Tweet
IN TURKEY, A LOOMING BATTLE OVER SECULARISM
Claire Berlinski Special To The Nation
Nation Multimedia, Thailand
May 7 2007
Bulent and Dogu are easygoing young Turks and unlikely
authoritarians. Bulent just returned from the hippie trail in SE Asia,
and Dogu's son is named Cosmos.
But when the military recently threatened to settle Turkey's disputed
presidential elections, they approved, suggesting just how hard it
is to sort Turks into familiar political categories.
"Someone needs to threaten them," Dogu said. "They've gone too far."
By "they," he meant the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, which
has governed Turkey for the past four years under PM Recep Tayyip
Erdogan and which is (depending who you talk to) either the hopeful
face of a new moderate Islam or the moderate face of radical Islam's
new hope.
By "too far", Dogu meant the AKP had chosen one of its own - Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul - to be the next president. Turkey's staunchly
secular Constitutional Court agreed, declaring the first round of
presidential voting void on the grounds there was no parliamentary
quorum when the vote for Gul took place. Of course there wasn't: the
opposition had boycotted the ballot, knowing it didn't have enough
votes to win.
"I don't want someone who wears a headscarf in the presidential
palace," Dogu said, referring to Gul's wife. "It's okay if it's an
Anatolian headscarf. But I don't want them wearing Arab headscarves."
Anatolian Turks wear headscarves because that's what they've always
worn - but an Arab headscarf is political, and he believes the AKP
won't be satisfied until every woman in Turkey is under one.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the Turkish Republic in 1923,
imposed a strict secularism on Turkish society, banning religion from
the public sphere. In recent weeks, demonstrators have taken to the
streets in massive support of Kemalist secularism. Westerners may
be tempted to sigh with approval, imagining this as an outpouring of
sympathy with liberal Enlightenment values. They would be mistaken.
The AKP's opponents say they don't want Turkey turned into another
Iran. But it is not clear that the AKP has any intention of doing
that. What is clear is that it poses a threat to the power of the
secular ruling class, of which a dismaying number are authoritarian
ultra-nationalists.
This is not to diminish their concerns about the AKP, whose origins
in radical Islam are not a matter of dispute. But the AKP says it has
outgrown these sentiments and is now fully committed to democracy and
a looser version of secularism. It swears it does not seek to impose
a fundamentalist tyranny. The government has confined its enthusiasm
for Islamic law to the most modest of sops.
Meanwhile, Istanbul has become more prosperous. Starbucks stores have
opened on Istanbul's largest boulevard. Billboards still feature
half-naked women; transvestites still swish down the streets. New
construction is everywhere. The AKP has thrown Turkey open to foreign
investment. It has deregulated the economy; since the AKP took power,
it has grown by a third. It has tamed inflation, stabilised the
currency and presided over a jump in per-capita income.
The state sector, controlled by the secular bureaucracy, has been
reduced. Margaret Thatcher would not have disapproved.
The AKP was elected in large part because previous secular governments
had for so long, and so badly, mismanaged the economy.
A casual observer might also expect that because the Turkish protesters
are enemies of Islamic extremism, they are friends of the US. Not
so. The secularists here are if anything more hostile to the West
than the AKP. Many secularist legislators voted to deny US forces
the right to pass through Turkey on their way to invade Iraq.
At the recent rallies in Ankara and Istanbul, protesters held up signs
denouncing "ABD-ullah Gul". This is an anti-American pun: The letters
"ABD" stand for "USA" in Turkish. U.S. camera crews were abused with
chants of "Go home, CIA spies."
Finally, it is the AKP, not the secular establishment, that is
plumping for Turkey's entry into the EU. The nationalists fear that the
union will interfere with their war against Turkey's restive Kurdish
separatists. The European Commission has issued a stern warning to
the Turkish military: Stay out of politics or it will hurt your EU bid.
Last Sunday's protests in Istanbul took place under blue skies.
Turkey's young secularists were laughing, singing nationalist songs,
flirting. Necdet, a middle-aged man, was enjoying lunch with his
family. He was keen for the military to exert its influence. "It's
necessary," he said. "It's the military's constitutional role."
But how, I asked, is that compatible with democracy? After all, the
AKP won the last election handily. It would win again if elections
were held today.
"There is no such thing as absolute democracy, anywhere. If the AKP
takes the presidency, democracy is over here anyway," Necdet replied.
"They haven't changed their stripes. Once an Islamist, always an
Islamist. There's no such thing as moderate Islam."
"So why do you think the EU is so opposed to military intervention?"
I asked. "Surely they don't want a Taliban regime in southern Europe?"
"They want to split us up into Kurds, Armenians and Turks. That way
they can reduce our influence in the region and control the resources
of the Middle East."
This is a deeply held belief. Turks are raised on an unremitting diet
of this Ottoman paranoia, which is now so thoroughly merged with the
secularists' legitimate concerns that it is difficult to tell where
one ends and the other begins. It is hardly a solid foundation for
a mature democracy. Indeed, the concept of "democracy" is generally
poorly understood. At lunch the other day, I asked our shy young
waiter what he thought of Gul.
"I don't know. But democracy is good," he shrugged.
"So who are you going to vote for?" I asked.
He looked horrified. "I never vote."
Lest anyone think I'm pessimistic about Turkey's future, I'm not. The
AKP will probably continue to do a fine, moderate job, particularly
because it knows that the military is all too eager to fire up the
tanks. Turkey will continue to function reasonably well, compared
with other Muslim countries. Istanbul will still be a glorious
place to live. Most Turks are either moderate Muslims or moderate
authoritarians; true extremists on both sides are in the minority,
and when the military takes power, it has always given it back after
a time.
But don't make the mistake of thinking that "secular" here means
"liberal, democratic and friendly to the West." That, it decidedly
does not.
Claire Berlinski is the author of "Menace in Europe: Why the
Continent's Crisis Is America's, Too".
http://nationmultimedia.com/2007/05/08 /opinion/opinion_30033637.php
Claire Berlinski Special To The Nation
Nation Multimedia, Thailand
May 7 2007
Bulent and Dogu are easygoing young Turks and unlikely
authoritarians. Bulent just returned from the hippie trail in SE Asia,
and Dogu's son is named Cosmos.
But when the military recently threatened to settle Turkey's disputed
presidential elections, they approved, suggesting just how hard it
is to sort Turks into familiar political categories.
"Someone needs to threaten them," Dogu said. "They've gone too far."
By "they," he meant the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, which
has governed Turkey for the past four years under PM Recep Tayyip
Erdogan and which is (depending who you talk to) either the hopeful
face of a new moderate Islam or the moderate face of radical Islam's
new hope.
By "too far", Dogu meant the AKP had chosen one of its own - Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul - to be the next president. Turkey's staunchly
secular Constitutional Court agreed, declaring the first round of
presidential voting void on the grounds there was no parliamentary
quorum when the vote for Gul took place. Of course there wasn't: the
opposition had boycotted the ballot, knowing it didn't have enough
votes to win.
"I don't want someone who wears a headscarf in the presidential
palace," Dogu said, referring to Gul's wife. "It's okay if it's an
Anatolian headscarf. But I don't want them wearing Arab headscarves."
Anatolian Turks wear headscarves because that's what they've always
worn - but an Arab headscarf is political, and he believes the AKP
won't be satisfied until every woman in Turkey is under one.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the Turkish Republic in 1923,
imposed a strict secularism on Turkish society, banning religion from
the public sphere. In recent weeks, demonstrators have taken to the
streets in massive support of Kemalist secularism. Westerners may
be tempted to sigh with approval, imagining this as an outpouring of
sympathy with liberal Enlightenment values. They would be mistaken.
The AKP's opponents say they don't want Turkey turned into another
Iran. But it is not clear that the AKP has any intention of doing
that. What is clear is that it poses a threat to the power of the
secular ruling class, of which a dismaying number are authoritarian
ultra-nationalists.
This is not to diminish their concerns about the AKP, whose origins
in radical Islam are not a matter of dispute. But the AKP says it has
outgrown these sentiments and is now fully committed to democracy and
a looser version of secularism. It swears it does not seek to impose
a fundamentalist tyranny. The government has confined its enthusiasm
for Islamic law to the most modest of sops.
Meanwhile, Istanbul has become more prosperous. Starbucks stores have
opened on Istanbul's largest boulevard. Billboards still feature
half-naked women; transvestites still swish down the streets. New
construction is everywhere. The AKP has thrown Turkey open to foreign
investment. It has deregulated the economy; since the AKP took power,
it has grown by a third. It has tamed inflation, stabilised the
currency and presided over a jump in per-capita income.
The state sector, controlled by the secular bureaucracy, has been
reduced. Margaret Thatcher would not have disapproved.
The AKP was elected in large part because previous secular governments
had for so long, and so badly, mismanaged the economy.
A casual observer might also expect that because the Turkish protesters
are enemies of Islamic extremism, they are friends of the US. Not
so. The secularists here are if anything more hostile to the West
than the AKP. Many secularist legislators voted to deny US forces
the right to pass through Turkey on their way to invade Iraq.
At the recent rallies in Ankara and Istanbul, protesters held up signs
denouncing "ABD-ullah Gul". This is an anti-American pun: The letters
"ABD" stand for "USA" in Turkish. U.S. camera crews were abused with
chants of "Go home, CIA spies."
Finally, it is the AKP, not the secular establishment, that is
plumping for Turkey's entry into the EU. The nationalists fear that the
union will interfere with their war against Turkey's restive Kurdish
separatists. The European Commission has issued a stern warning to
the Turkish military: Stay out of politics or it will hurt your EU bid.
Last Sunday's protests in Istanbul took place under blue skies.
Turkey's young secularists were laughing, singing nationalist songs,
flirting. Necdet, a middle-aged man, was enjoying lunch with his
family. He was keen for the military to exert its influence. "It's
necessary," he said. "It's the military's constitutional role."
But how, I asked, is that compatible with democracy? After all, the
AKP won the last election handily. It would win again if elections
were held today.
"There is no such thing as absolute democracy, anywhere. If the AKP
takes the presidency, democracy is over here anyway," Necdet replied.
"They haven't changed their stripes. Once an Islamist, always an
Islamist. There's no such thing as moderate Islam."
"So why do you think the EU is so opposed to military intervention?"
I asked. "Surely they don't want a Taliban regime in southern Europe?"
"They want to split us up into Kurds, Armenians and Turks. That way
they can reduce our influence in the region and control the resources
of the Middle East."
This is a deeply held belief. Turks are raised on an unremitting diet
of this Ottoman paranoia, which is now so thoroughly merged with the
secularists' legitimate concerns that it is difficult to tell where
one ends and the other begins. It is hardly a solid foundation for
a mature democracy. Indeed, the concept of "democracy" is generally
poorly understood. At lunch the other day, I asked our shy young
waiter what he thought of Gul.
"I don't know. But democracy is good," he shrugged.
"So who are you going to vote for?" I asked.
He looked horrified. "I never vote."
Lest anyone think I'm pessimistic about Turkey's future, I'm not. The
AKP will probably continue to do a fine, moderate job, particularly
because it knows that the military is all too eager to fire up the
tanks. Turkey will continue to function reasonably well, compared
with other Muslim countries. Istanbul will still be a glorious
place to live. Most Turks are either moderate Muslims or moderate
authoritarians; true extremists on both sides are in the minority,
and when the military takes power, it has always given it back after
a time.
But don't make the mistake of thinking that "secular" here means
"liberal, democratic and friendly to the West." That, it decidedly
does not.
Claire Berlinski is the author of "Menace in Europe: Why the
Continent's Crisis Is America's, Too".
http://nationmultimedia.com/2007/05/08 /opinion/opinion_30033637.php