Who, really, is responsible for Turkey's malign nationalism?
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
TDN
It looks ridiculous to blame the malign nationalism on everyone else than Mr Erdoğan when there is actually empirical and statistical evidence that this kind of malady has peaked during his unchallenged reign
By Burak BEKDİL
Risking further messages from readers full of insults, curses and threats, mainly from Turkish Muslim expatriates from amazingly different parts of the world, I shall write another piece on everyone's common darling, the Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Some of these “comments,” elegantly written by civilized men who only disagree but do not antagonize, suggest that the AKP is like a national insurance policy against the real malady that is (ultra-) nationalism – a view shared, probably for different reasons, by most diplomats of the civilized world. Yes, they say, the AKP chaps may be Islamists, but they are at the same time liberal reformers unlike the nationalists. And these nationalists are the real obstacles against a “better Turkey,” which, by definition, is free of nationalism.
One should respect that view, like any other view, unless expressed violently. One should also feel the liberty to peacefully argue why the theory is not convincing.
Let's begin with the number three of the AKP, Bülent Arınç, a man of many troubles these days. Before the presidential race (or, was it a race or an appointment process?) began, Mr. Arınç said that eventually a “religious president” would best fit Turkey. Assuming what Hüseyin Çelik, education minister, publicly said after the military's demarche –that secularism meant the state being at equal distance to all religions— is true, could Mr. Arınç possibly have meant a religious Christian or Jew as Turkey's next president? Mind you, he did say a “religious person,” not a “religious Muslim.” But of course he meant a religious Muslim!
Is the presumably unbiased parliament speaker, number two in the state protocol, really at equal distance to all religions? Would he really be content if a good, tax paying, religious but non-Muslim citizen of Turkey were elected president? A pious Orthodox or a Jew? A protestant Turk, for example, like the ones murdered in Malatya?
Has Turkey not been permanently criticized by both of the European Union and the United States for limiting religious freedoms of non-Muslims during the AKP's governance since 2002? Ah, liberal reformers who merely want religious freedoms and democracy in Turkey… Which party, by the way, crafted and legislated the famous Article 301, which brought, among others, Hrant Dink, under the spotlight until a lunatic murdered him? Was it the MHP? The CHP? Or was it not a party but the autocratic military?
Cartoonists, journalists and writers:
Which prime minister holds the title of having sued a record number of humorists, cartoonists, journalists and writers? A clue… It's the same prime minister whose party attempted to ban alcohol and outlaw adultery -- and, for that matter, it is the same prime minister who sacked his own MP for critiquing corruption among party members. It's the same prime minister who has sued an opposition politician because the man had called him “arrogant.” Did anyone say liberalism? This column's space would probably fall too short for other examples to illustrate Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's bizarre sense of liberalism. But Mr. Erdoğan's friends at both sides of the Atlantic are more than prepared to turn around and whistle at the kind of illiberal practice, which, for reasons of real-politik, they do not care much about. Their principal interest (and praise) in Mr. Erdoğan's “liberalism” has more to do with his strategy to undermine what makes “Turkish nationalism” in its classical sense. But has his rule, unique in its length and parliamentary majority, really swept away both or either of the benign and malign nationalism in Turkey, or has it in fact done the opposite effect? Is the AKP really the miracle panacea against anti-western nationalist sentiment?
Recently, a journalist asked Ali Babacan, economy minister and chief EU negotiator, if the crime boom during AKP's rule was the result of economic failures. No, Mr. Babacan replied, it is the result of moral hazard. The crime boom can partially be blamed on a silly amnesty bill the former government had legislated. But essentially, Mr. Babacan was right to admit moral hazard – under the AKP. Now, AKP's overseas supporters as well as Turks who fear nationalism –who do so for different reasons—should ask themselves tough questions.
Were the anti-western Turks this much sharply anti-western before 2002? Did anyone kill a priest in Turkey before 2002? A senior judge? Christian converts? Has the AKP rule controlled/confined or fueled anti-Americanism in Turkey? Did not Turkish anti-Americanism peak after 2002? Under whose governance did the Turks' support for EU membership drop from 75 percent to less than half? – actually more Turks supported EU membership under a coalition which the MHP made one of its flanks. Was it not the same nationalist MHP, which put its party seal on a bill that effectively scrapped a potential capital punishment for Abdullah Öcalan – and for the sake of Turkey's EU bid?
Nationalism free of ethno-centrism:
Has the AKP opened the border with Armenia? The Orthodox seminary in Chalki? Has it sufficiently addressed the rights of the Alevis? Has it withdrawn or reduced the number of Turkish troops in Cyprus? Has its anti-nationalism resolved the Aegean disputes? The Armenian genocide dispute? Has Turkey become friendlier with Turkish and Iraqi Kurds under the AKP?
The truth is, there are both ideological and practical reasons why the AKP's privately anti-nationalist ethos does not suppress, but actually fuels nationalist and anti-western sentiment in Turkey. Young lunatics are being drifted into a dangerous mindset: the ones who feel more Turkish and less Muslim go astray because they feel the government fails to sufficiently defend Turkish interests; and the ones who feel more Muslim than Turkish too go astray apparently feeling encouraged by “their men in power.”
Mr. Erdoğan, too, often holds on to a rhetoric based on benign nationalism – that is, nationalism free of ethno-centrism. He cannot be blamed for that; he actually deserves praise for correctly separating that one from malign nationalism. All the same, it looks ridiculous to blame the malign nationalism on everyone other than Mr. Erdoğan when actually there is empirical and statistical evidence that this kind of malady has peaked during his unchallenged reign.
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
TDN
It looks ridiculous to blame the malign nationalism on everyone else than Mr Erdoğan when there is actually empirical and statistical evidence that this kind of malady has peaked during his unchallenged reign
By Burak BEKDİL
Risking further messages from readers full of insults, curses and threats, mainly from Turkish Muslim expatriates from amazingly different parts of the world, I shall write another piece on everyone's common darling, the Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Some of these “comments,” elegantly written by civilized men who only disagree but do not antagonize, suggest that the AKP is like a national insurance policy against the real malady that is (ultra-) nationalism – a view shared, probably for different reasons, by most diplomats of the civilized world. Yes, they say, the AKP chaps may be Islamists, but they are at the same time liberal reformers unlike the nationalists. And these nationalists are the real obstacles against a “better Turkey,” which, by definition, is free of nationalism.
One should respect that view, like any other view, unless expressed violently. One should also feel the liberty to peacefully argue why the theory is not convincing.
Let's begin with the number three of the AKP, Bülent Arınç, a man of many troubles these days. Before the presidential race (or, was it a race or an appointment process?) began, Mr. Arınç said that eventually a “religious president” would best fit Turkey. Assuming what Hüseyin Çelik, education minister, publicly said after the military's demarche –that secularism meant the state being at equal distance to all religions— is true, could Mr. Arınç possibly have meant a religious Christian or Jew as Turkey's next president? Mind you, he did say a “religious person,” not a “religious Muslim.” But of course he meant a religious Muslim!
Is the presumably unbiased parliament speaker, number two in the state protocol, really at equal distance to all religions? Would he really be content if a good, tax paying, religious but non-Muslim citizen of Turkey were elected president? A pious Orthodox or a Jew? A protestant Turk, for example, like the ones murdered in Malatya?
Has Turkey not been permanently criticized by both of the European Union and the United States for limiting religious freedoms of non-Muslims during the AKP's governance since 2002? Ah, liberal reformers who merely want religious freedoms and democracy in Turkey… Which party, by the way, crafted and legislated the famous Article 301, which brought, among others, Hrant Dink, under the spotlight until a lunatic murdered him? Was it the MHP? The CHP? Or was it not a party but the autocratic military?
Cartoonists, journalists and writers:
Which prime minister holds the title of having sued a record number of humorists, cartoonists, journalists and writers? A clue… It's the same prime minister whose party attempted to ban alcohol and outlaw adultery -- and, for that matter, it is the same prime minister who sacked his own MP for critiquing corruption among party members. It's the same prime minister who has sued an opposition politician because the man had called him “arrogant.” Did anyone say liberalism? This column's space would probably fall too short for other examples to illustrate Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's bizarre sense of liberalism. But Mr. Erdoğan's friends at both sides of the Atlantic are more than prepared to turn around and whistle at the kind of illiberal practice, which, for reasons of real-politik, they do not care much about. Their principal interest (and praise) in Mr. Erdoğan's “liberalism” has more to do with his strategy to undermine what makes “Turkish nationalism” in its classical sense. But has his rule, unique in its length and parliamentary majority, really swept away both or either of the benign and malign nationalism in Turkey, or has it in fact done the opposite effect? Is the AKP really the miracle panacea against anti-western nationalist sentiment?
Recently, a journalist asked Ali Babacan, economy minister and chief EU negotiator, if the crime boom during AKP's rule was the result of economic failures. No, Mr. Babacan replied, it is the result of moral hazard. The crime boom can partially be blamed on a silly amnesty bill the former government had legislated. But essentially, Mr. Babacan was right to admit moral hazard – under the AKP. Now, AKP's overseas supporters as well as Turks who fear nationalism –who do so for different reasons—should ask themselves tough questions.
Were the anti-western Turks this much sharply anti-western before 2002? Did anyone kill a priest in Turkey before 2002? A senior judge? Christian converts? Has the AKP rule controlled/confined or fueled anti-Americanism in Turkey? Did not Turkish anti-Americanism peak after 2002? Under whose governance did the Turks' support for EU membership drop from 75 percent to less than half? – actually more Turks supported EU membership under a coalition which the MHP made one of its flanks. Was it not the same nationalist MHP, which put its party seal on a bill that effectively scrapped a potential capital punishment for Abdullah Öcalan – and for the sake of Turkey's EU bid?
Nationalism free of ethno-centrism:
Has the AKP opened the border with Armenia? The Orthodox seminary in Chalki? Has it sufficiently addressed the rights of the Alevis? Has it withdrawn or reduced the number of Turkish troops in Cyprus? Has its anti-nationalism resolved the Aegean disputes? The Armenian genocide dispute? Has Turkey become friendlier with Turkish and Iraqi Kurds under the AKP?
The truth is, there are both ideological and practical reasons why the AKP's privately anti-nationalist ethos does not suppress, but actually fuels nationalist and anti-western sentiment in Turkey. Young lunatics are being drifted into a dangerous mindset: the ones who feel more Turkish and less Muslim go astray because they feel the government fails to sufficiently defend Turkish interests; and the ones who feel more Muslim than Turkish too go astray apparently feeling encouraged by “their men in power.”
Mr. Erdoğan, too, often holds on to a rhetoric based on benign nationalism – that is, nationalism free of ethno-centrism. He cannot be blamed for that; he actually deserves praise for correctly separating that one from malign nationalism. All the same, it looks ridiculous to blame the malign nationalism on everyone other than Mr. Erdoğan when actually there is empirical and statistical evidence that this kind of malady has peaked during his unchallenged reign.
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
Labels: Turkey - Politics
posted by Vahe Balabanian at 6:38 PM
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