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 to the song that was inspired by the interview:
WAYS TO LOSE A COUNTRY
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