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  • ISTANBUL: Low turnout shows Turkish expats 'reluctant to delve into

    Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
    Sept 1 2014


    Low turnout shows Turkish expats 'reluctant to delve into Turkey's politics'

    Barçýn Yinanç

    When it comes to day-to-day politics, Turks abroad generally choose to
    be active in their countries of residence rather than in Turkey, says
    researcher Kerem Öktem, explaining why only 10 percent voted in the
    recent presidential elections


    Turkey's diaspora policy is more inclusive than it was before 2002,
    when the Justice and Development Party came to power, but it remains
    exclusive to many groups, says Kerem Öktem. HÜRRÝYET photo / Selçuk
    ÞAMÝLOÐLU

    Turks living abroad feel empowered by a strong leader like Recep
    Tayyip Erdoðan but when it comes to day to day matters they are
    reluctant to be active in Turkey's internal politics, says researcher
    Kerem Öktem, discussing the low turnout among overseas Turks in the
    recent presidential elections.

    Turks abroad are seen by the government as an asset in their own
    right, but there is also tendency to use them for internal politics,
    according to Öktem, whose policy report titled "Turkey's New Diaspora
    Policy: The Challenge of Inclusivity, Outreach and Capacity" focuses
    on the work of the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related
    Communities, which was established in 2010.

    What distinguishes the Justice and Development Party (AKP)
    government's approach to the Turkish diaspora from its precedents?

    I was born in Germany. So I also had experience of the Turkish state's
    perspective on the diaspora in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Turks abroad,
    especially in Western Europe, were seen as people who you weren't
    particularly proud of. They were guest workers, they were not very
    well educated, they were seen as tarnishing the image of Turkey
    abroad. The understanding of Turkey then was that Turkey is a modern
    country, it's not an Islamic country, and these people somehow spoiled
    that kind of image of the modern Turkish nation.

    But then I also saw how Kurds abroad were treated with extreme
    suspicion by the state, of course. And then when it came to the
    non-Muslim communities, the state looked at them with even more
    suspicion. So generally the Turks abroad were seen as a problem.

    Now the AKP, of course, comes from a very different political
    tradition. They've been reinventing Turkey and the Turkish state, and
    they've done this by placing much more emphasis on the common people
    in this country, the culture they come from, the religious culture
    they have been brought up with. In 2002, a political movement came in
    that saw these people in Germany as their own. So suddenly the massive
    distance that was there between Turks abroad and the Turkish state
    seems to have diminished.

    When you talk about the Turkish diaspora, in what sense do you use it?

    I have taken the broadest definition of diaspora, meaning people who
    are related to Turkey in one way or the other, either by citizenship
    or by ex-citizenship. This is because a lot of Turks abroad had to
    give up their citizenship, or for historical reasons, especially when
    it comes to the Armenians or the Greeks, for instance.

    Is this also the understanding of the state?

    I don't think the state has a clear definition of what the diaspora
    means for them. If you ask Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoðlu, he would
    say that everybody who feels a link to Turkey is part of Turkey's
    diaspora. When you ask the presidency, they also have that definition
    up to a point, but they also work at times with Azerbaijani diaspora
    organizations that would like to do anything to work against the
    Armenians. So the state's perspective has a very differentiated,
    conjectural understanding of the diaspora, which changes over time but
    at the moment is much more inclusive than it was in the 1990s or 80s.

    Let's elaborate the state's approach to the diaspora.

    Well actually when you look at the presidency there's obviously a very
    strong emphasis on the Turkish diaspora in Europe. These are mostly
    migrant workers, the guest workers.

    There is also the Turkic element in Central Asia, and then there's
    also the wider Muslim world that is very important in the
    understanding of the presidency.

    At one point in your research there's also mention of Somalis.

    Well now we will see much more of this because with Davutoðlu we have
    a true pan-Islamist thinker and ideologue. I think this has also
    shaped the presidency in many ways. There is a sense of Muslim
    pan-Islamist solidarity and a sense of pan-Islamist leadership by
    Turkey of the Islamic world, which I think permeates the ideology of
    the presidency. So for the presidency the diaspora is a catch-all
    phrase, but it has a lot to do with the projection of Turkish power.
    So having a Somali in the journal (of the presidency) for instance
    gives the hint that Turkey wants to be more than a nation state.

    So the aim goes beyond reaching out to Turks living abroad.

    You can think of these as concentric circles, in the center you have
    the aim to improve the quality of life and empower your citizens
    abroad, give them opportunities, make sure that they don't lose their
    connection to the homeland, etc. In the second concentric circle you
    have these larger aims of how Turkey wants to see itself and that's
    part of its diaspora policy. You have pan-Islamic ideas, "let's reach
    out to the Islamic world, let's appear as a leader there," and there's
    also a neo-Ottoman understanding and a strong showing in the Balkans.
    The third circle, I think, is more about day-to-day politics. The
    presidency played a central role in the mobilization of voters for the
    Aug. 10 presidential elections. It played a major role in organizing
    events at which Recep Tayyip Erdoðan spoke.

    So you have the most legitimate aim in the center; then you have this
    slightly fuzzy, unclear, slightly problematic ideological complex; and
    then you have these day-to-day politics, which we saw in the
    presidential election.

    The diaspora is also increasingly becoming more of a part of foreign policy.

    It's part of a larger understanding of Turkey's foreign policy as a
    much more constructive undertaking. This includes soft power. The
    diaspora policy becomes part of this, let's say, imaginative foreign
    policy, which brings a lot of different aspects together. But while it
    is imaginative it also takes on a lot of risks.

    It is a bit of a fantasy, because it is trying to be everything.

    All of these are very ambitious policies, so in that respect it's a
    fantasy. But at the same time it's also a very imaginative view of
    different foreign policy tools. It's forward-looking and, actually, it
    is what countries like the United States do. But in Turkey we see that
    there's a big mismatch between the means and the goals, both in the
    foreign policy in general and in the diaspora policy part of this.

    Can you elaborate on that?

    The Turkish government is trying to do a lot of things for a lot of
    people, and some of those things might not agree with each other. You
    include the Armenians and the Greeks as part of our diaspora, but at
    the same time you collaborate with Azerbaijan, working against the
    Armenians.

    So how are you going to square the circle? You have this imperial
    understanding of basically almost everything is our diaspora, but then
    when you want to bring it down to policies, it's almost impossible.
    Sometimes it's even counterproductive because you have to work with
    groups that have little to say to each other. This is a big risk, but
    at the same time it's also a great opportunity. If Turkey had a truly
    inclusive diaspora policy, it could really change relations between
    Turks, Kurds and Armenians, and it could contribute to a more peaceful
    relationship between those groups both in the countries where they
    live and in Turkey.

    You have defined the ideology of the presidency as socially
    conservative, religiously Muslim, culturally nostalgic, ethnically
    cosmopolitan and potentially post-nationalist.

    I asked all these people working in the presidency: How can you be
    both pan-Islamist and pan-Turanist and believe in citizenship rights?
    These are all different traditions that don't really overlap. One of
    the leaders there said, "Well this is also about emotions, and if
    people feel emotionally tied to Turkey then that's enough for us." But
    you cannot quantify that, what is that? It is part of Turkey's foreign
    policy and it reflects the weaknesses of that foreign policy. The
    diaspora policy is too ambitious, it is trying too many things.

    So we need a more focused diaspora policy.

    Right now the goals are all very mixed. It goes without saying that
    citizens in Western Europe are the most important part, but then again
    our understanding of citizenship has changed in Turkey. Citizenship
    now is defined by being a pious Sunni Muslim. Historically it was
    defined, in the words of academic Baskýn Oran, as "Secular Hanefi
    Sunni Muslim Turk" Now that has changed, it can include Kurds, but it
    excludes Alevis and secular Turks. They feel quite excluded by the
    presidency's policies.

    To wrap up, let's start with the positive aspect of Turkey's diaspora policy.

    The positive side is that people abroad who have ties with Turkey are
    seen as an asset. This is potentially empowering. For someone who has
    been living in Germany, who hasn't had many opportunities and who has
    experienced serious racism in European immigrant receiving countries,
    it makes a big difference if you feel like your country of origin
    stands behind you. It makes a big difference in people's
    self-understanding as well. Having the feeling that Turkey is behind
    them makes them more confident, which overall is a good thing.

    Secondly, having Turkish cultural centers and programs to organize
    Turks abroad in principle is a very good idea, as long as it is
    inclusive. I also think the idea of not looking at Turks through a
    strict ethnic perspective, which was there at the foundation of the
    Turkish Republic, actually also engages with non-Muslim communities.
    This has great potential if it's used well.

    So Turkey's diaspora policy is more inclusive than it was before 2002,
    but it's also still exclusive to many other groups.

    Which brings us to the challenges.

    The negatives are also many, as are the risks. As we saw in the
    presidential elections, there is a tendency to use Turks living abroad
    for internal politics because there are many Turks in Western Europe.
    Still, the participation rate among Turks abroad was very low. This
    shows that Turks feel empowered by a strong leader like Erdoðan, but
    when it comes to day-to-day politics they generally choose to be
    active in their countries of residence rather than in Turkey. That's
    why they had a participation rate of only 10 percent.

    So you don't ascribe the low participation rate to technical difficulties.

    No, because especially the presidency tried very hard to push this
    forward. And that's the danger: When you look to Turks abroad as a
    political mass that you can manipulate for your own interest - such as
    to get Erdoðan elected, or to further Turkish national interests
    abroad - then you also bring these people into disrepute with their
    countries of residence.

    Who is Kerem Öktem

    Kerem Öktem is Mercator-IPC fellow at Sabancý University's Istanbul
    Policy Center, and Research Fellow at Oxford University's European
    Studies Centre. His main interests lie in the connection between
    domestic politics and foreign policy, nationalism, the politics of
    ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities and social movements in
    Turkey.

    He completed his PhD at the School of Geography, Oxford, in 2006, with
    a thesis on "nation-building in Turkey as a socio-spatial project"
    (Geographies of Nationalism). Preceding his doctoral studies, he
    obtained a M.St. in Modern Middle Eastern Studies at the Faculty for
    Oriental Studies at Oxford in 2001, where he also teaches as an
    Associate Faculty Member. Before his residence in Oxford, he studied
    and worked in Germany in the field of urban studies.

    This September, he will assume the professorial Chair for Southeast
    European and Turkish Studies at the University of Graz, Austria.

    http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/low-turnout-shows-turkish-expats-reluctant-to-delve-into-turkeys-politics.aspx?PageID=238&NID=71138&NewsCatID=338




    From: A. Papazian
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