The turkish dilemma

Montreal Gazette (subscription), Canada - Jul 22, 2007
MATTHEW FISHER, CanWest News Service
Church and state are separate in Turkey. some will fight to keep it that way. others want a more intrusive islam. today's election is about that - and a lot more

Turks voting in today's parliamentary elections are focused on issues such as how to keep the vibrant economy racing ahead, preventing the rise of Kurdish power in northern Iraq from spilling over into Turkey's Kurdish areas, and whether to continue trying to win membership of the European Union.

But the most emotive issue by far is whether this country of 70 million, which forms a bridge between the Middle East and Europe, should remain secular and Western-oriented, as it has been since Kemal Ataturk founded the republic on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire more than 80 years ago, or draw closer to its Islamic roots.

And if Turkey decides to turn toward Islam, will the staunchly secular Turkish military launch another coup?


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Font: ****Didem Mercan plans to vote for the Republican People's Party, which was founded by Ataturk, because she fears the Islamist connections of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

She worries that, if the AKP wins a second majority in parliament, it could force women to wear headscarves. Clad in blue jeans and a summery blouse, her fingernails painted bright red, the 23-year old communications student is a walking advertisement for her belief "religion should have no place in my personal life, and I am prepared to fight for that right."

Mesut Topcu, on the other hand, said he intends to vote for the AKP because, since it won power in November 2002, the authorities have stopped hassling men in the deeply conservative Istanbul suburb of Fatih about wearing the skullcaps, baggy trousers and long beards of pious Muslims.

Topcu, an electrical engineer, was unequivocal about the value of headscarves, which remain banned in schools and government offices but are commonly worn by women in Fatih, as are black, Iranian-style full-body chadors. "I am sad for a woman who does not cover herself. She will go to hell on judgment day."

The public expression of such sharp differences in opinion is relatively new in Turkey, but the debate is actually many centuries old.

The country's population is about 98 per cent Muslim, but its history has been profoundly influenced by geography. In the northwest and northeast, Turkey is bordered by Christian Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia and Armenia, while in the east and south, it sits alongside Muslim Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq and Syria. It is also the only Muslim nation in NATO.

Istanbul, Turkey's largest city with a population of 12 million, has always felt the pull of east and west particularly keenly. Famously divided by the Bosphorus Strait into European and Asian parts, Constantinople, as it was called until 77 years ago, is home to spectacular mosques and minarets as well as the Orthodox Church's oldest patriarchate.

Although he was Muslim, Ataturk replaced sharia law with a Swiss-style legal system. Women were given the vote, veils were banned, drinking alcohol was permitted and Latin script replaced Arabic letters.

Many secularists are convinced some of those fundamental changes are now at risk if the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wins another parliamentary majority.

"They are really Islamists and we believe that they wear a mask right now, trying to pretend that they aren't," said architect Eliz Ofil, 25, sitting in a smart cafE, watching huge tankers and freighters from Russia, Kazakhstan, Iran and many other countries gingerly navigate the narrow Bosphorus artery between the Mediterranean and Black seas.

Metres away, Egeman Bargis, an AKP deputy and Erdogan's chief foreign policy adviser, did not hide his contempt for such views.

"That's bullshit," he said.


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Font: ****"This is not a difference of opinion between Islamists and secularists. It is a difference of opinion between those who want more democracy or less. The opposition has tried at every chance to create tension."

Kemal Giloglu, a Republican People's Party campaign manager, said this election may be the most important ever. He warned of "creeping Islamization" if the AKP wins again. Indeed, the future of a church and a synagogue near his house is in danger because of what he describes as his opponent's lack of respect for Turkey's history of religious co-existence.

Although some of the AKP's most prominent members have Islamist ties, the party has not spoken much about religion since it emerged as a grassroots movement a few years ago. It has positioned itself on the centre-right and concentrated, with considerable success, on pursuing internationalist economic policies.

Turkey's GDP has risen more than seven per cent per year since 2003, per-capita income has more than doubled, and inflation has been reduced to single digits for the first time in decades.

But the AKP crossed a line with the military when it proposed foreign minister Abdullah Gul, a practising Muslim whose wife covers her head, as its choice for president. In what was dubbed an e-coup, the military derailed the plan last April by posting on its website a warning about a "growing threat" to Turkey's secular practices.

Erdogan's response, however, was to seek a new mandate by calling early parliamentary elections.

There are indications the military may have misjudged the public mood, or perhaps didn't care what it was. Polls suggest the AKP's share of the vote will increase to more than 40 per cent from 34, largely because of a backlash against the military's stance.

Paradoxically, though, although the prime minister's party is more popular than ever in religiously conservative rural areas, and is gaining support in urban areas because of its economic policies, the AKP may actually win fewer seats. That's because of an awkward electoral system that only allows parties with more than 10 per cent of the vote to have representation in the 550-seat parliament.

The AKP and Republican People's Party were the only two that met the 10 per cent threshold in 2001, with the AKP winning 364 seats. This time a third party, the secular Nationalist Movement, also is likely to get more than 10 per cent of the vote, and a number of independent Kurdish candidates could win seats, cutting the AKP's strength by at least several dozen seats.

This makes it unlikely Erdogan's next government will be able to get the two-thirds majority required to introduce direct elections for the presidency. But, in a game of brinkmanship, it will probably have the numbers needed to get its presidential candidate elected by parliament.

Either way, there's a strong possibility of a military veto or a coup by the generals to block Gul from the presidency.

Asked about the generals' likely reaction, the prime minister's senior adviser replied angrily:

Either we have a democracy, where the will of the people prevails, or we don't."

The real struggle is inside Turkey, not on its borders

Friday June 15, 2007
The Guardian
By Jonathan Steele in Istanbul

The issue is not between Islam and modernity, but whether secularists can end their reliance on class prejudice and fantasy

Turkey is big on flags, both in the mind and in the air. Huge, blood-red rectangles flap from tall masts on various points along the Bosphorus, almost as ugly as wind-power turbines. One of the latest to sprout up, and dominate a lovely wooded hillside, is in the chic suburb of Istinye, with its yachting harbour and luxury flats.

Like other municipalities in Istanbul, with its rapidly expanding population of migrants from Anatolia, Istinye's council has come into the hands of the AKP, Turkey's Islamist party, which also runs the national government. "The AKP is always on probation. Every day they have to prove themselves," says Emel Kurma, the executive director of the civil society organisation, the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly (Turkey). She speaks of the AKP's plight with some sympathy. When they came to power five years ago, the Islamists had to prove they were democrats who would respect the country's rigidly secular constitution.

In recent months a new testing ground has emerged - nationalism. Are the Islamists loyal Turks? Hence that grotesque flag in Istinye and, far more menacingly, the current sabre-rattling over whether to invade northern Iraq. The purpose would be to try to stamp out the secessionist Kurdish guerrilla group, the PKK, which uses bases in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The army has been itching to have a go. The government has been hesitating. With national elections due in a month's time, some analysts believe the issue is shadow-boxing. The army sees itself as the ultimate guardian of Turkey's secular traditions and may - in cahoots with the main opposition party - be trying to portray the Islamists as weak and unpatriotic. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has so far resisted, this week bravely saying that for every PKK guerrilla in Iraq, there are 10 inside Turkey. The battle has to be fought in Turkey, not across the border.

Turkey's bout of nationalism is partly fuelled by irritation over constant slaps in the face from the EU. Nicolas Sarkozy's outright rejection of - and Angela Merkel's scepticism about - Turkey's claim to be a member are factors. Another is anti-Americanism - found, paradoxically, more frequently within the army leadership and the secularists than among the Islamists. When the AKP nominated foreign minister Abdullah Gul to be the next president, some demonstrators punned on the Turkish initials for USA. "We want no ABD-ullah as president," they shouted.

The slight rise in nationalism is only one element in a more significant struggle. It was graphically illustrated by the vast demonstrations held in four cities this spring, the biggest outpouring of popular feeling in Turkey for generations. Hundreds of thousands marched against the Islamists, calling for Turkey to be saved from their rule.

The trigger was that decision by the AKP to nominate one of their number to be president. At first glance it might seem an odd issue to be worked up about since the AKP has been in power for five years - during which the country has enjoyed phenomenal economic growth and the government, with an eye to EU membership, has made a series of changes to the penal and civil codes which enhance rather than diminish women's rights.

But in Turkey the president is the gatekeeper. He has the right of veto over legislation and makes key appointments in the judiciary and the education system. With an AKP man as president and another as prime minister, some fear the last door to sweeping change would open.

The throngs who marched through Ankara, Istabul and other cities were worried that the Islamists might bring in sharia law or reverse Turkey's ban on headscarves in schools, universities and government offices. They might even make it go the other way. Instead of no woman being allowed to wear one, the rule would be that every woman must wear one. Gul's wife wears a headscarf and Turkey's secularists could not stomach the idea of their first lady in one.

Binnaz Toprak, a professor of political science at Istanbul's prestigious Bilgi university, has made several studies of public attitudes that give the lie to the secularists' fears. The number of Turks who want an Islamic state fell from an already low 20% in 1999 to 9% last year. The percentage of women who cover their hair when they go into the street has also dropped, from 74% in 1999 to 64% last year. It is a reality that is easily visible, even in conservative suburbs of Istanbul like Uskudari, where mothers in headscarves can be seen strolling along with teenage daughters with black or tinted hair, uncovered and free.

Professor Toprak sees a positive side to the protests. "They represented civil society. It shows people aren't just leaving things to the military," she argues. The army leadership issued two statements about alleged threats to the state, "but it was almost as though they wanted to show they were still in charge".

The downside of the demonstrations is that they may reinforce a false image of Turkey as a country divided between Islamists and democrats. In fact the secularists tend to be more narrow and nationalist, and certainly more elitist, than the AKP. The protesters were mainly middle and upper class, and had a strong element of anti-immigrant prejudice about them. Here was a once-ruling group which resents the arrival of peasants in town, and the fact that they have the strength to win elections.

The symbolism matters as much as the substance, since the AKP has done nothing to disturb Turkey's secular institutions. Mustafa Akyol, a young Islamist newspaper columnist, attacks "secular fundamentalism" and the way its adherents define a "secular republic" as a republic for secular people rather than a republic for all citizens.

The other mistake is to cast the issue as a struggle between Islam and modernity. The AKP has helped to break numerous taboos, from the Kurdish issue to the Armenian one. It is more European and globalising than the old elite. The real issue in Turkey is whether Kemalism - the doctrine of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the secular republic is known - can be modernised. Can the country's secularists build a progressive and open-minded political party again, and thereby find a way of contesting with the Islamists that does not rely on class prejudice, manipulating fantasies about Islamisation, and reliance on the army to knock over the chess table as a last resort?

j.steele@guardian.co.uk

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.

Turkey’s Parliamentary Elections and the Long-Debated Cross Border Operation into Iraq

6/9/2007
Balkanalysis.com
By Mehmet Kalyoncu

The timing of the Turkish army’s dramatic, though long expected, military move against the PKK across the Iraqi border has some suspecting that there is more than exigency behind the bold offensive. Considering that the pivotal Turkish parliamentary elections are due next month, is not the northern Iraq offensive really all about channeling the surging ‘patriotism’ of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) to erode votes from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of candidate and prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan?

Ever since the Turkish military’s digital intervention with the civilian administration on April 27th, there has been no shortage of political crises, each one causing the democratic process in the country to falter. The generals’ e-memorandum followed the halted parliamentary voting for president out of which the Republican People’s Party (CHP) managed to produce a regime threat. Then came the military’s insistence for an immediate cross-border operation against the Kurdish PKK camps in Northern Iraq, which is nowadays pronounced to possibly deal with the Barzani government as well.

At the same time, Turkey has gone into pre-election mode, and those parties who are bashing the AKP government for its alleged inability to deal with the most severe national security threat, most notably the MHP), now the main contender, have boosted their popular support. The phenomenon of politically expedient MHP nationalism has much less to do with the PKK or the so-called independent Kurdish state than it does with the parliamentary elections of July 22.

Secular vs. Islamist – OUT / Islamist vs. Nationalist – IN

For a long time, Turkish society was easily split and polarized along the lines of the secular-minded vs. the Islamists. However, the AK Party’s record over the last four and a half years has changed the whole equation, thereby making it less possible, if not impossible, to identify an Islamist counterpart or threat against the secular regime of the Republic.

This record has been noted by Western observers as well. “Mr. Erdogan’s government has been Turkey’s most successful in half a century,” argued the Economist in May. “After years of macroeconomic instability, growth has been steady and strong, inflation has been controlled and foreign investment has shot up. Even more impressive are the judicial and constitutional reforms that the AK government has pushed through. Corruption remains a blemish, but there is no sign of the government trying to overturn Turkey’s secular order. The record amply justifies Mr. Erdogan’s biggest achievement: to persuade the EU to open membership talks, over 40 years after a much less impressive Turkey first expressed its wish to join.”1

Nevertheless, ethnic Turkish vs. Kurdish nationalism fomented by the surge of PKK activities in the southeastern border of Turkey still provides fertile ground to polarize the country and evenly split the electoral vote. Given the hitherto conciliatory attitude of the mildly Islamist AK Party towards the secular establishment, its unprecedented economic and political successes, and finally its deliberate effort to avoid hot button issues such as the wearing of the head scarf depleted options for many in the ultra-secular circles to attack the AK Party.

Nevertheless, the PKK question and the possibility, perceived as a looming threat, of an independent Kurdish state have always been the weak spot of the AK Party, whose very legitimacy both at home and abroad is pretty much dependent on its continuous commitment to the EU and the United States- both of which seem profoundly allergic to any sort of cross-border military operation by the Turkish military. Therefore, the matter of dealing (or not dealing) with those two imminent threats is literally the only ground on which the AK Party government’s popular prestige could be undermined.

A less effective, but not totally ignorable, issue to be exploited is that of corruption. Yet given all the other parties’ records on corruption, it would be futile to attack the AK government with such allegations. It would in fact prove ineffective, especially so for the Nationalist Action Party, whose former minister has recently been sentenced with the highest corruption charges in the Republic’s history.

When it comes to exploiting popular sentiment over the Kurdish secessionist issue, however, the MHP has proven by far the most suitable contender against the AK Party. In his public rallies, MHP leader Devlet Bahceli frequently accuses the AKP government of being sluggish and dependent on the United States and the European Union to deal with the most severe national security threat, the PKK.2 Bahceli’s inflammatory and nationalistic speeches seem to be paying off. Recent polls about the upcoming parliamentary elections and the long debated cross-border military operation in Northern Iraq indicate that the new fault lines of “Islamists vs. nationalists” have already taken shape, rapidly closing the gap between the AKP and MHP constituencies.

The Polls: Changing Numbers

Two recent online polls, conducted by Turkish polling groups Turkiyesecimleri.com and Secimsonucu.com asked the participants to identify which political party they would vote for in the upcoming July 22 parliamentary elections, indicating a sharp increase in the expected vote count for the MHP, a slight increase or decrease respectively in the AK Party votes and an absolute decline in the Republican People’s Party (CHP) votes.

According to the first poll, which surveyed some 159,897 people, the top-three ranking is as follows: the AK Party (39.19%), the MHP (24.6 %), and then the CHP (12.72%). Compared to the November 3rd 2002 election results, which brought the AK Party into office with a sweeping electoral majority (34.38%) while making the CHP have to be content with 19.39% and leaving the MHP outside the parliament with only 8.36% (below the 10 % threshold), the poll shows a plummeting in the CHP votes whereas a sharp, almost incomprehensible, surge in the MHP votes has been registered. The second poll, to which some 224,328 people responded, demonstrates the same pattern of change: the AK Party in the lead at 32%, followed by the MHP with 21%, and finally the CHP at 16%.

What can possibly explain this pattern? Why did not the decline in the CHP votes, the main rival to the AKP, reflect as an increase in votes for the latter? And what caused such a radical increase in the popularity the MHP, which today offers essentially nothing more than it ever has, and which could not even get into the parliament five years ago?

The recent presidential election process, which was eventually aborted and delayed until after the parliamentary elections, has in fact been a political showdown between the AK Party and the CHP. The latter’s extreme tactics, such as invoking military intervention to halt the AKP majority parliament voting for the president, and making it a matter of regime threat have alienated a substantial number of its own constituency. These tactics have in fact also resulted in the resignation of some of the party’s deputies. They have publicly stated that the reason for their resignation was their party’s anti-democratic attitude toward the presidential elections. The public opinion polls were at the same time hinting that a growing number of people from center left and center right parties were gravitating toward the AK Party, thereby hinting that a second reactionary vote explosion would almost double the AKP votes.

However, that old standard-bearer of nationalism, the MHP, has instead emerged as a main contender to the incumbent AK Party, thanks to leader Bahceli’s inflammatory speeches. They have played on wounded pride among the Turkish people over the Iraq invasion and resulting deterioration of the security situation in the border area, and so fueled popular unrest against the AK Party government. Essentially, the MHP leader is accusing the government of being a mere puppet in the hands of the United States and the European Union, unable or unwilling to assert itself to safeguard national security against Kurdish insurrectionists.

An example of this rhetoric manifested in a recent rally speech in the eastern Anatolian town of Erzurum, a place well known for the strength of its nationalist sentiment. Bahceli urged PM Erdogan to unleash the army in order to erect the Turkish flag at the top of Mount Qandil, where the PKK terrorists are based in Northern Iraq.3

According to another poll carried out by the website Turkiyesecimleri.com, to which some 10,211 people responded, 72.12% of Turks support military intervention in Northern Iraq, while 13.42% oppose it outright, A slightly higher figure (14.46%) prefer a diplomatic solution. Simultaneous developments such as the confrontation between Ankara and Iraqi Kurdish leader Barzani, the AKP Government’s hopeless wait for action from the United States against the PKK, and the surge in the MHP votes, show that fanning the nationalistic sentiments against the AKP government who seem sluggish to deal with the most imminent national security threat is the best strategy to garner popular support nowadays.

It is hardly difficult to realize that neither can the Nationalist Action Party win the elections simply by bashing the AK Party for its failure to deal with the PKK, nor can the Republican People’s Party (CHP) prevent the AK Party from retaining office by portraying it as a major threat to the secular regime.

However, their concerted effort before the elections and in a future parliamentary coalition after the election will dramatically curb the AK Party’s ability to govern. The result will likely manifest itself not only in a slowdown in the EU accession process, but also in a more consistently aggressive attitude toward the Kurds of Northern Iraq. In this equation the Turkmen minority of that region, whose rights Turkey claims to be protecting, will also assume greater importance.

What is at Stake for the AKP, the US and the EU?

Unless the United States and the European Union change their course against the PKK and provide substantial assistance to the AKP government to tackle the terrorist organization, Turkish democracy, which has so far managed avoiding a repeat of the lively old tradition of the military coup, will be exposed to a civilian one. That is, the AK government will simply be punished by a sizeable moderately nationalist vote at the ballot box, just because of its compliance with the United States and the European Union, and its seemingly sluggish approach to the national security threat.

No matter what will be considered as the reason for the AK Party losing its mandate and Turkey returning back to the chronically ineffective coalition governments that preceded this government, for majority mainstream voters in Turkey and for the moderate majority in the broader Muslim world, the reason for the democratic failure will be simple: the United States and the European Union, whose support for democratic change in the Muslim world is perceived simply as shallow rhetoric. Jamal Khashoggi, editor of Saudi Arabia’s al-Watan newspaper, says the Turkish experience has broader implications: “If that experience fails,” he writes, “it will be a setback for modern Islamist movements and it will be a disaster for the western dream of encouraging a secular form of Islam.”4

Certainly, there are and will be interest groups in both Washington and Brussels whose primary objective is not to make sure a sustainable democracy takes root in Turkey but to secure a government in Ankara that would be more compliant with their narrow interests than the AKP government has been. However, policy makers in both capitals should act according to their respective country’s and Union’s long-term interests. In his 1997 tome, The Grand Chessboard, the veteran American diplomat Zbigniew Brzezinski provided a definitive account of how the United States’ and the European Union’s long-term interests are tightly intertwined with sustainable stability in Turkey: “Turkey’s evolution and orientation are likely to be especially decisive for the Caucasian states. If Turkey sustains its path to Europe – and if Europe does not close its doors to Turkey – the states of the Caucasus are also likely to gravitate into the European orbit, a prospect they fervently desire. But if Turkey’s Europeanization grinds to a halt, for either internal or external reasons, then Georgia and Armenia will have no choice but to adapt to Russia’s inclinations.”5

Recent developments prove that Azerbaijan could also face a similar fate. In complete disregard for what Baku has to say about it, Russian President Vladimir Putin counter-proposed his American counterpart George W. Bush’s proposal to install aEuropean missile defense shield in a facility in Azerbaijan, which was built during Soviet times, and is still available for Russia’s use under a continuing agreement between Russia and Azerbaijan.6 Paralyzed with its own chronic problems and likely to experience major blunders over its EU accession with France’s Nicholas Sarkozy, Ankara is far from recognizing the possible political and security implications of Moscow’s growing influence in the region, let alone somehow being able to counter it.

Finally, Ofra Bengio’s reminder about the background of the rising National Action Party (MHP), whose supporters were active recently to publish and distribute Metal Firtina, the fiction prophesizing a major war between Turkey and the United States, hints at what we can expect regarding the possible changes in the Turkish public opinion: “[m]ost of the parties or groupings had in their background anti-Semitic tendencies. This was especially true of the Republican Peasants’ and National Party (Cumhuriyetci Koylu Millet Partisi, CKMP), which later became the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), headed by Alpaslan Turkes. In the 1930s the Turkish ultranationalists were strongly influenced by Nazi propaganda, and anti-Semitism became one of their trademarks… Hitler’s Mein Kampf was published and extensively distributed by Turkish nationalists.”7

1 “Turkey: The Battle for Turkey’s Soul”, The Economist May 3rd 2007 available at http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9116747 (accessed on June 6, 2007)

2 “Bahceli, AK Parti’ye yuklendi”, Zaman available at http://www.zaman.com.tr/webapp-tr/haber.do?haberno=547628&keyfield=6465766C65742062616863656C69 (accessed on June 5, 2007)

3 “Bahceli, AK Parti’ye yuklendi”, Zaman available at http://www.zaman.com.tr/webapp-tr/haber.do?haberno=547628&keyfield=6465766C65742062616863656C69 (accessed on June 5, 2007)

4 “Arab Islamists view Turkey crisis as test for democracy”, Financial Times May 15 2007

5 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, Basic Books 1997, p.149

6 “Russian President Putin proposes Azerbaijan for US missile defense shield”, Today’s Zaman June 8 2007

7 Ofra Bengio, The Turkish-Israeli Relationship: Changing Ties of Middle Eastern Outsiders, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, May 2004, p.76


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.

"An astonishing irony" in Turkey!

May 21, 2007
TPMCafe, NY
By Yasemin Congar | bio

As much as I appreciate Steven Cook's four points that summarize the basic messages of RBNG, I find the book's analysis especially valuable in the passages that deal with the EU reforms in Turkey. The desire to become a full member of the EU not only has resulted in a major --albeit incomplete-- uprooting of authoritarian laws and structures in the country, but also serves as a catalyst for the world to see who/what is modern in Turkey now. As Cook told me in a recent interview, "This is not your grandfather's Turkey." In an irony of history, the forces that are in the forefront of Westernization in today's Turkey come from among the religious masses of Anatolia, while many among the Western-looking secularist elite of the big cities are nostalgic for the modernism of 1920s and not ready to accept what it means to be modern and Western today.

I am just back from a trip to Istanbul where I had the chance to chat with politicians, candidates for parliament and journalists, with different takes on the Ak Party government. Some of them blamed AK for the crisis over the election of the new president: "The Prime Minister," they said, "overplayed his hand. He should have sought consensus, nominated a benign figure and avoided confrontation with the military." Others pointed out that the thousands of people demonstrating against AK had genuine fears that a headscarved First Lady would be a major step in what they perceived as the gradual Islamization of Turkey: "Whether these fears are unfounded or not is beside the point. It is up to AK to erase these fears." Others, still, believed the developments to be the inevitable stages of the power struggle in the country: "Turkey is a sick man that is slowly getting better," said an astute democrat, "Every now and then there is a relapse, but the overall prognosis remains good."

Yet, it was striking how very few people were overtly supportive of what the military had done on April 27, namely the issuing of an e-memorandum that included a thinly-veiled coup threat. Within Turkey's political classes, more and more people seemed to realize what Cook calls "the astonishing irony" -- that the Turkish military no more seemed to be the vanguard of modernization and Westernization in Turkey.

Ak Party has been the locomotive of the EU reforms for over four years. Under EU's guidance, the leaders of AK did more to limit the military's role in the political system than any other elected government in the country's history. The military, on the other hand, has been alternatingly acquiescent and resistant to the reforms. Lately, Turkey's top generals have become more vocal in their criticism of the EU's positions vis a vis the civil-military relations and the Kurdish question in Turkey. Also, they never accepted to remain fully outside the political discourse and decision-making process. The generals continued to speak on a wide range of issues including Northern Iraq, Cyprus, Armenia, genocide resolutions, secularism, Orhan Pamuk, etc.

When the military issued its e-memorandum on April 27, the leaders of AK became the first-ever Turkish politicians to reject such a move and publicly remind the military that the Chief of Staff worked for and was accountable to the Prime Minister. The EU, for its part, was quick to criticize the military.

Even among the secularists who protested against AK in several mass rallies recently, voices were heard against a military intervention. The overwhelming message, however, was not a democratic one, as the official speakers of those rallies, for the most part, supported the military's role in politics. They also criticized the ties with the EU, the US, and globalization in general. Although many in the eclectic crowd might have disagreed, the message from the microphone was one of an inward-looking, nationalistic, and even militaristic mindset.

As the cameras captured a sea of red--of Turkish flags and red t-shirts--thousands of secular Turkish women expressed their fear that some day the Islamists might tell them to cover their heads. The fact that, at that very moment, there were millions of Turkish women whose right to higher education was denied because they donned headscarves did not seem to matter. The demonstrators believed themselves to be, in the words of one speaker who took the microphone at several rallies, "the modern, civilized face of Turkey." The implicit dehumanization of the other--the pious, the headscarved--did not bother the crowd. Neither the democratic and pluralistic nature of modern politics nor the freedoms that are the base of today's Western society and the rule of law that protects those freedoms seemed to register with the speakers at the rallies. For them being modern and Western seemed to be merely a lifestyle and a dresscode. An authoritarian regime could be modern and Western as long as it remained untainted by Islam.

But the subscribers of this ideology are diminishing in number in Turkey. In the Anatolian cities and among the newly-urbanized segments of society, more and more people welcome and participate in the economic boost resulting from globalization and the EU process. Pious Turkish women are no longer low-profile, stay-at home types, but have become politically and socially active under the AK government. While their visibility is perceived as a threat by narrow-minded secularists, that visibility is the result of a modern --and Western-- demand to participate. The headscarf, while it remains a symbol of "backwardness" for those secularists who do not think beyond the official definitions of 1920s, is in fact an item of modernity for it enables the woman to go out of her house and socialize.

In RBNG, in the chapter entitled "Turkish Paradox," Cook provides an astute analysis of the political superstructure that has been slowly but surely transforming against a background of social change in Turkey.

"For the Islamists," Cook writes, "to supplant the officers as the perceived agents of Westernization would not only represent an astonishing irony but also risk a breach with the majority of Turks who overwhelmingly support the political reforms Europe demands. The result would be a significant diminution of the prestige of the officer corps, which would simultaneously enhance that of the civilian leadership, rendering it more difficult for the officers to act autonomously, influence the political arena, or defend the political order."

I could not agree more.

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.

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.