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Turkey's Democratic Dilemma
Letter from Istanbul
By Piotr Zalewski
March 21, 2012
Journalists and activists rally for press freedom in Ankara, March 19,
2011 (Umit Bektas / Courtesy Reuters)
During a town hall meeting organized as part of Barack Obama's 2009
visit to Istanbul, a Turkish student expressed his disappointment with
the president's inability to implement substantial changes to U.S.
foreign policy. `Moving the ship of state is a slow process,' Obama
explained. Not so in Turkey. Since the spring of 2011, Ankara has
performed a remarkable volte-face. A country that engaged and appeased
Middle East dictators for the better half of the past decade now urges
them to undertake democratic reforms -- or risk regime change. There
is just one problem: If Turkey is serious about exporting democracy,
it will have to do a much better job of nourishing its own.
Turkey's renewed focus on the Middle East began in the 1990s but hit
full swing with the election of the Justice and Development Party
(AKP) in 2002. Trade with the region boomed, visa restrictions with
neighboring countries disappeared, and feel-good bilateral visits
abounded. (By his own account, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet
DavutoÄ?lu, billed as the architect of Turkey's renewed engagement with
the Middle East, visited Damascus more than 60 times in the past eight
years. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an, meanwhile, vacationed in
Turkey with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family.) Things
were going so well that a 2010 free-trade agreement among Jordan,
Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey immediately bred talk of a Turkish-led
Middle East union.
Doing business with authoritarian regimes always involved a trade-off,
however: Pushing economic interdependence, AKP officials foreswore any
talk of meddling in their neighbors' internal affairs. In the interest
of stability and expanding commercial links, Turkey repeatedly looked
the other way in the face of authoritarianism and human rights
violations. Ankara downplayed the genocide in Sudan, made no mention
of Syria's dismal human rights record, and ignored the violence that
followed the 2009 presidential election in Iran. Where most Western
governments at least paid lip service to the need for democratic
change in the region, Turkey gave precious few hints that it was
uncomfortable with the status quo. ErdoÄ?an himself saw nothing wrong
with accepting a human rights award from the Libyan dictator Muammar
al-Qaddafi in late 2010.
But the Arab Spring left this approach in tatters. Suddenly, the AKP
government awoke to find that what it had valued most -- stability in
its neighborhood -- could no longer be served by pampering the
region's autocrats. What the Turks (and everyone else) realized was
that the Arab world was bound to go up in flames without fundamental
reforms. Assad and Qaddafi were hardly placed to deliver them. Another
realization soon followed: `Zero problems with neighbors,' the guiding
principle of the AKP's foreign policy, may have reaped economic gains,
but it was not so useful at effecting political change.
The deterioration of Turkey's once-prized relationship with Syria, in
particular, laid bare the limits of Ankara's previous approach.
ErdoÄ?an and DavutoÄ?lu had expected their friendship with Assad to
translate into political leverage. It did not. As Syrian tanks rolled
onto the streets of Hama, Turkish pleas for an end to the violence
went largely ignored. ErdoÄ?an should have learned his lesson: The same
scene had played out in Libya only months earlier. ErdoÄ?an had been
convinced that he had Qaddafi's ear, only to be rebuffed by the Libyan
strongman.
Lately, AKP policymakers and pro-government media have been struggling
to rewrite the narrative of the past few years, insisting that Turkey
had been on the side of democratic change all along. In his February
2011 speech calling for former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to
step down, ErdoÄ?an boldly proclaimed that `not only in Turkey but
everywhere in the world, the [AKP] has shown no fear or hesitation in
siding with the oppressed and the victim. It has always taken a
position against the status quo.' ErdoÄ?an's speech not only marked an
attempt to revise history; it also heralded what has since become a
genuine overhaul of Ankara's foreign policy. One year later, `zero
problems' is out; in is a policy that is more assertive, willing to
take sides, and ready to take risks.
Today, Turkey no longer hesitates to play hardball with its neighbors.
During a September 2011 trip to Cairo, ErdoÄ?an disappointed many of
his admirers in the Muslim Brotherhood by publicly praising the
virtues of secular rule. Having belatedly endorsed outside
intervention in Libya, he warned earlier this year that the situation
in Syria is `heading toward a religious, sectarian, and racial civil
war' that `must be stopped.' In late January, the Turkish leader
scolded Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for stoking sectarian
conflicts. Two weeks later, Bülent Arınç, Turkey's deputy prime
minister, lambasted Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon for remaining silent in
the face of the bloodshed in Syria. `If they do not raise their
voices,' he said, `then they have to remove the word `Islam' from
their names.'
Particularly with regard to Syria, Ankara's new posture has involved
more than just words. Turkey, which shares a 550-mile border with
Syria to its south, has made it clear that its doors are `open to all
Syrians who want to flee from oppression,' as DavutoÄ?lu put it last
month. Refugee camps inside Turkey are already home to over 16,000
Syrians, with many more expected to arrive in the coming weeks. Ankara
has provided a haven not only for refugees but for scores of Syrian
activists and leaders of the rebel Free Syrian Army. Earlier this
month, government officials said Turkey was weighing the possibility
of arming the rebels, setting up humanitarian corridors in Syria, and
even deploying troops.
Even if it implies a commitment to a more principled foreign policy,
Turkey's decision to throw its lot with the Arab revolutionaries also
reflects the realpolitik of the `zero problems' era. Without a doubt,
the images of bloodied protesters in Cairo, Homs, and Tripoli have
galvanized Turks, both on the street and in the government, to make
the case that dictators who turn their guns on their own people have
no right to govern. Whenever possible, however, ErdoÄ?an's government
has done all it can to hitch its newfound enthusiasm for democracy to
Turkish interests. After all, when it came to Libya, with $15 billion
worth of Turkish contracts on the line, Ankara initially opposed
outside intervention. When it shifted course, dispatching five navy
ships and a submarine to help enforce the arms embargo against
Qaddafi, evacuating and treating wounded fighters from Benghazi, and
committing $300 million to Libya's National Transitional Council,
Turkey made sure to capitalize on its aid. By the time of ErdoÄ?an's
triumphant visit to Libya in September 2011, a month after the rebels'
capture of Tripoli, Turkish companies were in pole position in the
race for new contracts -- and had received assurances that old ones
would be respected.
If Turkey's support for regime change in Libya was anchored to
economic interests, then its support for the Syrian opposition is more
bound to geopolitical ones. Having calculated that Assad's days are
numbered, Turkey wants to reap strategic dividends should the
opposition take power. When the time comes to draw up a post-Assad
Syria -- and to accommodate the aspirations of the country's Kurdish
minority in particular -- ErdoÄ?an will be waiting on the doorstep.
But there is a catch. All of this pushing for democratic change will
ultimately ring hollow so long as Turkey's own democracy continues to
show signs of rot. Turkey's reform process, once propelled by the
promise of EU accession, has sputtered. The Kurdish conflict, largely
dormant just a few years ago, has once again flared up, largely
because of the AKP's failure to deliver on a highly touted `Kurdish
initiative,' which would have granted the community some measure of
local autonomy and new cultural rights. And even with the March 12
release of two reporters, Ahmet Å?ık and Nedim Å?ener, Turkey continues
to have more journalists in jail than any other country in the world,
according to the Turkish Journalists Union. In this year's Press
Freedom Index, the country placed 148th worldwide, down from 102nd in
2008 and behind the likes of Zimbabwe, Russia, and the Democratic
Republic of Congo. Beset by internal divisions and competing
loyalties, the justice system is a growing black hole. In the last
three months alone, prosecutors tried to launch an investigation
targeting the leader of the parliamentary opposition, subpoenaed the
head of the national intelligence agency in a terror probe, and had a
former military chief arrested on conspiracy charges, raising fears
that parts of the judiciary have become tools in the hands of rival
political and ideological forces.
Unless Turkey gets its house in order, its ability to influence
regional politics will suffer. For one, a more authoritarian Turkey
would put itself at odds with the West and bury its already
diminishing chances for EU membership, making it a much less
attractive partner, politically and economically, to its neighbors.
The contradiction between Turkey's new foreign policy posture and the
state of its democracy at home may also engender backlash. In January,
after ErdoÄ?an skewered Iraq, Maliki openly accused the Turks of
hypocrisy. `If it is acceptable to talk about our judicial authority,'
Maliki said, `then we can talk about theirs, and if they talk about
our disputes, we can talk about theirs.'
At the same time, Turkey's flirtation with authoritarianism threatens
to erode international confidence in the viability of democracy in the
Muslim world. For better or worse, the notion of a `Turkish model' --
shorthand for the successful marriage of democracy and political Islam
-- has become an indispensable reference point for supporters of
systemic change in the Middle East. It is no secret that the West's
faith in the course of the Arab revolts has already been tested.
Should Turkey continue to backslide away from democracy, it will be
dented further.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/features/letters-from/turkeys-democratic-dilemma?page=show
Letter from Istanbul
By Piotr Zalewski
March 21, 2012
Journalists and activists rally for press freedom in Ankara, March 19,
2011 (Umit Bektas / Courtesy Reuters)
During a town hall meeting organized as part of Barack Obama's 2009
visit to Istanbul, a Turkish student expressed his disappointment with
the president's inability to implement substantial changes to U.S.
foreign policy. `Moving the ship of state is a slow process,' Obama
explained. Not so in Turkey. Since the spring of 2011, Ankara has
performed a remarkable volte-face. A country that engaged and appeased
Middle East dictators for the better half of the past decade now urges
them to undertake democratic reforms -- or risk regime change. There
is just one problem: If Turkey is serious about exporting democracy,
it will have to do a much better job of nourishing its own.
Turkey's renewed focus on the Middle East began in the 1990s but hit
full swing with the election of the Justice and Development Party
(AKP) in 2002. Trade with the region boomed, visa restrictions with
neighboring countries disappeared, and feel-good bilateral visits
abounded. (By his own account, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet
DavutoÄ?lu, billed as the architect of Turkey's renewed engagement with
the Middle East, visited Damascus more than 60 times in the past eight
years. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an, meanwhile, vacationed in
Turkey with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family.) Things
were going so well that a 2010 free-trade agreement among Jordan,
Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey immediately bred talk of a Turkish-led
Middle East union.
Doing business with authoritarian regimes always involved a trade-off,
however: Pushing economic interdependence, AKP officials foreswore any
talk of meddling in their neighbors' internal affairs. In the interest
of stability and expanding commercial links, Turkey repeatedly looked
the other way in the face of authoritarianism and human rights
violations. Ankara downplayed the genocide in Sudan, made no mention
of Syria's dismal human rights record, and ignored the violence that
followed the 2009 presidential election in Iran. Where most Western
governments at least paid lip service to the need for democratic
change in the region, Turkey gave precious few hints that it was
uncomfortable with the status quo. ErdoÄ?an himself saw nothing wrong
with accepting a human rights award from the Libyan dictator Muammar
al-Qaddafi in late 2010.
But the Arab Spring left this approach in tatters. Suddenly, the AKP
government awoke to find that what it had valued most -- stability in
its neighborhood -- could no longer be served by pampering the
region's autocrats. What the Turks (and everyone else) realized was
that the Arab world was bound to go up in flames without fundamental
reforms. Assad and Qaddafi were hardly placed to deliver them. Another
realization soon followed: `Zero problems with neighbors,' the guiding
principle of the AKP's foreign policy, may have reaped economic gains,
but it was not so useful at effecting political change.
The deterioration of Turkey's once-prized relationship with Syria, in
particular, laid bare the limits of Ankara's previous approach.
ErdoÄ?an and DavutoÄ?lu had expected their friendship with Assad to
translate into political leverage. It did not. As Syrian tanks rolled
onto the streets of Hama, Turkish pleas for an end to the violence
went largely ignored. ErdoÄ?an should have learned his lesson: The same
scene had played out in Libya only months earlier. ErdoÄ?an had been
convinced that he had Qaddafi's ear, only to be rebuffed by the Libyan
strongman.
Lately, AKP policymakers and pro-government media have been struggling
to rewrite the narrative of the past few years, insisting that Turkey
had been on the side of democratic change all along. In his February
2011 speech calling for former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to
step down, ErdoÄ?an boldly proclaimed that `not only in Turkey but
everywhere in the world, the [AKP] has shown no fear or hesitation in
siding with the oppressed and the victim. It has always taken a
position against the status quo.' ErdoÄ?an's speech not only marked an
attempt to revise history; it also heralded what has since become a
genuine overhaul of Ankara's foreign policy. One year later, `zero
problems' is out; in is a policy that is more assertive, willing to
take sides, and ready to take risks.
Today, Turkey no longer hesitates to play hardball with its neighbors.
During a September 2011 trip to Cairo, ErdoÄ?an disappointed many of
his admirers in the Muslim Brotherhood by publicly praising the
virtues of secular rule. Having belatedly endorsed outside
intervention in Libya, he warned earlier this year that the situation
in Syria is `heading toward a religious, sectarian, and racial civil
war' that `must be stopped.' In late January, the Turkish leader
scolded Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for stoking sectarian
conflicts. Two weeks later, Bülent Arınç, Turkey's deputy prime
minister, lambasted Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon for remaining silent in
the face of the bloodshed in Syria. `If they do not raise their
voices,' he said, `then they have to remove the word `Islam' from
their names.'
Particularly with regard to Syria, Ankara's new posture has involved
more than just words. Turkey, which shares a 550-mile border with
Syria to its south, has made it clear that its doors are `open to all
Syrians who want to flee from oppression,' as DavutoÄ?lu put it last
month. Refugee camps inside Turkey are already home to over 16,000
Syrians, with many more expected to arrive in the coming weeks. Ankara
has provided a haven not only for refugees but for scores of Syrian
activists and leaders of the rebel Free Syrian Army. Earlier this
month, government officials said Turkey was weighing the possibility
of arming the rebels, setting up humanitarian corridors in Syria, and
even deploying troops.
Even if it implies a commitment to a more principled foreign policy,
Turkey's decision to throw its lot with the Arab revolutionaries also
reflects the realpolitik of the `zero problems' era. Without a doubt,
the images of bloodied protesters in Cairo, Homs, and Tripoli have
galvanized Turks, both on the street and in the government, to make
the case that dictators who turn their guns on their own people have
no right to govern. Whenever possible, however, ErdoÄ?an's government
has done all it can to hitch its newfound enthusiasm for democracy to
Turkish interests. After all, when it came to Libya, with $15 billion
worth of Turkish contracts on the line, Ankara initially opposed
outside intervention. When it shifted course, dispatching five navy
ships and a submarine to help enforce the arms embargo against
Qaddafi, evacuating and treating wounded fighters from Benghazi, and
committing $300 million to Libya's National Transitional Council,
Turkey made sure to capitalize on its aid. By the time of ErdoÄ?an's
triumphant visit to Libya in September 2011, a month after the rebels'
capture of Tripoli, Turkish companies were in pole position in the
race for new contracts -- and had received assurances that old ones
would be respected.
If Turkey's support for regime change in Libya was anchored to
economic interests, then its support for the Syrian opposition is more
bound to geopolitical ones. Having calculated that Assad's days are
numbered, Turkey wants to reap strategic dividends should the
opposition take power. When the time comes to draw up a post-Assad
Syria -- and to accommodate the aspirations of the country's Kurdish
minority in particular -- ErdoÄ?an will be waiting on the doorstep.
But there is a catch. All of this pushing for democratic change will
ultimately ring hollow so long as Turkey's own democracy continues to
show signs of rot. Turkey's reform process, once propelled by the
promise of EU accession, has sputtered. The Kurdish conflict, largely
dormant just a few years ago, has once again flared up, largely
because of the AKP's failure to deliver on a highly touted `Kurdish
initiative,' which would have granted the community some measure of
local autonomy and new cultural rights. And even with the March 12
release of two reporters, Ahmet Å?ık and Nedim Å?ener, Turkey continues
to have more journalists in jail than any other country in the world,
according to the Turkish Journalists Union. In this year's Press
Freedom Index, the country placed 148th worldwide, down from 102nd in
2008 and behind the likes of Zimbabwe, Russia, and the Democratic
Republic of Congo. Beset by internal divisions and competing
loyalties, the justice system is a growing black hole. In the last
three months alone, prosecutors tried to launch an investigation
targeting the leader of the parliamentary opposition, subpoenaed the
head of the national intelligence agency in a terror probe, and had a
former military chief arrested on conspiracy charges, raising fears
that parts of the judiciary have become tools in the hands of rival
political and ideological forces.
Unless Turkey gets its house in order, its ability to influence
regional politics will suffer. For one, a more authoritarian Turkey
would put itself at odds with the West and bury its already
diminishing chances for EU membership, making it a much less
attractive partner, politically and economically, to its neighbors.
The contradiction between Turkey's new foreign policy posture and the
state of its democracy at home may also engender backlash. In January,
after ErdoÄ?an skewered Iraq, Maliki openly accused the Turks of
hypocrisy. `If it is acceptable to talk about our judicial authority,'
Maliki said, `then we can talk about theirs, and if they talk about
our disputes, we can talk about theirs.'
At the same time, Turkey's flirtation with authoritarianism threatens
to erode international confidence in the viability of democracy in the
Muslim world. For better or worse, the notion of a `Turkish model' --
shorthand for the successful marriage of democracy and political Islam
-- has become an indispensable reference point for supporters of
systemic change in the Middle East. It is no secret that the West's
faith in the course of the Arab revolts has already been tested.
Should Turkey continue to backslide away from democracy, it will be
dented further.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/features/letters-from/turkeys-democratic-dilemma?page=show