The dreaded knock on the door

The early morning banging on the door is the classic precursor to something frightening, scary, ominous or in some cases, fatal. Throughout the Nazi era, it meant stormtroopers had arrived at a Jewish family's house to take them away. They probably didn't always knock. Now in the 21st century the knock on the door routine has been deployed again with equal foreboding and implied threat. This time it's in Turkey where the leader, President Erdogan, is fast becoming the monster bogeyman of the Middle East. Well, to put it more correctly, another monster bogeyman of the Middle East. He doesn't like rivals, especially politicians prepared to stand against him. One such is or was Abdullah Gul who was president of Turkey from 2007 to 2014. According to a story in The Times he was about to declare his decision to stand in opposition to Erdogan in upcoming June elections. But then came the knock on the door. Mr Gul's visitors were none other than the chief of the armed forces, General Hulusi Akar, and Erdogan's personal spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin. You can imagine the conversation that followed once Gul had let them in. It won't have been pleasant. It probably didn't need to be threatening. They didn't arrive with thumb screws. But I expect the name Erdogan popped up quite a lot until Gul got whatever the message was and must have said to his visitors that he would have a think and let them know. He duly did. Two days later he announced that he wouldn't after all be standing in opposition to Erdogan. No one except for these three people knows exactly what was said but it doesn't take the brain of Albert Einstein to figure out that the visit had sinister motives. This is Turkey today, where the word "ottoman" has nothing to do with bedroom furniture but everything to do with reviving an empire. Erodogan has sacked so many officials, military and police since the "coup" attempt in 2016 that it's a wonder he has anyone left to carry out his paperwork, deal with crime in the streets or patrol Turkey's borders. Abdullah Gul thought it was time to make a stand against this creeping authoritarianism, until that knock on his door.