Ece Temelkuran on How To Lose Your Country in 7 Simple Steps

Ece Temelkuran is a Turkish journalist and author. She was a columnist for Milliyet (2000–2009) and Habertürk (2009 – January 2012), and a presenter on Habertürk TV (2010–2011). She was fired from Habertürk after writing articles critical of the government, especially its handling of the December 2011 Uludere massacre. She was twice named Turkey's "most read political columnist". Her columns have also been published in international media such as The Guardian and Le Monde Diplomatique. A graduate of Ankara University's Faculty of Law, she has published 12 books, including two published in English (Deep Mountain, Across the Turkish-Armenian Divide, Verso 2010, and Book of the Edge, BOA Editions 2010). In 2008 she was a visiting fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, during which time she wrote Deep Mountain, Across the Turkish-Armenian Divide. Her books include Ne Anlatayım Ben Sana! ("What am I Going to Tell You!", Everest, 2006), on hunger strikes by Turkish political prisoners. She was awarded the Human Rights Association of Turkey's Ayşe Zarakolu Freedom of Thought Award in 2008. Her first novel, Muz Sesleri ("Banana Sounds"), was published in 2010 and has been translated into Arabic and Polish. In 2019, she published a nonfiction book How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship, about the rise of right-wing populism and how it operates. LYRICS: Beware of movements that arise Painting heaven in the skies Telling you that they alone have the solution On the right, on the left Many roads lead to theft And they're one of the ways to lose your country Beware of the new rationale That boosts popular morale And schizophrenic logic terrorises There's a distorted narrative Where the truth will never live It's just one of the ways to lose your country Beware of brazen shamelessness It's a nasty business     When people are acting up with immorality Not humble or humane Then chaos is soon to rein And it's one of the ways to lose your country Beware of appointments and dilutions And attacks on institutions When the judiciaries replaced with their own followers A superfluous state Will sign and seal fate Another  of the ways to lose your country Beware of model citizens Who are anointed as the ones To follow and emulate cos they are perfect While the rest of us are left To feel second class at best It's just one of the ways to lose your country Beware of laughter in the streets As they mock their new elites The only self-defence left is their humour Some say it's just sequential And at best inconsequential But it's one of the ways to lose your country