campaign. If you are audacious enough to bring up these attacks, then you are the person seen to be dividing and polarising the country and not understanding the values of the ‘real people’.

It all comes down to dictators wanting idealised citizens who conform to the ‘great’ leader’s vision or cause. Though what that actually is or means is almost never communicated to anyone, as it can then be moulded and changed at their whim. AS with all dictatorships, the rules that apply to the majority of the population don’t apply to the elite, as Temelkuran finds out one day for herself.

Dictatorships have no rigid or set ideology either. They morph and reshape the agenda as it suits them. It reminds me of Animal Farm and the way that the messages to all the other animals kept changing throughout the story. The situation seems laughable, but as the grip of the dictator increases, the laughter becomes a poison in its own right.

She visits a Greek island; from there, she can see her hometown, Izmir. It is a place she misses with all her heart, but she knows that until there is a regime change in the country, she will never be able to return.

I found this a shocking book in lots of ways. I knew that Turkey was a dodgy democracy because of the issues that they had when they had it is mind to join the EU and couldn’t or wouldn’t change the way they were doing things. I wasn’t aware of just how far down this path they had ventured. Temelkuran clearly loves her country and is mournful about the way it has gone and that she no longer can live there, having been brave enough to stand up to the authorities there.

More shocking though, is when I used this prism to look at how far down this path we and other countries had gone. I really hope it is not too late…

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is very disjointed and there's very little connection from one page to another. It feels like snippets taken from various articles written over the past two decades that are only vaguely linked. There are some good points but it quickly goes downhill into a strange rant about reality tv ruining society and how this generation lost the morals and ethics of their parents. This is of course completely untrue as most of mentioned problems were present before. There is a bizarre moment where the author complains that during the Vietnam War people had ethics and the ability to be shocked and hold their government to account(?!?) unlike people today.

[Santiago · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pocas veces me he encontrado frente a un libro tan, pero tan malo.
'Cómo perder un país' pretende explicar los siete pasos entre la democracia y una dictadura, pero difícilmente se acerca a esto. Más bien, nos encontramos frente a un libro mal escrito, lleno de lugares comunes, que no aporta nada novedoso, personalista y de un elitismo impúdico.
Mal escrito, porque lo de los siete pasos no es más que un bonito subtítulo para un libro que no tiene ninguna estructura, donde no hay un desarrollo lógico que lleve de principio a fin. La autora viaja de atrás hacia adelante y viceversa, sin cesar, por anécdotas inconexas que flaco favor hacen en demostrar su tesis.
Personalista, por esto último. Ece Temelkuran pareciera querer establecer que "tenía razón, siempre la tuve y lo advertí". El libro es poco más que una recopilación de declaraciones suyas dadas en entrevistas a medios occidentales o foros altamente intelectuales, intercaladas con frases de amigos y conocidos, todos pertenecientes a la "resistencia" de Turquía u otros lugares, esa resistencia que se genera desde las aulas universitarias, twitter y buenos bares, no desde los barrios populares ni los territorios.
Finalmente, y lo más grave, el libro es vergonzosamente elitista. Cae en la eterna caricaturización de los votantes de los populismos de derecha como "masas ignorantes", "estupidizadas por la televisión", "que se venden por un pedazo de pan" y "de provincia".
A lo largo de las últimas décadas se han escrito cientos de libros sobre este tema, con análisis y respuestas mucho más interesantes y bien pensadas. 'Cómo perder un país', en cambio, no entrega ningún aporte al debate y, menos, una salida a esta crisis. Lo que sí entrega es un discurso, el mismo discurso que ha provocado la desintegración moral de las izquierdas, la misma desconexión que ha hecho que las clases trabajadoras vean hoy en "hombres fuertes" de derecha la respuesta a sus carencias, abandonando a las fuerzas progresistas.
Si hay algo que sacar en limpio del libro de Temelkuran, es que es una guía de cómo no seguir actuando, una enumeración de las actitudes, frases y acciones que, en parte, han provocado y profundizado este fenómeno político.

[Isil Arican · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was not sure whether to rate this 4 or 3 stars and I settled down at 4 because the story being told is too close to my heart despite some of the shortcomings of the book's premise.

Firstly I should say I agree many of the points made in this book. I experience the things Temelkuran explains in her book at first hand, and am one of those who lost a country ( in fact the country she is talking about) and decided to move on and moved out. So many of her observations were very dear to my heart.

She talks about how AKP and Erdoğan took hold of the political power in the last two decades in Turkish political history, and gives examples from her observations, experiences and life, and tries to build some parallels with Turkey and other countries (like The US or Britain) to warn others.

The first half of the book was indeed very good and she was great while describing common themes across the world. After the first half it steered away from political analysis and turned into her personal experiences, focusing only to the events happened in Turkey. The chapters are supposedly arranged in a way that would explain key features of such a fundamental and evil change. The second half is similarly not so clear and the chapter titles do not align with her narrative that much anymore.

I was going to gift this to couple of friends until I moved to the second half. There I realized it converted to a more of a personal story / eulogy for losing Turkey rather than analytical breakdown of the events & concepts.

I would give it solid a 4 star if the premise of the book was not framed the way it is. It is a good memoir with striking examples (in fact gave me some PTSD) which I am too familiar with, but does not deliver what it promises with its title entirely.

[Gaby Meares · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Our mistake wasn't that we didn't do what we could have done, rather that we didn't know that we should have done it earlier."

This is such a disturbing read that I had to put it aside on several occasions. The warning signs that Temelkuran alerts the reader to are already being seen in Australia and reading this book has placed real terror in my heart for the future of our democratic country.

She points out the importance of a media that operates independently to the governing body of a country. Recent events in Australia have raised real concerns regarding our government's ability to gag investigative journalism. We may all be quite cynical about our media, and for that matter, our government, but we still live in a country where you can gather and publicly protest against government policies, and where you can voice your opinion on social media without fearing reprisals. But for how much longer? As the world mourns the 30 year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, there are Chinese citizens who have never heard of the incident, or if they have, they are too scared to speak of it.

“Truth is not mathematical concept that needs to be proved with equations. Its singleness demands an intact moral compass, with certainties about what is good and bad.” It’s easy to assume, I think, that we all have the same moral compass. In the past, it was based on similar church-based teachings regarding right and wrong; good and evil. Now we rely on the help of a secular morality, which Temelkuran argues has been slowly eroding since the the 1980s.

Using her country, Turkey, as an example of a country lost to dictatorship, Temelkuran points out the subtle changes that occurred: "Looking back, it becomes clear that the process only really starts after severe damage has been wreaked to the fundamental concept of justice, and once the minimal morality you didn't know you depended on has been destroyed." When I read this, I immediately thought of Australia's "stop the boats" policy, and the ongoing treatment of refugees. This is exactly the kind of behaviour of which she is speaking. We should be very concerned.

Temelkuran concludes with a call to arms: "Our concept of joy should be redefined to understand that collective action does not only make for a better world, but a fulfilled individual. ...when you fight your fight it leaves no time for debilitating melancholy to take root. Our generation, and probably the next, will have to find ways to make the joy of uniting sustainable. Otherwise..."

How to lose a Country has so much food for thought. It’s an important book, and has had an enormous impact on how I look at my country’s politics, and those of the rest of the world.

[Julio Bernad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un libro interesante, útil y, en cierto sentido, necesario en los tiempos que nos ha tocado vivir. No me gusta hablar de política, y menos en foros como este, donde el enfoque son los libros y no el grupo mafioso en que nos gusta confiar nuestro voto, seguridad y derechos, por lo que voy a intentar extenderme lo mínimo posible y evitar la provocación innecesaria; y con la analogía anterior algo me dice que acabo de empezar con buen pie...

Dos han sido los fallos que me han hecho poner una nota tan, digamos, conservadora a esta obra, la primera referente al formato y la segunda al contenido. Desde el propio subtitulo no es difícil deducir que toda la reflexión se divide en siete capítulos diferenciados. Sin embargo, esta compartimentación no se siente acotada correctamente, y más de una vez se nota que la autora pierde el hilo de lo que debería ser una argumentación lógica, y empieza a saltar de una anécdota a una reflexión que no tiene nada que ver o que nos remite a capítulos anteriores, pero de una forma tan desconectada que si uno no esta lo suficientemente atento puede llegar a perderse. Y uno no quiere perderse nada de un ensayo así. En ciertos puntos esta desconexión es aun más palpable por una nueva subdivisión que hace la autora entre capítulos, en los que empieza a introducir frases de terceros extraídas de diversos medios que dan pie a nuevas ideas y explicaciones que no siempre encajan con lo que se venia diciendo hasta ese momento. No he podido evitar recordar esas noches en el pub en que ese amigo más jacobinos y/o bolcheviques va un poco tocado del ala y empieza a pontificar de lo divino y lo humano, sin pararse a pensar en que las sonrisas etílicas y mecanicos asentimientos no son gestos de aprobación, sino llamadas de auxilio a las neuronas que aun permanecen despiertas y puedan hacer la sinapsis que explique cual es la maldita relación entre coronavirus, selección natural, farmacéuticas y el club Bilderberg -a día de hoy aun no se de que iba aquella conversación, pero creo que tampoco quiero saberlo-. Aquí ocurre lo mismo en ciertas ocasiones sin llegar a limites de lo absurdo o la indecencia, y con las ideas mucho mejor escritas y argumentadas, gracias a Dios.

No me extenderé en el segundo punto, porque prácticamente comparto todas las ideas de la autora, en cuanto a contenido mis criticas son únicamente matices. El primero, que veo un terrible error tachar el populismo como un arma exclusiva de la derecha política, cuando se ha visto claramente como partidos de izquierdas y nacionalistas usan la misma dialéctica de parvulario para convencer a su recua de votantes. La autora a veces hace alusión a estos, pero viendo la obra como un todo, son solo pellizcos de monja. Eso, por una parte. El segundo error que encuentro es la comparación y posterior extrapolación de la democracia turca al resto de democracias como la francesa, inglesa o americana. Entiendo lo que la autora quiere decir al afirmar que todas las democracias son frágiles, y que cualquier demagogo sin ideales demócratas puede hacerse con el poder mediante métodos indudablemente democráticos. De lo que si dudo es que todas las democracias tengan cimientos tan frágiles como la turca, democracia de la que no se mucho, pero que viendo lo que la autora relata en este libro permite a uno deducir que nunca ha sido particularmente robusta. Puedo pecar de ingenuo, por supuesto, puedo equivocarme también, dejo al lector más inteligente y docto en política el sacar conclusiones más atinadas que las mías.

Por lo demás, es un libro, como he dicho al principio, necesario. Un libro que señala los manierismos del demagogo y el populista, que enseña a mantenerse alerta a la hora de escuchar los discursos de ciertos políticos que no son más que lobos trajeados. Pero no solo se limita a desenmascarar al populista, si fuera así ni siquiera lo habría leído. Sus criticas a la infantilización de la sociedad, a las redes sociales como agentes de difusión, las crisis identitarias y del neoliberalismo, la política como show-business, todas esas cosas son las que hacen a este ensayo una lectura obligada, se compartan o no los ideales políticos de la autora. Para terminar, me gustaría recomendar especialmente el capitulo que trata sobre la mujer en los tiempos de Erdogan, y como en unos cuantos años los derechos de las mujeres fueron aplastados por el peso del Coran. Un punto muy importante, sobre todo cuando ciertos bocazas se atreven a hablar del feminismo musulmán y lo hacen sin que se les caiga la cara de vergüenza. Y la autora es turca, ojo, no americana, ni española, ni inglesa, ni francesa: TURCA. No creo que haga falta añadir nada más.

[Dominik Grzębka · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book seemed like a stream of thoughts with a main theme, but no real connection between each other. This made it very difficult to follow and understand. Seemed more like a long and very subjective rant rather than a factual book from which one could learn something, which is what I was looking for. Disappointing, considering the hype around it.
While it is no doubt true that this is a very timely book, I think the answer to the question "How to lose a country?" could have been answered in a longer article, rather than a whole book, unless the book was better researched and structured.

[Jesus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely and sad. Combines her personal experience of "losing your country" with the comparison of similar strategies by various populists worldwide.

[Prithvi Joshi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely a must read, considering the rise of the far right in several countries including India. This book paints a grim reality which we all would be forced to face if we don't act quickly and collectively.

[Xeniya · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read!

[Jefi Sevilay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bu kitap çok net bir şekilde ortaçağda yakılırdı çünkü bugünün şartlarında bile bulmak oldukça güç oldu. Türkçe'ye çevrilmediğini geçiyorum, İngilizce paperback bile yok (bir uyanık sahaf 650 TL'ye satıyor onu geçiyorum).

Ben de sonunda Storytel'de dinleyeyim dedim (neyse ki yetiştim). Çünkü bugün itibariyle Storytel'den de kaldırıldı.

Peki bu kitabı nasıl buldum?
+ Ece Temelkuran bu adım adım gelen dikta rejimi ve polis devletini birinci elden yaşadığı için şu an içinde bulunduğu zorunlu-gönüllü göç sürecinde gönül rahatlığıyla anlatmış.
- (Storytel için söylüyorum) bence kitabın en kötü yanı onu Ece Temelkuran'ın seslendirmesiydi :) Yani anadili olmasa da basılı İngilizce versiyonu eminim çok iyidir ama anadili İngilizce olmayan biri tarafından seslendirilmesi bence hiç olmamış.

Peki bu kitabın en üzücü tarafı ne?
- Popülist liderler söylemlerine devam edecek ve hiçbir ülke Ece Temelkuran'ın anlattıklarından ne ders alacak, ne de uygulamaya geçecek. Hani teori ve pratik genellikle birbirinden çok farklıdır ya, belki bu kitap okullarda ders olarak bile okutulabilir. Ancak bu tarz kitaplar çok nadiren tarihin akışını değiştirme kudretine sahip olmuştur.

Herkese keyifli okumalar!

[Kazen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

This book is downright masterful. Temelkuran explains how democracy can deteriorate into dictatorship in steps that will feel familiar to anyone who followed the Trump presidency. The generalities are combined with her own story as a journalist and activist in Turkey, adding immediacy and a driving energy. She was watched her country go down this road, and she wants to give us tools so our democracy doesn't follow that path.

My e-copy is full of highlights and notes as the ideas are thought-provoking with impactful sentence level writing throughout. I will surely gain more insight upon reread, and that's just fine with me.

If you want one book to read about the hows and whys of fascism in our current time, you can't go wrong with How to Lose a Country.

[Kadir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great structure, easy to read, nice chronicle with global examples. Must read.

[Don Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to shout from the rooftops about this book but I'm not sure my words can do it justice. It is certainly not my usual type of read, a quick scroll through my past posts will certainly indicate that. This, however may well be one of the books strong points. It is not my usual type of read but at no point did I feel lost in political jargon. The author has presented an entirely readable book, about an incredibly important issue in the world today.

As I write this we are still discussing Brexit, there are riots in France, and Venezuela is falling to pieces. Let's not even talk about the USA. Yes, this is a book that needs to be read as soon as possible.

This book is part memoir, part lesson. I found it engrossing, informative and eye-opening. I'm not going to lie, some of the points that were true eye openers, and some of the points that Ece made showed me just how much I had fallen for.

There aren't very many books that I would say have changed my view-point on the world, or on the political landscape. But this is one of them. An excellent look at the rise in populism and the lessons that we should have already learned from experience. 5 Stars.

Original review available from donjimmyreviews.wordpress.com

[Meonicorn (The Bookish Land) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

This book is a warning of how nationalism is coming (back) to us globally more popular than before, the signs we need to pay attention to, and the consequences that would follow if many countries failed to prevent the dissolution of democracy.

This is a book that we need to read NOW (as soon as we found out about the book). It’s alarming to know how many similarities there are between the events that transformed Turkey during the years and the things that happened in other western countries. Temelkuran not only led me to see many things I observed and realized during my nearly 10 years of living in the US, but also pinpointed many phenomenons I haven’t recognized but indeed experienced. Especially during and post-Trump's presidency in the US and Brexit in the UK.

Read my full review on my blog :)

More of my reading life: BookTube // Bookstagram // Twitter

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a timely and terrifying look at the development of authoritarian regimes from Turkey to the US.

While I found the book engaging to read, albeit a bit bleak, it was not structured enough for my taste. The many anecdotes made the book quite emotional but also lost clarity and structure. It jumps around in time a lot, thus making it sometimes hard to keep track. Maybe it would have been better to focus mostly on one country, because in this book, the author did talk about her own experiences with Turkey quite often, but would then also look at other regimes as well. This made it a little muddled.

Also, sometimes the author comes to conclusions that did not quite seem logical to me. Since it was not a scientific book, I wouldn't expect studies, but some of her conclusions were not really substantiated at all. It was more: "I feel like this is how it is today, but it used to be different". While this feeling might be true, I would have wanted some exploration of these thoughts. It could have made the book a lot stronger in my opinion.

[Yaroslav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Лише сім кроків...і ви кажете "Це вже не моя країна".
Чергова книга, про яку хочеться кричати "Якщо Ви людина, Ви повинні її прочитати".
Книга, яку потрібно прочитати всім українцям. І згадки свої "хоч поржем", "гірше не буде", але й "зєлєбобов" і "порохоскот".
Згадати про "справжніх" українців.
Згадати про свою відстороненість, про "брудну політику", про "всі вони однакові".
Але найбільше вибішує як ПІСЛЯ виходу цієї книги можна повторно тягнути Трампа, як з повагою ставитись до Ердогана чи Орбана?
Головне, щоб після прочитання цієї книги не прийшла апатія, що нічого вже не зробити. Бо попри успіхи правих популістів практично скрізь у Європі, Франція змогла зупинитися за крок.
І про сьомий крок. Нарешті хтось зміг сказати, що проблема не тільки в Путіні, Трампі, Ердогана чи Орбані, проблема в "справжньому народі", який обирає для себе за норму життя в мафіозній країні.
Говорячи про сучасну війну, треба знайти в собі сили говорити, що це не війна Путіна, а війна всіх росіян. Винен кожен. Дією чи бездіяльністю.

[Diana · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF @ 45%, as much as it pains me.

I had high hopes for this. I thought Temelkuran would lay out step by step how her country, Turkey, descended into authoritarianism so the rest of us might learn from it. That’s not what this was. I get the temptation to make it topical and to draw in readers who might not otherwise pick up a book about Turkish politics. One of her big themes is that Westerners don’t think it can happen to them, so I assume she piled on the examples to make it hit closer to home for them. The problem is that it can make the book seem very dated and makes it so unfocused that you lose sight of the very real danger this book is ultimately about. It’s a disjointed mess of anecdotes about a ton of very different countries, citations of tweets included (groan), painfully trying to cram in quite recent events that are still too unresolved to lead to the kind of conclusions she wants to draw from them.

For example, she brings up the UK a lot as an example of democratic backsliding. But considering the UK has since voted out the party responsible, what does that mean for her message? Same with Poland or Brazil. That’s the danger with bringing up events which are very much still ongoing and really not very clear cut. And yes, as she points out, most European countries have similarly nightmarish right wing extremist parties, but their mere existence or even their success doesn’t mean that all these countries are in danger of becoming dictatorships. Not every anecdote about whatever shitty thing an extremist party or politician has said or done means that that country is in danger of having a Trump or Erdogan on their hands soon. Not all countries with shitty political situations are on a road to fascism. Sometimes they’re just shitty.

She also doesn’t really go into the actual examples we have of democracies collapsing completely in the 20th century. You don’t always have to bring up the Nazis, but when you’re talking about the road from democracy to dictatorship, not mentioning them is bizarre. It’s literally the blueprint for what she spends an entire book talking about! And what about the South American dictatorships from a few decades ago? The list goes on.

It doesn’t even really cover her lived experience of Turkey’s slide into authoritarianism, which I thought this book would be about. She throws in a few stories here and there, but really not in a way that makes for a coherent narrative.

Tl;dr: should’ve been a long form newspaper essay, nothing more.
And I need to stick to fiction.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really thought-provoking book – and one that perhaps everyone should read, in order to shake us out of the complacency that makes us believe the atrocities we watch on TV couldn’t happen here. They could, and they are.
The author takes us through the seven steps on the path from a democracy to a dictatorship, and it’s frightening to recognise some of those things. The author doesn’t rant, or lecture, but uses examples to show what can happen. It’s a wake-up call for those of us that don’t think these things could happen here, or to us.
It’s not a difficult read, but it is a hard one – reality often is.
Well-written, accessible, human – definitely recommended.