THE two young women glance at each other before confiding their secret. Turkey has become such a fearful place, they say, that they have formed a pact never to have children. Amid official reprisals and purges after a failed coup in July, the lights of democracy are dimming. Each week brings a fresh wave of detentions or sackings, and no one is immune. The women have a friend who was stripped of a degree because of her university’s links to Fethullah Gulen, a Pennsylvania-based preacher whom the government accuses of plotting the coup. Official paranoia scales heights of absurdity: last week a textbook was banned for using the letters “f” and “g”, Mr Gulen’s initials, in a geometry puzzle. “Everybody’s scared shitless,” says one prominent academic.
Might the women turn to the European Union, which shares their concerns, for support? Hardly. Europe is hypocritical, they say; it expects solidarity after terror attacks but offered little after the coup. Their sentiments are widely shared, and not only in Fatih, a pro-government area of Istanbul roamed this week by Charlemagne. As the women divulged their laments, across town Recep Tayyip Erdogan,…
