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The Daily Star (Lebanon)
April13, 2012 Friday
Does Turkey offer a model that the Mideast can emulate?
BY:Nora Fisher Onar
Turkey is often touted as an inspiration for the countries of the rest
of the Middle East - a characterization it accepts and pursues. In
recent years, Turkish policymakers have worked hard to establish
"Turkey Inc." as the model of a relatively free, stable and
increasingly prosperous Muslim-majority country with great economic
and foreign policy leverage. But what does the Turkish experience
actually represent for the states of the Arab Middle East? How
convincing is Turkey, Inc. - and as a model can it really be emulated?
Perhaps the most attention has been paid to the free and fair rise to
power of Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP), which Islamist
movements in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Syria have heralded as a
symbol of Muslim majoritarian democracy - even explicitly referencing
it in the names and platforms of their own parties, movements and
factions. To both domestic and international observers, this might
signal that, like the AKP in Turkey, Islamist parties elsewhere do not
seek to dismantle their states' secular framework - at least for the
time being.
But in spite of its appeal to both traditional Islamists and
"post-Islamists" - that is, those who fully reconcile their particular
politico-religious commitments with globalization - the Turkish
formula may not be replicable. Civil-military relations in Turkey have
undergone a double-sided transformation over recent decades. As a
consequence of the intermittent censure by the army, political
Islamists had to moderate their demands and practices; simultaneously,
the Turkish army - accustomed to the barracks and aware that
interference in government hurt Turkey's international standing -
increasingly relied on civilian allies to pursue its agenda vis-à-vis
the AKP.
Eventually, the military relinquished control of crucial institutions
(such as the National Security Council), and the final showdown over
control of the presidency in 2007 was fought not with bullets and
tanks, but with Web declarations, public rallies and court cases. A
similar tipping point regarding civilian control of the state is
hardly a foregone conclusion in countries still under transition,
where national militaries continue to exert a dominant presence in
political life.
Other countries in the Middle East also lack the trajectory that
Turkey has followed with regard to its economic development. This is
particularly true of the export-driven rise of the middle class that
has been experienced by religious constituencies across the Anatolian
periphery. Such a trend has underpinned the AKP's moderation,
political success and interregional presence. Indeed, Turkey's recent
economic trajectory is a central component of its appeal in the Arab
world.
Over the past decade, Turkey has tripled its Gross Domestic Product
and - excluding a dip to minus-4 percent real growth in 2009 - has
managed to ride out the global economic crisis with relative
equanimity. Commentators have argued that Turkey may be part of a
second tier of rising economic powers (alongside such countries as
South Korea, Mexico and Indonesia) that is hot on the heels of the Big
Four (Brazil, Russia, India and China).
This holds two implications: On a symbolic level, the Turkish
experience (along with that of Indonesia and Malaysia) has
dramatically undermined theories of Islam's incompatibility with
modernization, especially in the arena of economic governance. More
tangibly, over the past decade Turkey has actively sought out partners
for sustainable trade-driven growth in a region that has been long
addled by the heady cocktail of oil wealth and chronic
underdevelopment.
Although economic partnerships were in no way guided by Turkish
concerns for democratic governance - a reality that was attested to by
Turkey's once cozy ties with authoritarian leaders - they have had
unintended consequences with positive implications for political
reform. For example, the influx of cheaper, better quality Turkish
goods in Syrian markets may have undermined a backbone of President
Bashar Assad's regime: namely the interests of the regime's business
cronies.
To understand the parameters of Turkey's role in the region, we should
also acknowledge the sensitivities that have arisen from the Ottoman
legacy. Some believe that Ankara seeks to reclaim its historical
leadership of the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans, something
that can rub interlocutors the wrong way. Hence, Turkish foreign
policymakers' reluctance to employ Ottomanist frames of reference.
However, at the domestic social level in Turkey, there remains a
growing receptiveness to self-depiction as the benign heir to the
Ottoman Empire. This is evident in the proliferation of cultural
commodities that employ Ottoman referents. That is the case of the
recent record-grossing film "Conquest 1453," about what Western
historiography calls the "fall" of Constantinople. In the film, Mehmet
the Conqueror - played by an actor who bears a remarkable resemblance
to a young Recep Tayyip Erdogan - is shown to be a forceful and
compassionate protector of Muslims and Christians alike (though there
is no mention in the film of Jews). The image of Turkey as a "big
brother" to downtrodden Muslims in such places as Palestine,
Nagorno-Karabakh,Kosovo, and Bosnia-Herzegovina - characterizes an
emerging "neo-Ottomanist" national image that seems to drive Turkish
aspirations of regional leadership within the country and amplify
Erdogan's profile abroad. Whether this is a matter of hubris or of
genuine capacity remains to be seen.
A final component that is crucial for evaluating Turkey's example is
that the country has yet to develop a framework for meaningful
multiethnic, multisectarian co-habitation. Mounting violence on the
part of militant Kurds and the Turkish state's heavy-handed response
has fueled hostility between ordinary citizens.
For instance, recent court rulings suggest that vigilante terror
toward prominent members of the Armenian and Alevi communities is
permissible and will go unpunished. Disturbing numbers of journalists,
scholars, and students who have expressed critical views on these
fronts have been jailed. There is also deep concern in constituencies
that embrace secular lifestyles that recent reforms in fields such as
education will yield an ever more restricted Turkish society.
Given the need to put its own house in order and the fact that
inter-communal tensions across the Middle East are likely to become
worse before becoming better, Turkey's AKP government must take very
seriously its mandate to write a new and inclusive Constitution. In
the longer tem, Turkey must confront the standing challenge of the
region - learning to live together despite differences - a challenge
which also happens to be Turkey's own.
At the end of the day, the export of Turkey, Inc. needs stable and
predictable conditions in which trade and investment can thrive;
hence, the commitment to the "zero problems" policy that Turkey
employed with neighbors in its economic and foreign agendas over the
past decade. Due to last year's upheavals in the Arab world, however,
this policy is unsustainable. Once well-placed to broker a dialogue
between Iran and Israel, Turkey is now more alienated from both
countries than before as the two nemeses lock horns in what Graham
Allison has called the "Cuban missile crisis in slow motion."
Should Israeli-Iranian antagonism spill over into war, the delicate
balance in Iraq may unravel into protracted sectarian and ethnic
conflict, just as Syria's brewing civil war may spill over into
neighboring Lebanon. But even without an Israeli-Iranian showdown and
an intensified conflagration in Iraq and Syria, Turkey's Kurdish
question is, quite literally, kindling awaiting a flame, as attested
to by recent clashes during Nevruz, or Nowruz, celebrations. All of
this suggests that Turkey's aspirations to regional leadership are
tactically dependent on forestalling an Iranian-Israeli showdown - an
end to which it should leverage all its diminished diplomatic capital
in the two countries and in partnership with the United States.
Before the AKP came to power and the Arab Awakening broke out, the
received wisdom was that when it came to Islam, democracy and
secularism, one could have any two but never all three. Similarly,
doubts have long been expressed about whether political and economic
liberalism can thrive simultaneously in a Muslim-majority setting.
Taken together, it seems that if the purveyors of Turkey, Inc. can
show that liberal economics goes hand-in-hand with liberal democracy
in a country that is governed by pious Muslims, then the Turkish
model-in-progress may achieve fruition and offer a timely example for
the Middle East.
Nora Fisher Onar is an assistant professor of international relations
at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul. She is also a Ronald D. Asmus
Policy Entrepreneur Fellow with the German Marshall Fund and is a
Visiting Fellow at the Centre for International Studies (CIS) at the
University of Oxford. This commentary first appeared at Sada, an
online journal published by the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace.
From: Baghdasarian
April13, 2012 Friday
Does Turkey offer a model that the Mideast can emulate?
BY:Nora Fisher Onar
Turkey is often touted as an inspiration for the countries of the rest
of the Middle East - a characterization it accepts and pursues. In
recent years, Turkish policymakers have worked hard to establish
"Turkey Inc." as the model of a relatively free, stable and
increasingly prosperous Muslim-majority country with great economic
and foreign policy leverage. But what does the Turkish experience
actually represent for the states of the Arab Middle East? How
convincing is Turkey, Inc. - and as a model can it really be emulated?
Perhaps the most attention has been paid to the free and fair rise to
power of Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP), which Islamist
movements in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Syria have heralded as a
symbol of Muslim majoritarian democracy - even explicitly referencing
it in the names and platforms of their own parties, movements and
factions. To both domestic and international observers, this might
signal that, like the AKP in Turkey, Islamist parties elsewhere do not
seek to dismantle their states' secular framework - at least for the
time being.
But in spite of its appeal to both traditional Islamists and
"post-Islamists" - that is, those who fully reconcile their particular
politico-religious commitments with globalization - the Turkish
formula may not be replicable. Civil-military relations in Turkey have
undergone a double-sided transformation over recent decades. As a
consequence of the intermittent censure by the army, political
Islamists had to moderate their demands and practices; simultaneously,
the Turkish army - accustomed to the barracks and aware that
interference in government hurt Turkey's international standing -
increasingly relied on civilian allies to pursue its agenda vis-à-vis
the AKP.
Eventually, the military relinquished control of crucial institutions
(such as the National Security Council), and the final showdown over
control of the presidency in 2007 was fought not with bullets and
tanks, but with Web declarations, public rallies and court cases. A
similar tipping point regarding civilian control of the state is
hardly a foregone conclusion in countries still under transition,
where national militaries continue to exert a dominant presence in
political life.
Other countries in the Middle East also lack the trajectory that
Turkey has followed with regard to its economic development. This is
particularly true of the export-driven rise of the middle class that
has been experienced by religious constituencies across the Anatolian
periphery. Such a trend has underpinned the AKP's moderation,
political success and interregional presence. Indeed, Turkey's recent
economic trajectory is a central component of its appeal in the Arab
world.
Over the past decade, Turkey has tripled its Gross Domestic Product
and - excluding a dip to minus-4 percent real growth in 2009 - has
managed to ride out the global economic crisis with relative
equanimity. Commentators have argued that Turkey may be part of a
second tier of rising economic powers (alongside such countries as
South Korea, Mexico and Indonesia) that is hot on the heels of the Big
Four (Brazil, Russia, India and China).
This holds two implications: On a symbolic level, the Turkish
experience (along with that of Indonesia and Malaysia) has
dramatically undermined theories of Islam's incompatibility with
modernization, especially in the arena of economic governance. More
tangibly, over the past decade Turkey has actively sought out partners
for sustainable trade-driven growth in a region that has been long
addled by the heady cocktail of oil wealth and chronic
underdevelopment.
Although economic partnerships were in no way guided by Turkish
concerns for democratic governance - a reality that was attested to by
Turkey's once cozy ties with authoritarian leaders - they have had
unintended consequences with positive implications for political
reform. For example, the influx of cheaper, better quality Turkish
goods in Syrian markets may have undermined a backbone of President
Bashar Assad's regime: namely the interests of the regime's business
cronies.
To understand the parameters of Turkey's role in the region, we should
also acknowledge the sensitivities that have arisen from the Ottoman
legacy. Some believe that Ankara seeks to reclaim its historical
leadership of the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans, something
that can rub interlocutors the wrong way. Hence, Turkish foreign
policymakers' reluctance to employ Ottomanist frames of reference.
However, at the domestic social level in Turkey, there remains a
growing receptiveness to self-depiction as the benign heir to the
Ottoman Empire. This is evident in the proliferation of cultural
commodities that employ Ottoman referents. That is the case of the
recent record-grossing film "Conquest 1453," about what Western
historiography calls the "fall" of Constantinople. In the film, Mehmet
the Conqueror - played by an actor who bears a remarkable resemblance
to a young Recep Tayyip Erdogan - is shown to be a forceful and
compassionate protector of Muslims and Christians alike (though there
is no mention in the film of Jews). The image of Turkey as a "big
brother" to downtrodden Muslims in such places as Palestine,
Nagorno-Karabakh,Kosovo, and Bosnia-Herzegovina - characterizes an
emerging "neo-Ottomanist" national image that seems to drive Turkish
aspirations of regional leadership within the country and amplify
Erdogan's profile abroad. Whether this is a matter of hubris or of
genuine capacity remains to be seen.
A final component that is crucial for evaluating Turkey's example is
that the country has yet to develop a framework for meaningful
multiethnic, multisectarian co-habitation. Mounting violence on the
part of militant Kurds and the Turkish state's heavy-handed response
has fueled hostility between ordinary citizens.
For instance, recent court rulings suggest that vigilante terror
toward prominent members of the Armenian and Alevi communities is
permissible and will go unpunished. Disturbing numbers of journalists,
scholars, and students who have expressed critical views on these
fronts have been jailed. There is also deep concern in constituencies
that embrace secular lifestyles that recent reforms in fields such as
education will yield an ever more restricted Turkish society.
Given the need to put its own house in order and the fact that
inter-communal tensions across the Middle East are likely to become
worse before becoming better, Turkey's AKP government must take very
seriously its mandate to write a new and inclusive Constitution. In
the longer tem, Turkey must confront the standing challenge of the
region - learning to live together despite differences - a challenge
which also happens to be Turkey's own.
At the end of the day, the export of Turkey, Inc. needs stable and
predictable conditions in which trade and investment can thrive;
hence, the commitment to the "zero problems" policy that Turkey
employed with neighbors in its economic and foreign agendas over the
past decade. Due to last year's upheavals in the Arab world, however,
this policy is unsustainable. Once well-placed to broker a dialogue
between Iran and Israel, Turkey is now more alienated from both
countries than before as the two nemeses lock horns in what Graham
Allison has called the "Cuban missile crisis in slow motion."
Should Israeli-Iranian antagonism spill over into war, the delicate
balance in Iraq may unravel into protracted sectarian and ethnic
conflict, just as Syria's brewing civil war may spill over into
neighboring Lebanon. But even without an Israeli-Iranian showdown and
an intensified conflagration in Iraq and Syria, Turkey's Kurdish
question is, quite literally, kindling awaiting a flame, as attested
to by recent clashes during Nevruz, or Nowruz, celebrations. All of
this suggests that Turkey's aspirations to regional leadership are
tactically dependent on forestalling an Iranian-Israeli showdown - an
end to which it should leverage all its diminished diplomatic capital
in the two countries and in partnership with the United States.
Before the AKP came to power and the Arab Awakening broke out, the
received wisdom was that when it came to Islam, democracy and
secularism, one could have any two but never all three. Similarly,
doubts have long been expressed about whether political and economic
liberalism can thrive simultaneously in a Muslim-majority setting.
Taken together, it seems that if the purveyors of Turkey, Inc. can
show that liberal economics goes hand-in-hand with liberal democracy
in a country that is governed by pious Muslims, then the Turkish
model-in-progress may achieve fruition and offer a timely example for
the Middle East.
Nora Fisher Onar is an assistant professor of international relations
at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul. She is also a Ronald D. Asmus
Policy Entrepreneur Fellow with the German Marshall Fund and is a
Visiting Fellow at the Centre for International Studies (CIS) at the
University of Oxford. This commentary first appeared at Sada, an
online journal published by the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace.
From: Baghdasarian