the palace of illusions 10th anniversary edition

If lasting deeds were the measure, he wasn’t even a doer he was just another talker. Now, as the geological fault lines shifted with catastrophic impact and tremors on a scale not seen for half a millennium shook southern Turkey, I realized with epiphanic clarity that Erdoğan wasn’t so strong after all. He denounced us for sabotaging his entrepreneurial spirit and undermining Turkey’s prosperity. We in the opposition, meanwhile, were just talking. His authority made sure Turks could continue to purchase an endless supply of new housing. It was he who built the roads he who commissioned new airports. While leftists like me might criticize his projects-and their harmful environmental impacts-Erdoğan retained his reputation as a doer. I’ve written several profiles of Turkey’s president over the past decade, often framing him as a figure of strength. On a live broadcast, in real time, I was witnessing the drawing back of the curtain from Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime, the complete meltdown of his “New Turkey”-whose price 50,000 citizens were now paying with their lives. Deep inside, I felt something rising: my stomach turning in disgust and my heart racing. I saw terrorized men and women, unsure of what to do, summoning Allah for help. I saw rectangular forms, each containing perhaps dozens of people, merge into one another, throwing out enormous clouds of white dust, the occupants letting out horrifying wails. A reporter was running in panic as massive buildings on both sides of the road began collapsing in a new, 7.6-magnitude quake. Then, just after 1 am, I turned on the TV. What she told me I found hard to imagine.

But my aunt, who woke up in horror in her bed in Gaziantep, the epicenter of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake, called me just a few hours later. Here in Istanbul, we felt nothing-just an eerie silence in the morning, the final serene moments of unknowing. At first I wasn’t aware of the scale of the destruction.

The palace of illusions 10th anniversary edition