 And back to ThinkTek, this is movies you can learn from. There's a lot of lessons today. We're gonna talk about two movies that involve Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is the president of Turkey. And he is one range individual, an autocrat for sure. And these movies were both made by Dogewell. Dogewell is like the PBS of Germany, and they make documentaries. And these are two documentaries that look at Erdogan from two sides. One is the story of his ascension to power in Turkey to ultimately the mayor of Istanbul and from there, a national political figure where he has become an autocrat. The other movie is about a fellow named Osman Kevala. Osman Kevala was, what do I say, a modest activist, a humanitarian person who Erdogan has been chasing around for the last few years. And most recently, he has somehow engineered a second prosecution of him and a second jail term for life. And the movie is about that. And these two movies help to define Erdogan. And it is, of course, they're excellent movies like PBS movies would always be. Dogewell knows how to make a movie in terms of color and sound and music and, I mean, all the documentary shots you could imagine really, really good. But more than that, these movies are current. And I wouldn't say that they're, I wouldn't say that they're way out there. They do try to be somewhat balanced, but even a balanced movie of Erdogan is demonstrates so much about what he is doing in Turkey and what he is doing in the world. He's a world figure now. So George Kasin, who is not only a movie reviewer, but a political analyst, will help us understand both of these movies. George, why don't you talk about the first movie, that is the movie dealing with Erdogan's rise to power? This is a little more than a 35 minute documentary, which pretty much displays Erdogan's rise to power from he lived in this Kamil Pasha, this poor neighborhood in Istanbul. His dad was a ship captain and his mother was a housewife. So he doesn't come from a wealthy family. And he was a very good soccer player in that community. And they all knew him as a kid. He was really good soccer player. And he started into an Islamist party. He was very involved with an Islamist party. And he was elected mayor of Istanbul, but he opened his mouth and started saying things about the domes of our mosques are our helmets, the minarets are our guns and whatever. So the secular Kemalist party, they didn't like this. They jailed him for four months. So he learned his lesson. It was a longer sentence, but he got out early. Yeah, it was eight months, but he got out true. Exactly, Jay, thank you. So then he concealed his true feelings. And he became a progressive politician, mainly into economics. And in his early years as prime minister, he kept getting elected. He's very much loved. They showed these small shopkeepers in Istanbul that absolutely adore him, women adore him. So he rose from those humble beginnings to become the leader of Turkey. And for many years, he was progressive. I mean, he made deals with the Kurds, tried to give them more language rights and other lights within Turkey, right? So he was appeasing them, right? And then there was a 2015, 20th anniversary of the Gesi Park in Istanbul. He wanted to take this park that I guess a lot of the residents loved, right? And used just like our Central Park in New York or parks here, we have in Hawaii, major parks. And he wanted to turn it into a shopping center, like tear it all down. Yeah, George, let me interrupt to say that I was there. Wow. Your friend, Shay, was actually in Istanbul at that time. Wow. And it was called Taksim Gesi Park. And Taksim Gesi Park was where they went with the kids and the balloons. And the food stands and all that. It was a beautiful part of the experience of living in Istanbul. And one day, Erdogan came with his construction equipment and began tearing it up. And the people in the park opposed that. And so there was this very modest, mild-mannered protest. And then he brought the police in with batons and gas, rubber bullets, and ultimately real bullets. And six people were killed in the park for protesting a shopping center. It was really something. It turned a corner for Istanbul, for Turkey. And he stuck with it, he doubled down. That's what happens with autocrats. And it was shocking to see this happen. And the people in Istanbul were just amazed that he would do that to them. So it spread to the rest of the country because the populations who had trusted him couldn't believe what he was doing in Istanbul. So it became part of the whole country. And it just created chaos all through Turkey. And just a year or two later, there was this 2015 supposedly a coup that he was gonna be the coup d'etat to remove him from office, right? And when this came, some of the generals and soldiers that didn't really want him there anymore, and he remembered the prime minister who was arrested back in 1970 and then eventually executed. So he was scared, right? And he was able to quench it. And then he started to go after anybody who he felt in his own mind was against him. And this included Fettol, you know, it was like this Gulen people, right? Who are just a progressive religious organization. So that after the 2016 attempted coup, he changed more and more and became more and more autocratic. And the next document, we're gonna talk about this philanthropist, Osman Cavala, why he was put into jail, right? So bottom line is Erdogan is a really crafty, wily politician. He knows not only internally, but also internationally, and in the Middle East, the greater Middle East, how to play one segment of the copulation against another, how to play one ally against another ally. Well, he'll double cross one ally because he wants to get close with another ally. And this is the last few months since this happened with Israel, with Russia, and where he doubled cross these people. And now, you know, current events, and I won't get into this too much, he's reaching out to the EU and to the United States because it's something to benefit Turkey in the present state where the economy is weak because some of his misguided economic policies. So he became more and more autocratic over time and put down any kind of anyone who disagreed with him. And the second documentary, which displays Osman Kavala's work in Turkey with in Istanbul with art, how art brings culture and how in a free society you have artistic people that are part of a, you know, even Bohemian culture. I mean, my master's thesis on Singapore, I tried to talk about how culture, even Bohemian culture is good for a country, you know, in the long run. So he put that down too. And then he was threatened by Osman Kavala who was really acting in some ways with George Soros, with funding from Soros. Soros was providing money for his foundation, that's all. But Erdogan took liberties and claimed that Kavala had conspired with Soros in order to foment the unrest at Paksimgezi Park, which is kind of ridiculous because ultimately the whole country was involved in that protest. And there were something over three million people who were protesting the shopping center. And I suppose more than that, but protesting what Erdogan was doing. So let me go back for a minute before we get into Kavala, because Kavala is a real spine-tingling story. Okay, so back in, what is it, 1453. Does that mean anything to you, 1453? Yes, precisely. Was the year in which, I guess, Turkey became Turkey. Turkey. Through the Christians out, right? And it became a piece ultimately of the Ottoman Empire. And it's a proud country. It's got a long history. It used to have much more land than it does now as part of the Ottoman Empire. It is the, what, the crossing point between East and West, the Bosphorus, which is a river that ultimately enters into the Black Sea, or vice versa, which is not too far from Russia and Ukraine, actually. The Bosphorus divides Istanbul and Turkey in two parts. The East part, which is the Islamic part, and the West part, which is the European part, okay? And in 1922 or 23, Attaturk changed things around from an Islamic country to a more of a European country. And from 1923 or so until Erdogan became powerful, it was a kind of a European country. And all of a sudden, Erdogan changed it around because when he grew up in that poor neighborhood, he was a strong Muslim. Wanted to be an Imam, had thoughts about making that his career. At one point, he wanted to be a soccer player, a professional soccer player, and he was really good at playing the games. Got that of soccer. And so all of this is somehow relates to the division in Turkey between East and West, between Islam and Christianity, which still exists. And so, it's almost like Trump or any autocrat, when they find there's a division to be had where people don't necessarily agree historically on a given issue, the idea is to divide them. And through dividing them, you become more powerful, which is exactly what Erdogan had done over the past, what, 20 years or so. And now he is unquestionably an autocrat. What's more is that, as you say, he's looking to extend his power beyond Turkey. And historically, that's T-U-R-K-I-Y-E rather than T-U-R-K-E-Y, different. And that's him, that's him. Referring back to the time before editor, to the time when Turkey was an Islamic Republic or whatever. So what we have now is him playing his games, and I agree with your use of the word games, with every country around and trying to deceive them, play with them, achieve some kind of strategical success with them. And every country in the area has been victimized that way. And now, including the United States. And most recently, the news has been that he was going to support the United States' initiative to bring Sweden into NATO, which is interesting because for the past several years, Turkey has been a member of NATO. And it has also been an applicant for membership in the EU. He never did get into the EU. It's just an odd kind of juncture for them. And part of the reason is they don't really trust him. He's done things that are troublesome. The Turks can, they've done things and had wars that are troubling. And some of their human rights views on things are troubling. And of course, as you know, the Armenian incident is very troubling, and that's 100 years ago. But anyway, so he finally, he turned around. Everybody said, oh, good. Erdogan's going to support the admission of Sweden into NATO, and we'll all be happy. Ukraine will be happy, and he made this big announcement. And a few days later, when they met in what, Vilnius isn't just recently in Lithuania, he changed his mind. And he said, well, no, I'm not sure I want to do that. I need F-16 jets from the United States before I actually close on that. And Joe Biden in the State Department was saying, I'm not so sure that we can just deliver F-16 jets to you because we have to get Congress. Whether that's true or not, that's what Biden said. And so it's in suspense now. It's not clear that he is supporting Sweden. It's not clear that he's going to get the F-16 jets. What I find even more interesting about it, ironic, is that Zelensky in Ukraine have been asking for F-16 jets for a long time. But during the entire time of the Ukrainian invasion, and Joe Biden has been promising them that, most recently he said he would start training Ukrainian pilots on them before delivering them. And that was supposed to happen on June 1st, but it didn't happen. So there's no training. The Ukrainian pilots are not qualified, and they haven't delivered jet number one to Ukraine. Although other members of NATO have delivered F-16s to Ukraine. So what's really interesting is that Joe Biden would promise Erdogan some jets at all when it has not really delivered jets to Ukraine. I suppose that makes Erdogan somewhat suspicious as to whether the United States' suggestion that it would provide F-16s will actually come true. But the bottom line is, let's use your term, is it's not clear that his support, Erdogan's support of Sweden is going to happen. Yeah, you know, I know the Ottoman Empire, and I've discussed my own family, my great-grandfather's cousin was the finance minister in Istanbul, under Abdul Hamid, even though Abdul Hamid didn't like the Armenians at all. Killed some of them in Adana in 1895, 1909. But I mean, he was very, so there were people of ethic, racial, religious minorities that were in high positions of all different backgrounds. But that was the Ottoman Empire. And then when they got rid of it, when they became secular, right? It was Turkey for the Turks, right? So under Kemalism, right? It wasn't an Islamic Republic. It was known as being secular. And then, as you said, Erdogan took Hagia Sophia, which was a Byzantine church and had become a museum. It became a mosque in 1453, but then it was a museum for all those years from 1933, 34, up to just recently a year or two ago when Erdogan turned it back into a mosque. Well, the movie tells you that he is building a thousand, that's 1,000 mosques across Turkey. He is re-establishing Islam as the state religion, I would say, of Turkey. This makes Turkey a different kind of place. Yes, yes. I mean, he's totally, it is Islamist, you know? I mean, he's making deals with Russia, that's extensively a Christian country, you know? Soviet and then Israel, you know? And then trying to work out between Armenian and Azerbaijan, right? To try to get that corridor so he can get to Central Asia, you know? Direct water and land route to Turkey. But ultimately, he's pushing Islamism. I mean, he's a real strong, strong and very similar to the United States, you know, where you've got a lot of conservative Christians, right? That are pretty much trying to get this country to become less secular and to become more, you know, it's a, they talk about it's a Christian country. But if you know the Constitution, if you know how this country was founded under deists, they were not saying that's a Christian country, they said it's a country under God, which would take in all the different religious backgrounds. So you gotta understand who is, who is the real Erdogan? I mean, when he was mayor, he concealed his Islamism, right? In order to become Prime Minister and then to become President. So I was, I have not followed today what you said that he's backtracking on that agreement with Sweden. As of the last night, when I was looking at the news, he was still saying that Sweden, he's accepting Sweden. But I knew when he started talking about the legislature that there might have been some kind of a glitch, you know, that it's not quite done, but you've brought in something that I was not aware of. So we just gotta watch him, you know? Well, if he can backtrack that way, change his mind, and everybody dangling, that's what he does. And it's the same thing in the movie about Osman Kavala, exactly what happened at Osman Kavala. So Osman Kavala was, I guess he was prosecuted for some kind of, you know, crime against the state. It was trumped up and he was put in jail for four or five years. And it was interesting in Istanbul, I guess it was. And he was supposed to get out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the International Court of Human Rights said, there's no claim against him. There's no case against him. You have to release him. And so then what Erdogan did is he released him or was about to release him. It was a real cliffhanger. This is covered in the Deutsche Well movie. And he was waiting for hours to actually walk out the gate of the prison. And his family and supporters were out there. And all of a sudden Erdogan prosecuted him again for another crime against the state. And they didn't let him out. He never actually left the prison. And he's still there. And he's there this time on the second charge which is also a ridiculous charge for life. That's it for Osman Kavala. And what's odd about it is that, well, sad about it is that Osman Kavala, you get a real good picture of who he is. He's a modest, mild-mannered intellectual. And is there something violent about him? He's not a terrorist. He has no intention of overthrowing Erdogan, but Erdogan sees him as our autocrats sometimes do as a threat. So Erdogan is using him as a scapegoat in these multiple prosecutions. When you watch the movie, you really like Osman Kavala. He's a likable gentleman is what he is. But right now he's been in jail for seven or eight years already. And he'll be in jail for a long time. He'll be in jail as long as Erdogan is in control of Turkey, which is the sad thing about Turkey because he's captured Turkey. He's taken control of Turkey. He's the Putin of Turkey. And the Trump of America. Well, always wonder what happens when a guy throws off a democratic society which Erdogan has done and becomes an autocrat and controls the courts and pulls the rug out on the rule of law, which is what has happened in the case of Osman Kavala and many others in Turkey. After that, no, there's ostensible boo, was it, back a few years ago? And so all of a sudden you go home and the police are waiting for you. Well, they're knocking at your door at three in the morning and you have no idea. That's what happened to Osman Kavala. And then you go to jail for a trumped up nothing charge. And there's nothing anybody can do to help you because the autocrat is totally in charge. And there are people who believe firmly that if Trump were ever elected president again, anyone who he felt was his opponent, his adversary would get the same kind of treatment but get the rule of law, but get the constitution as we used to know it. This is what happens when a country turns from a democracy to an autocracy under a guy who is an autocrat. That's the process. I don't think people realize when the press says, oh gee whiz, we're gonna lose our democracy. Exactly what happens to you as an individual and your civil rights and human rights, what happens to you? What happens to your neighbors? What happens to your job? What happened to the neighborhood and the society around you? And that's what's happened in Turkey. I wish I could feel better about it but I don't think it's going anywhere good. Well, you know the mayor of Istanbul, Imamem Klu, he's been brought up under trumped-up charges too, that he's a terrorism. And then a lot of the other politicians, maybe Kurdish politicians or whatever, I mean, he's arrested these people, removed them from office. When they, there's really very, it's very flimsy that they're, they may be Kurds and maybe they agree with Kurdish culture but you know, I mean, one of the things being Armenian, they showed D.R. Bekir where my great-grandfather was pretty much the mayor, he was the first and only Christian mayor of D.R. Bekir. And then four years later, he was brutally murdered. So the thing is, I look at the Kurdish situation and what's being done to all these mayors, that one Kurdish attorney was shot, murdered, he was speaking. And it's very similar to Putin, you know, what is going on with Erdogan is very similar to Putin being an autograph. And then as you alluded to, what happens if Trump gets reelected? What is he gonna hang on to democracy or is he gonna become more autocratic? So there's issues with Erdogan that have to be brought up about his duplicity. And let's see what happens, is he gonna, as you said, is he gonna go through with this Sweden thing or is this another ploy for him to get the F-16s, to get other concessions from the EU? And you know, all Armenian Nagorno-Karagov plays into this because the EU is trying to make peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, right? And then Erdogan goes and double crosses Israel to be confront, to sidle up to Iran, you know, just in the last few weeks as well. So, you know, puts his hand out to Netanyahu and then in the next breath, he's, you know, exposing Mossad, you know, in Turkey that's trying to, you know, and I mean, the Mossad wants to bring down Hamas activity who are literally terrorists in Israel, killing Israelis, right? So he's a player. Let's, I didn't wanna talk too much about this because I'm hoping that Erdogan will allow Sweden into NATO, but after what you mentioned that I was not aware of, I start to wonder, is he just playing more manipulation? So I'll leave it at that. So let's take a look at this movies we can learn from, okay? These movies were both made by Deutsche Well. They're both excellent documentaries. They're not long. The one is about half an hour. The other is about 40 minutes. They're both connected somehow because they both tell you very eloquently what is going on with Erdogan and Turkey right now. And you learn a lot from these movies that you didn't know before. It's like a PBS movie, but somehow it's even more of a revelation because we didn't know what Erdogan's been doing day to day in Turkey with his adversaries or anyone he perceives as an adversary. And so I give DW Deutsche Well credit for making these movies, just as I give PBS credit for making the front line movies. And I think it's part of the media we have to look at. These are more than movies. They're even more than documentaries. They're news and they're news in-depth, which, you know, think that we have half an hour not 30 seconds on a given subject. So we believe in going further in depth, if possible. And I think that's what these movies do for us. So you can call me a follower of DW Deutsche Well at this point, just as I'm a follower of Frontline. And I will be looking again for more movies, more documentaries about subjects like this. So I can learn more about what's going on in the world. I wonder whether these movies are being shown in Turkey. I'm not sure about the state of the First Amendment. And then I wonder whether they're being seen in Europe. I imagine they are and certainly in Germany, Deutsche Well plays to Germany. But I think it's a tremendous public service that companies like Deutsche Well and Frontline create movies like this, first class, on every level. They help to protect democracy. They help to protect the liberal world order. Whether they succeed in the face of people like Erdogan and Putin is another question. So you want to rate this, Jay? You want to rate it and you want us to rate it or not? Sure, let's rate it. But I would fold in to my rating the notion that this is a powerful political statement. It's beyond that. So I give it a 10 on the quality of the movie. The video, the audio, the music, the shots, the editing, all that, really excellent. And the coverage in general. They really took you there. So that's a 10. But I give them another 10 on the fact that they're going into Turkey where it may be a little dangerous to make a movie like this. And they're facing down an autocratic leader in Turkey in both movies. And so you got to give them credit there. Not only making a movie as a filmmaker, they're reporting. And I give them credit for both. I'm on the same place, 10 on both counts as well. Both the production values and the power of opening up the eyes of the West, what's going on truly and what's going on. One thing is clear. Erdogan, who wasn't necessarily on our radar before, I mean, not to the same extent, certainly has to be in our radar now. We should watch him like a hawk. We should cover him. We should question his motivations and some of the bizarre strategies that he uses in dealing not only with his own people, but with leaders, other leaders in the world, other countries. Thank you very much, George. Thank you for this discussion. Thank you, Jen. You have a good day as well. Thank you again. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Check out our website, thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.