In 20 years and counting under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s rule, Istanbul has transformed. Officially, the city’s population has doubled to 16mn, almost as big as London and New York put together. The real number could be much higher. In this gorgeous urban setting by the Bosphorus, well-connected construction companies have built an ugly new city — or really, collection of cities — plus Europe’s busiest airport. Traffic jams stretch to the horizon.
Turkey’s freshly re-elected Islamist-nationalist president torments Istanbul’s secular inhabitants. There are ever fewer neighbourhoods where secular people can live as they want. Vast new mosques proliferate, while Erdoğan has converted the former church and museum Hagia Sophia into a mosque too. Swingeing alcohol taxes have turned beer into luxury. When I asked one secular Turkish man how he felt about Erdoğan’s re-election, he replied: “Between exasperated, depressed and suicidal.”
I wanted to know where Erdoğan planned to take Turkey. I had presumed that having won five more years, with many opponents jailed and the media quietened, he was nearly omnipotent at home and stronger abroad than any previous leader of Turkey. But I left Istanbul surprised at the constraints on him. Erdoğan isn’t a very strong strongman.