Turkey’s chocolate box

The Turks must be feeling that Forrest Gump’s mum had it right. In recounting the ups and downs of life in the eponymous film, Forrest said his mother used to tell him, “Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” Of the many allegorically relevant events in recent weeks, two best illustrate Mrs Gump’s maxim: uproar over the banning by the Constitutional Court of the main pro-Kurdish political group, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), and an unlikely political gaffe in Spain by the national flag carrier Turkish Airlines. The DTP was banned because of its alleged connections to the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which has been in violent confrontation with the Turkish army for more than two decades. Over the past year Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has poured a lot of energy and money into trying to undercut support for the DTP