Quotes from Ece Temelkuran

The transformation of newspapers and news channels into corporations which made them addicts of profit (and therefore rating and online clicks), and that's eventually left less space for boring truths and facts, couldn't have been demonstrated more bluntly. . It was as if Trump were reminding the press of the old journalistic adage: "Follow the money.

After all the job of a troll is relatively mundane. Their mission is not to discuss a topic or refute an argument but to terrorize the communication space with unprecedented hostility and aggression in order to force opposing ideas into retreat.

Online, the extent to which they can exploit freedom of speech is limited only by their own moral codes - which, as we have seen, have been shaped to fit the dominant moral framework of recent decades.

When morality is exiled from public life and isolated in the private spaces of the individual, to be enjoyed only at certain times in our day, how can we know with any certainty that shame and mercy are shared concepts? and how can we convince people not to commit evil in those realms of public life from which law enforcement is absent.

Ben de counting began and it became clear that ErdoÄŸan would not win, the Higher Electoral Board changed the election law from 1 hour to the next, following pressure from the later himself, and egregious fake votes for ErdoÄŸan were deemed valid.

when people's needs are urgent it's not hard to convince them that instead of fighting for social equality it makes more sense to show loyalty to a political party in return for a daily loaf of bread and a few lumps of coal.

during the 8 years of his second term as prime minister, by supplying the unemployed with menial state-paid seasonal summer jobs designed by local government which took only a few hours a day, Orbán had lowered the unemployment rate from 11.4 to 3.8 per cent. This provided him with thousands of loyal supporters whose daily bread depended on his reelection.

Every regime, without exception, starts building it's ideal citizen by tampering with its women. It takes a whole generation to create a new man, but redesigning women, so they believe, is an overnight job.

Pretending to have fun on such a massive scale is just a manifestation of our lost capacity to experience joy.

I couldn't help but wonder: are we pushing the idea of carnival too far, and turning everything into entertainment?

The age of pretending not to see the victim is over. This is the era of gawping at the oppressed and having a good laugh about it, even when the oppressor hasn't actually called for you to do so.

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 have also failed to grasp the fact that understanding requires action. If we are not politically active or reactive, then the act of understanding turns into only the expression and exchange of emotional responses.

And so it's equally hard for them to comprehend how that smallness might desperately crave to be part of a we that promises greatness.

Whatever the answer is, it ought to be clear to all of us that it does not include the luxury of not taking action, namely political action. our concept of Joy should be redefined to understand the collective action does not only make for a better world, but a fulfilled individual.

This is almost childish." one might think. "It seems infantile" And it is. That's why, first and foremost, such leaders need to infantilise the people.

our eagerness to understand people's desire to be slaves has had us glued to our smartphones and computer screens seeking answers, and the process has become so time consuming and so fulfilling that we have felt as if things are not actually happening to us.

A new generation that will hold on to its religion and grudges was being built, just as president ErdoÄŸan had promised years ago.

Once you infantilise the common political narrative, it becomes easier to mobilise the masses, and from then on you can promise them anything.

He also knew that the call to break the imaginary chains of slavery preventing the real people from reaching greatness would resonate with his supporters, regardless of the fact that it sounded absurd to those who had had the chance to become what they wanted to be. '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.

In a world where more people are talking, but fewer are being heard, they wanted to tell the rest of humanity, through their bodies, that regardless of our differences we can, and indeed must, come together to find collective answers to our age of disintegration, otherwise everything will fall apart.

For many of those who are privileged enough to be in a position to try to analyse the important matters of big politics, the ordinary man's feeling of smallness and the rage it engenders are inaccessible, and so it is equally hard for them to comprehend how that smallness might desperately crave to be part of a we that promises greatness.

Trump knew one simple fact about people that many of us choose to ignore: that even though individualism as a concept has been elevated for many decades, the ordinary man still needs a shepherd to lead him to greatness. He knew how diminishing and disappointing it can feel to realise that you are only mediocre, in a world where you have constantly been told that you can be anything you want to be.

He gave them something solid to hate, and they gave him their votes. And once he started speaking in the name of we – as has happened many times over the course of history – they were ready to sacrifice themselves. As Americans know very well from their own constitution, the words 'We, the people' can build a new country and bring empires to their knees.