This morning I read in the online edition of The Wall Street Journal that Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, plans to drop all lawsuits he had lodged against private individuals, politicians, and journalists for insulting him. Among the lawsuits are several against cartoonists who had caricatured him as various animals. According to Erdoğan’s spokesman, he is applying “advanced democracy” after recent elections, which he and his party have won quite handsomely. My thoughts presently turned to Slobodan Vugrinec, the mayor of Motovun, who is suing me for various things, including insult for likening him to an animal. He, too, won the elections two years ago. If Turkish democracy is advanced enough to drop lawsuits for insults of this sort, how about Croatian democracy? Is Turkish democracy more advanced than its Croatian counterpart, that is?

Addendum (June 18, 2011)

Just like many similar pieces of writing, this one has gone to Stefan Füle, the European Union’s commissioner for enlargement. What the heck. My stream of invective may help Croatia on its long march toward democracy, but this particular piece may also help Turkey. In any case, Turkey seems to lead Croatia in some things. Having become a candidate for membership in the Union at the same time as Croatia, which was six years ago, Turkey needs every bit of help it can get. With some luck, it may join the Union after the remaining countries from the Balkans a decade from now or so. Culturally, all these countries are rather similar to the erstwhile core of the Turkish empire. These similarities are not always appreciated by the periphery of old, but they are still indelible. Besides, five centuries of rule over the mountainous region fraught since Roman times must have speeded up the demise of the entire empire, as well.