The last occasion in which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been seen making a gesture with his right hand is recent, after the result of the referendum held in Turkey on Sunday and with which he has managed to strengthen his power even if it is . Each appearance of Erdogan leaves an image in which he is seen showing four fingers of that hand stretched out and the thumb against his palm. What does it mean?
The gesture arose from the protests of August 2013 that took place in Egypt, specifically in the Rabaa al-Adawiya square, and that were carried out by the supporters of Mohamed Morsi -overthrown in July by a military coup on July 3 of that year- and that They ended with several hundred dead.
The ‘rage sign’, also called ‘rabaa’ or ‘R4BIA’ and very popular on social networks, has served the Turkish president to mark his favorable position towards the Muslim Brotherhood, a political organization considered terrorist since the president of the Egyptians is Abdel Fatah al Sisi (chief of the armed forces of the 2013 coup) and to which Morsi belonged, supported from Ankara.
Beyond the initial meaning
Banned by Cairo, Erdogan insists on repeating the gesture in his public appearances. And not only him. Supporters of the Turkish president also display the sign of rage in support of their president and the cause he champions, because the gesture has greater political significance than when it appeared.
In addition to sympathy towards the Muslim Brotherhood banned in Egypt, Erdogan expresses with those four fingers raised his position against Russia’s actions in the Syrian war, where Erdogan is against Al Asad while Cairo follows Moscow.
Since July 9, 2014, an organization affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood has designated August 14 as ‘World Rabies Day’. Morsi was president of Egypt from June 30, 2012 until July 3, 2013, the day he was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment in November 2016, after the death sentence handed down by the Cairo Criminal Court in May was annulled. from 2015.
Erdogan supporters making the sign of rage. Image: Reuters
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