BROKEN heads, tear gas, water-cannon: it must be Cairo, Tripoli or some other capital of a brutal dictatorship. Yet thisis not Tahrir but Taksim Square, in Istanbul, Europe's biggest city and the business capital of democratic Turkey. The protests are a sign of rising dissatisfaction with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's most important leader since Ataturk. The rioting spread like wildfire across the country. Over 4,000 people have been hurt and over 900 were arrested; three have died.
头破血流的抗议人群，呛人的催泪瓦斯，四射的高压水枪。看到这一幕，你可能会认为这是发生在开罗、的黎波里或者某个残暴独裁政府首都的抗议活动。不，这里不是开罗的解放广场，这里是欧洲最大城市伊斯坦布尔的塔克西姆广场。这场发生民主土耳其商业首都的抗议活动表明，人们对雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安——这位在凯末尔去世之后最具影响力的土耳其领导人——的不满正在日益增加。抗议活动像野火一样烧遍了整个国家。目前已造成
4,000
多人受伤，
900
余人被捕，
3
人死亡。
The spark of protest was a plan to redevelop Gezi Park, one of the last green spots in central Istanbul. Resentment has been smouldering over the government's big construction projects, ranging from a third bridge over the Bosporus to a crazy canal from the Black Sea. But only after this first protest was met by horribly heavy-handed policing did the blaze spread, via Twitter and other social media. A local dispute turned national because its elements—brutal police behaviour and mega-projects rammed through with a dismissive lack of consultation—serveas an extreme example of the authoritarian way Mr Erdogan now runs his country.
抗议活动的导火索是一项改建
Gezi
公园的计划，该公园位于伊斯坦布尔市中心，是市内仅剩的几处绿色景观之一。一段时间以来，土耳其政府频频启动重大建筑项目，包括打算在博斯普鲁斯海峡修筑第三座桥、以及异想天开地从黑海修筑一条运河，这早已激起民众强烈不满。直到本次抗议活动同时也是此类抗议活动第一次遭到警察的粗暴镇压后，这种不满情绪才借助于推特和其他社交媒体的传播像熊熊大火一样向四处蔓延开来。警察的残酷镇压、未充分征询民众而上马的重大工程是构成这起骚乱的要素。这起地方性示威之所以会蔓延至全国，是因为这些要素极端地表现出埃尔多安目前专制的治国方式。
For some observers, Turkey's upheaval provides new evidence that Islam and democracy cannot coexist. But Mr Erdogan's religiosity is beside the point. The real lesson of these events is about authoritarianism: Turkey will not put up with a middle-class democrat behaving like an Ottoman sultan.
对于某些观察家来说，土耳其的动荡为“伊斯兰和民主制度无法共存”这一论调提供了一个新的证据。但是，埃尔多安的宗教信仰并不是问题的重点，这些事件的真正教训事关独裁主义：土耳其不会容忍其中产阶层的民主派像以前的奥斯曼苏丹那样行事。
In some ways, Mr Erdogan has done well. GDP growth has averaged over 5% a year since his Justice and Development (AK) party took office in late 2002. The government also pushed through enough reforms to earn the start of membership talks with the European Union in 2005, a prize that had eluded Turkey for 40 years. Mr Erdogan has done more than any of his predecessors to settle matters with his country's 15m repressed and restless Kurds. Turkey has come to be seen as a model for nations emerging from the Arab spring.
从一定程度上讲，埃尔多安的表现一直可圈可点。自正义与发展党（
AK
）在
2002
年晚些时候上台执政以来，土耳其
GDP
的年均增长速度超过了
5%
，在政府推动下，改革大刀阔斧。最后，土耳其终于在
2005
年赢得了
40
年来始终都没有获得的奖赏——同欧盟开始入盟谈判。在安抚境内
1500
万受压迫且不安分的库尔德人问题上，埃尔多安的成就是任何一位前任都无法比拟的。在取得了这一连串的成绩后，土耳其被国际社会认定为一个崛起于阿拉伯之春的国家典范。
This record explains why AK has won three commanding electoral victories, the most recent in June 2011. Mr Erdogan remains popular, especially among small-business owners and the conservative Anatolian peasantry who make up most of the millions of recent migrants to the cities. Against a useless opposition, AK may well win again.
这份成绩单解释了正义与发展党之所以能在三次大选中（最近的一次是在
2011
年
6
月）傲视群雄的原因。目前，埃尔多安仍在选民中，尤其是在小业主和由保守的安纳托利亚农民组成的数百万城市新移民中，保持着自己的声誉。面对无所作为的反对派，正义与发展党很可能在下次大选中再次获胜。
Yet there have long been worries about Mr Erdogan. He once called democracy a train from which you get off once you reach the station. He is disdainful of the cosmopolitan bourgeoisie of Istanbul and Izmir. His party's religious roots led many to fear the Islamisation of Ataturk's proudly secular state: a new law restricting alcohol sales lentcredence to those worries. Some fret that, far from being a model of Islamist democracy, AK might expose the concept as an oxymoron.
然而，埃尔多安一直都没能让选民打消对他的疑虑。他曾经把民主比喻成一列火车：一旦你到站了，就可以下车。他看不起那些生活在伊斯坦布尔和伊兹密尔的阅历丰富的中产阶层。
正义与发展党的宗教根源让许多人感到忧心忡忡，担心这个被凯末尔自豪地称之为世俗国家的土耳其被伊斯兰化：一项限制酒类买卖的新法律给人们的担心提供了证据。人们担心，在离着伊斯兰民主制度典范尚有一段距离的情况下，正义与发展党会暴露出他们把民主制度当做幌子来利用的真实想法。
Yet there are many in Mr Erdogan's party who, like its co-founder, Turkey's president, Abdullah Gul, disapprove of the prime minister's authoritarianism and find his interpretation of democracy too narrow; and there are many non-Muslim leaders, such as Russia's Vladimir Putin and Hungary's Viktor Orban , who behave high-handedly. The problemis not Islam but Mr Erdogan. He has a majoritarian notion of politics: if he wins an election, he believes he is entitled to do what he likes until the nex tone. Sometimes, as in defanging the coup-prone army, he has used power well.But over time the checks on him have fallen away. AK nominees fill the judiciary and AK people run the provinces; their friends win the big contracts. Mr Erdogan has intimidated the media into self-censorship: as the protester schoked on tear gas, the television networks carried programmes about cooking and penguins.
不过，对于埃尔多安总理的独裁主义，在正义与发展党中还是有许多人持反对态度的，如该党的联合创始人之一，土耳其现任总统阿卜杜拉·居尔就是其中一员。在他们看来，埃尔多安对于民主的理解过于狭隘；事实上，世界上有许多不信仰伊斯兰教的领导人，如俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京和匈牙利总理维克多·奥尔班，他们也是在采用高压手段对付国内矛盾。因此，人们所反对的并不是伊斯兰教，埃尔多安本人才是此次事件的焦点。在他的字典中，所谓政治就是多数人统治少数人：如果他在大选中获胜，那这就意味着，他获得了民众的授权，在下一次选举之前这段时间内，他可以为所欲为。他对于权力的这种理解时常能令他做出一些令人叫好的举动，如他在驯服有政变倾向的军队时所作所为。但是，随着时间的推移，对于他的监督开始渐渐失效。司法系统中充斥着由正义与发展党提名的人选，地方政府被该党人员所把持，他们的朋友赢得大合同。这期间，埃尔多安始终都在胁迫媒体，要求他们进行自我审查：当抗议者在催泪瓦斯中艰难地喘息时，电视台却在播放着有关厨艺和企鹅的节目。
More journalists are in jail in Turkey than in China. Mr Erdogan has locked up whole staff-colleges of generals. Within his own party, people are afraid to stand up to him. His self-belief long ago swelled into rank intolerance. His social conservatism has warped into social engineering.
同中国相比，土耳其的监狱中关押着更多的记者。直到现在，还有一大批高级军官被埃尔多安关在监狱中。在正义和发展党内，人们不敢起来反对他。他的那种自信早已膨胀为“唯我独尊”，他在社会政策方面的保守主义也已经转变为对于选民的利用。
The risk is that he will now hold onto power even more tightly. Under AK party rules that limit deputies to three terms in the parliament, he must stand down as prime minister at the next election in 2015. He may be tempted to change the constitution so that he can become a powerful executive president, or run his party from the presidential palace, or simply change the rules so that he can stay on.
目前的风险在于，现在的埃尔多安会把权力攥得更紧。根据正义与发展党有关“议员任期不得超过三届”的规定，埃尔多安必须在
2015
年举行下届议会选举时辞去总理职务。他有可能去冒险修改宪法，这样他就能成为一位手握实权的政党领导人，或是在总统官邸遥控指挥正义与发展党，或是简单地修改一下法律让自已能够继续掌权。
For two reasons Mr Erdogan must abandon these ideas and prepare to pass leadership of AK, and executive power, to the more statesman like Mr Gul at the next election. One is that many Turks a retiring of him—just as poll-tax riots in 1990 signalled that Britons had tired of Margaret Thatcher, or the French rejected Charles de Gaulle after 1968. If Mr Erdogan stays, he may find his country increasingly ungovernable.
