OT: Trouble in Turkey

May 9, 2007

Hey y'all,

Since this was discussed in some detail on list .. a little update.

Trouble in Turkey

Wall Street Journal

By Melik Kaylan

May 8, 2007; Page A19

ISTANBUL -- There is a perfectly logical temptation to take the

position of much of the non-native press on the current political

crisis in Turkey. The argument goes something like this: Prime

Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his " mildly Islamic " Justice and

Development Party (AKP) are good for the country. They proposed

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul for president. Under the current

constitution, parliament elects the president. Thus the AKP has a

freely elected majority in parliament and represents the will of the

people, therefore Mr. Gul should be president.

The rest, observers argue, is just loud noise, such as the two massive

demonstrations in 10 days in Ankara and Istanbul (the latter of a

million or more people) in tandem with grim warnings by the military

against any AKP violation of secularist principles. AKP, the argument

goes, has played by the rules and democracy is all about due process,

which produces stability over time.

Turkey must accept that it is culturally Eastern but politically

Western. Otherwise the EU will never take it, foreign investment will

dry up and the country will remain excluded from the Western world. So

goes the argument in favor of Mr. Erdogan as well as Mr. Gul, who

withdrew his candidacy on Sunday.

There are a number of critical flaws in this argument, the first being

that such a country will ultimately neither belong to an Eastern nor a

Western club. It might serve, distantly, as an example to other Muslim

countries, but the EU will certainly not accept it because the EU

considers itself as much a civilization as a political alliance.

The pro-AKP argument suffers from other critical flaws. Mr. Erdogan's

party won only 35% of the vote, but under a constitution rigged to

create a two-party system, AKP has 65% of parliamentary seats.

Besides, even that 35% derived in part from voters disgusted by the

corrupt incompetence of the secular parties, not from pro-Muslim

sentiment.

The results in no way suggest that a majority of the country regards

itself as politically Islamic or nonsecular, and under such conditions

AKP has no mandate for foisting a partisan figure onto the presidency,

an office that is supposed to rise above party dogma and represent the

country and constitution. This is why most nominees for the presidency

rarely survive the painstaking but necessary business of consultation

and compromise between parties. It's a somewhat uncodified process but

it works to ensure a unifying, rather than divisive, outcome.

Mr. Erdogan did the exact opposite. He pushed the system's limits for

his own ends until it gave way at the seams. He didn't select a

compromise candidate but tried to impose his choice on the country

through his technical parliamentary majority. In the event, the other

parties simply didn't turn up for the vote on Mr. Gul's confirmation.

They then appealed to the Constitutional Court which held that without

them the numbers would be inquorate, leaving Mr. Gul unelected. The

Court intentionally sent the country to a June or July national

election which is, surely, the best place to settle the entire matter.

Mr. Erdogan has responded with predictable acuity, proposing new

parliamentary term-lengths and direct elections for presidency, thus

offering his AKP as the party that most trusts in the ballot box. If

he wins, he simply rewinds to the beginning. With prime minister,

president and house speaker all AKP figures, he can make such

structural changes as to shift the national polity for a several

generations.

So what, some say, Mr. Erdogan is hardly a fundamentalist. Sure, he

and Mr. Gul have said hair-raising things in the past -- an old Gul

remark made in the 1990s that " the Republic is over " recently surfaced

in the press -- but politicians become pragmatic once in power. What

have he and Mr. Gul done concretely in the last four years to be

alarmed about? One hears this question particularly from foreign

observers who don't understand or can't credit the Islamic concept of

" Takkiye, " meaning dissimulation.

The answer, of course, is that they have palpably tried to influence

the army, universities and the Constitution itself, only to have their

efforts stymied by those same institutions. Even so, disturbing

incidents abound. In the city of Van a university dean is sacked

because he resisted the request of a fully veiled female student for a

go-between to deal with male teachers. He is later reinstated. In

Istanbul's Uskudar district the municipality treats beer bars like a

red-light zone and you can barely get alcohol anywhere. The national

newspaper Sabah is taken over by state officials and soon the

political commentators are being told what to write. Yasin El Kadi, a

Saudi sought by the U.S. for financial links to terrorism, is publicly

supported by Mr. Erdogan. Everywhere, barely qualified madrassa

graduates replace more qualified secular technocrats in the civil service.

(My note: The German manager and two Turkish employees of a Bible

ware house were tied up, tortured and then murdered in the last two

weeks).

But the headscarf controversy and the bogeyman of military

intervention eclipse such incremental dangers. Mr. Erdogan knows how

to play the symbols and polarize for political ends. One side effect,

no doubt unintended but predictable, is the spike in Islamic political

violence: the murder of a Catholic nun near the Black Sea, of

Protestant missionaries in the town of Malatya and so on. Pulled on

either side by Europe and the Middle East, both Turkey and Turkish

identity are as constantly in flux as its institutions are in danger

of drifting out of control. That this never quite happens is in part

due to the military threatening to step in periodically to restore

democracy, a very Turkish paradox.

A military coup is always a disastrous option, but without past coups

would there even be a Turkey today? One need only look at Iraq, a

democracy without an effective army, or indeed Lebanon, to imagine the

possibilities.

Turkey's democratic history shows that politicians can too easily lead

the country, whether by drift or design, to such dangerous political

extremes as to threaten national stability. It's wise to judge the

merit of a Turkish politician by asking where his policies will

ultimately lead.

Does Mr. Erdogan's populism suggest stability or a hidden drift to

extremes? The voters will decide soon enough. They have got it wrong

before. With such leaders, who can blame them?

Mr. Kaylan is an Istanbul-born writer living in New York.

May 13, 2007

Butch,

Excellent message on the situation in Turkey. I think you've hit a number of

nails right on the heads - The Europeans have called Turkey the " sick man of

Europe " since the Crimean war in the late 1800's. Other Muslim countries in the

region are still largely stigmatized by the Ottoman Turks and their activities.

This political battle between the secularist and the " mildly Islamics " is for

no less than the political soul of Turkey. The military and minority parties

realize this and are trying to operate within the constitutional framework to

resolve this issue.

However, I'd lived in Balikeshir in 1973/74 and watched the military take over

at that time.

Some friends are still in Izmir and all of us see the military posturing

taking place. Militaries, by necessity, operate in routine/predictable manner.

Currently, it appears the Generals are in the " get ready in case " stage but are

far enough along in their preparations that they will be able to move with

lightening speed if the June/July elections go sour from their standpoint.

Jeff Nourse

(JoAnn's husband)

Jo Ann <nour6128 wrote:

, " Butch Owen "

wrote: