Erdogan and pensions, new thorns in Putin's side
The confrontation between the Russian and Ottoman empires has always been the main factor behind success or failure. Erdogan wants to build his powerbase in the Middle East, endangering Russia’s hard-fought hegemony in Syria. Back home, some in the Orthodox Church see pension reform and the raising of the retirement age as God’s punishment, whilst approval rates for Putin and Medvedev are down.
Moscow (AsiaNews) - "Tsar Putin IV" is facing two issues that are shaking some of his certainties, one in foreign affairs and the other intricately home-bound, namely the re-election of Erdogan the Sultan in Turkey and government plans to reform the country’s pension system. The two rather complicated situations are holding the Russian leader back after his big re-election win on 18 March and the great economic agreements signed with China and other Asian nations.
Like all the great tsars of Russia, from Peter the Great to Nicholas I, the line separating success and failure lies in the confrontation with the Ottoman empire, where the newly re-elected president, Recep Tayyp Erdogan, offers a historical and ideological "mirror" image to Vladimir Putin’s own fortunes.
Both have been around for about 20 years, rising quickly to power and unwilling to let it go, changing laws and constitutions to prevent their own removal. The new tsar is betting on the legacy of the Orthodox autocrats of Moscow, whereas Erdogan's neo-Ottoman ideology is bringing Turkey back to the past glories of political Islam. At the same time, both serve as models and inspiration for the various more or less authoritarian souverainisms that have come to dominate the political scene in various parts of the world.
Like the tsars and sultans of bygone eras, the relationship between Putin and Erdogan is fuelled by irreducible hostility and at the same time an inextricable mutual dependence. The dream of Muscovy’s “Third Rome” was closely connected to the conquest of the "second Rome", ancient Byzantium, which is now a required partner to impose a multilateral vision of the world, as the two are the only empires overlapping two continents, on the cusp of East and West. The usual ground where Turkey and Russia meet and fight is precisely the linchpin between Europe and Asia, the Middle East, from Syria to the Holy Land, as well as Turanian central Asia.
Erdogan’s first statements after his re-election by an absolute majority have raised a few eyebrows in the Kremlin. Speaking to crowds of his supporters in Ankara, the Turkish president promised to complete the “liberation” of Syria, as his voters asked for. "I want to be clear on the matter," he said, "we have received the message of our fellow citizens in the last parliamentary elections. You can be sure that we will not repeat the same mistakes."
With 53 per cent of the votes and the freedom to pick cabinet members as well as supreme court judges, the Turkish leaders wants to broaden his country’s involvement in Syria, and perhaps even in Iraq. "We will free Syria from terrorists, so that we can return our Syrian guests ", Erdogan promised, referring to the migrants who flooded into Turkey at the height of the civil war, for which Tukey got generous funding from the European Union.
Although Russian leaders show a certain nonchalance, on the belief that they can strike a deal with the sultan, Erdogan's statements have set off alarm bells in Russia, which risks losing the hegemony it gained on the ground in Syria.
However, Putin's headaches are even greater at home following proposed pension reform, with the risk of undermining his popularity among Russians. Announced on 14 June, on the eve of the FIFA World Cup kick off, the reform brings the age of retirement to 65 for men and 63 for women.
An influential member of the Orthodox clergy, Archpriest Aleksey Chaplin of the eparchy of Belgorod, posted fiery views about the proposed changes on the portal Russkaja Pravoslavnaja Linija and social media.
According to the prelate, "the raising of the retirement age touches that generation that did more than any other to destroy the principles established by God on the family, and the new law appears as a punishment inflicted on the people for their sins . . . The truth is always uncomfortable and difficult, but this is in the mission of the Church."
In this case the "truth" is the "deception of the liberal lobby", and the fact that "in lieu of the family, what dominates [today] is the sinful coexistence of the so-called civil marriages. The number of divorces has reached a frightening level, whilst large families are condemned in public opinion, not to mention the millions and millions of abortions."
So far, the effect of the reform has been "dulled" by the euphoria over Team Russia’s good performance at the FIFA World Cup. Although this was quickly dampened by the first sound defeat against Uruguay, the Russian government is still hoping for more successes, a big feat, to avoid harsher criticism and greater social unrest than the moralising accusations of Fr Aleksey and the Orthodox Church.
Meanwhile, President Putin's approval rating has dropped recently from 75 to 69 per cent, whilst approval for Prime Minister Medvedev's government has sunk below 50 per cent.
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16/07/2018 18:47
