Book Review: ‘From Life Itself,’ by Suzy Hansen

Admittedly, Americans seem to have a soft spot for books about faraway places that end up reminding them of themselves. Hansen’s, though, is in many ways too rich and complex to provide an easy parallel. Erdogan often gets lumped in with other 21st-century strongmen, but on migration, for example, he has taken an idiosyncratic tack. “Unlike Trump and Orban,” Hansen writes, referring to Hungary’s then prime minister, “Erdogan had seen the Syrians as part of his vision for a greater Muslim Turkey, rather than brown invaders of a white Western country.” His approach to immigration also allowed him to play a kind of power broker on the world stage, collecting European Union money to keep the Syrians out of Europe.

Much of what Hansen found in Karagumruk surprised her, too. Residents would complain relentlessly about their new Syrian neighbors while providing them with generous aid. She spoke with countless Karagumruk residents while necessarily directing our attention to a few. Ismail, the longtime muhtar, or neighborhood councilman, speaks lovingly of the city’s old cosmopolitanism and happens to be part of the same midcentury generation as Erdogan. Ebru, a real estate agent, resents the Syrians for getting European Union money and tries to unseat Ismail. Huseyin, a shop owner, defends his Syrian neighbors from a violent mob. Murat, an “Islamic fundamentalist barber,” pledges his fealty to Erdogan, whom he calls “the most democratic person in the world.”

Erdogan, for his part, emerges from this account as a ruthless autocrat who rose to power through undeniable popular support. He was a poor boy turned soccer player turned mayor of Istanbul. In his first several years as Turkey’s prime minister, he improved the health care system and civil infrastructure, bringing measurable benefits to people’s lives. But then came the corruption and oppression, and the gutting of state institutions, where loyalty was now favored over expertise.

In February 2023, when massive earthquakes tore through Turkey, killing more than 50,000 people, the cost of such depredations was laid bare: “Erdogan had so centralized power around his person until he rendered Turkey a country that no longer worked.”

Still, he won the election that was held later that year, with 52 percent of the vote. Hansen sees some hope at the edges: principled people who navigate their way around obstacles, finding the seams in the armor, “whatever pathways within institutions hadn’t yet been obstructed, whatever avenues of freedom remained open to them.” But improvisation doesn’t add up to an effective opposition.