Erdogan dedicates Turkish island project to hanged idol

But for most Turks, it is the “yasliada” — “mourning island,” a play on its name — because of the kangaroo military court that sent Menderes and his top aides to the gallows on a variety of charges from treason to corruption and bribery, as well as an ill-concocted claim that the premier collaborated with doctors to kill off his illegitimate baby.

“Menderes has been an apostle for the Justice and Development Party and Erdogan in particular,” Tuncay Sur, a researcher at the Paris-based School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, told Al-Monitor. “The party has based its legitimacy and vision largely on the legacy of the Democrat Party, reusing buzzwords and concepts they used half a century ago such as bringing prosperity to the devout rural people, respect for the religious values of the country and empowering people.”

Erdogan’s long-winded speech at the opening drove home Sur’s last point. “The Democrat Party’s slogan was ‘Enough, people have the say.’ We have taken this slogan further by saying, ‘It is the people who decide,’” he said. “The Turkish people will never forgive not only those who staged coups but also those who encouraged them.”

Erdogan’s words were a thinly veiled reference to the opposition, which he has been accusing of inciting a coup as well as his ally-turned-arch-enemy, US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom he has been accused of masterminding the coup attempt in 2016.

The plan to turn Yassiada to a hub of tourism and diplomacy has taken five years and some $74 million and razed much of the island’s natural landscape, including hundreds of trees, endangering its archaeological heritage. Ahmet Davutoglu, then the prime minister, laid the groundwork for the project in 2015, saying that the conference halls to be built on the island would be used for international diplomacy.

Davutoglu and other flag-bearers of the project are no longer part of Erdogan’s entourage nor even his party. Ertugrul Gunay, the former minister of culture and tourism who weathered opposition to the project from environmentalists, said last year that the present state of the island was a deviation from the original plans. “The democracy and liberties island has become an isle of tourism and concrete,” he told DW.

Oguz Haksever, an NTV anchor who criticized the project while mistakenly believing his microphone was off, lost his job last year. In a video that went viral, Haksever said, “Island of mourning, my eye. You have totally killed the island,” as the channel broadcast news about the president inspecting the project.

The current project includes a 125-room hotel with nearly 30 concrete bungalows, a conference hall with a capacity to host 600 people, a 1,200-person capacity mosque, a museum with wax figures showing the post-coup trial, cafes, restaurants and a 24-meter lighthouse called “Beacon of Democracy.” The conference hall is named after Adnan Menderes and the huge mosque carries the name of his foreign minister, Fatin Rustu Zorlu, a firm secularist and pro-Western diplomat who snubbed the Non-Aligned movement in the 1955 Bandung Conference and initiated Turkey’s ties with the newly launched Common Market, the predecessor of the European Union.

The inauguration generated praise from the pro-government press, which hailed the project as a “beacon of democracy” while critics raged online. “I have never seen such a useless project,” read a tweet that got 46,400 likes and thousands of shares. “How they have destroyed this green island! What will be the use of these buildings at a time when tourism is at a standstill? Who will use this huge mosque?”

At the opening, Erdogan said that the island could become “another Camp David,” the country retreat of US presidents, where “key negotiations are made and decisions taken at the top level.” But it is clear that the decision to open it amid the novel coronavirus outbreak is for domestic consumption, rather than international ambitions.