Crisis brewing in Turkey

From The Economist print edition, May 3rd 2007 by AP [Note that this story now has heightened significance in the wake of the Sarkozy win in France and the consequent frustration of Turkey's EU ambitions - SL]...

ANKARA AND ISTANBUL: A military coup was avoided, but an early election looms. Turkey's problems are postponed, not solved

ITS prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said it was “a shot fired at democracy.” Others labelled it an “e-coup”. Whatever you call it, a threat to intervene against Turkey's mildly Islamist government posted on the general staff's website on April 27th has hurt democracy and deepened the chasm between the secular and the pious. A defiant Mr Erdogan has called for an early general election. It may take place in July, instead of the scheduled date, November 4th. Opinion polls suggest that his AK Party will again beat its secular rivals.

How would the army respond to that? Seasoned Turkey-watchers who once scoffed at the notion of another coup say that it now can't be ruled out. Many admit that the European Union is partly to blame. EU dithering over Turkish membership has dented enthusiasm: when Olli Rehn, the enlargement commissioner, scolded the army for its meddling, few paid attention.

The row began when Mr Erdogan nominated his foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, to replace President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who steps down on May 16th. Mr Gul once flirted with political Islam; his wife wears a headscarf (as do 55% of Turkish women). That was deemed to pose an existential threat to the secular republic. Deniz Baykal, the leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), succeeded in blocking Mr Gul's election in a first parliamentary vote on April 27th, claiming, dubiously, to the constitutional court that parliament lacked a quorum.

It was up to the court to decide if Mr Baykal was right. But the generals were taking no chances. In their ultimatum, delivered before the 11 judges gave their verdict on May 1st, the army listed examples of how the government was supposedly allowing the country to drift towards an Islamic theocracy. When the court then ruled in favour of the opposition, nobody was surprised.
Nearly a million secularist Turks gathered in Istanbul on April 29th, to stage their second mass protest against the government in a fortnight. That makes it hard for Mr Erdogan and his AK Party to dismiss the crisis as a brazen attempt by the army to reassert its influence. Chanting “no to coups” and “no to sharia” the demonstrators said their free-wheeling lifestyles were under threat. Many were women who say they are the most vulnerable of all. Some cited attempts by the AK to create “alcohol-free zones”, others a bid to outlaw adultery. Many declared that an AK president, prime minister and parliamentary speaker was more than they could bear....

...The present rumpus could have been averted had Mr Erdogan picked a presidential candidate outside his party. Now the prime minister suggests changing the constitution to let the people choose the head of state themselves. That might be a step forward, but sceptical liberals say Mr Erdogan's views on democracy are selective. “Where was he when Kurdish politicians were being arrested and beaten and Nokta [a dissident magazine] raided by police?” asks one.

The government's response to the army's ultimatum was unusually crisp. Cemil Cicek, the justice minister, called it “unacceptable” and reminded the generals that they were constitutionally bound to take their orders from the prime minister, not vice versa.

It is not just the army's taste for politics that is worrying. The top general recently said a military attack on Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq was “necessary” and “useful”. Though he agreed that the constitution gave parliament authority over the armed forces, many fear that the army may decide to attack all the same. “They are itching to,” whispers a westerner who observes Turkish security. This may explain why America's response to the political crisis has been so lame. “The last thing they want is a quarrel with the Turkish military,” a European official observes. The nightmare for America is Turkish and American soldiers exchanging fire in Iraq. Based on the past week's events, nothing can be ruled out.

...and from BBC News, Sunday, 6 May [just remember, it's the BBC reporting - SL]...

Q&A: Turkey's political crisis

Pro-Islamic groups have taken to the streets, as well as secularistsTurkey is in turmoil, with a presidential election in disarray, demonstrators on the streets, and financial markets wobbling violently. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has asked parliament to call an early general election and proposed changes to the way the president is elected.

What triggered this crisis?
It has arisen from the attempt to elect a new president, as the term of the current president Ahmet Necdet Sezer, draws to a close.
The election process has sparked a new round of tensions between the country's nationalist, secularist establishment and the ruling AK Party, which has Islamist roots.
On 6 May, Turkey's parliament failed for a second time to elect the governing party's candidate for president, Abdullah Gul.
....The military has flexed its muscles, issuing a statement describing itself as a "staunch defender of secularism" and saying it would make its position clear "when it becomes necessary".

So is this a power struggle between Islamists and secularists?
Not exactly. The AK Party is descended from the banned Welfare Party... however, that the party may have a hidden agenda to steer the country away from the secular roots laid down by its founder, Kemal Ataturk. Hence the Istanbul protest attended by hundreds of thousands [actually a million - SL] of demonstrators on Sunday 29 April.

Why is the presidency such a sensitive post?
The AK Party has been in government since November 2002 and has made a point of not provoking secularists. For example, it has avoided relaxing Turkey's laws banning the wearing of the headscarf in government buildings.
But a prime minister from the AK Party is one thing, and a president another. The Turkish president is also the chief of the armed forces - he appoints the chief of general staff .....

Why is the military so bothered about politics?
The Turkish military regards itself as the guardian of Turkey's secular constitution. To this end, it kicked governments out of power in 1997, 1980, 1971 and 1960.
In the last few years its political powers have been whittled down. The national security council now contains more elected civilians, and the civilian government can now audit military accounts. Last year, military courts lost the power to try civilians.
But the European Commission noted in a report last November that the armed forces still exercise "significant political influence".

What will happen about the presidential election?
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul failed to be elected president in the 6 May re-run of the disputed first round of the ballot.
Two-thirds of the 550 members of parliament needed to turn out for the vote to be valid, but that quorum was not reached. Mr Gul has now said he will withdraw his candidacy.
There is also very little time before the end of President Sezer's term on 16 May, so he is expected to stay in office until the new general election expected in July.
Correspondents say the key question is who the ruling party will nominate as its new candidate and whether it will now seek a compromise figure who is not associated with political Islam....

....and finally (for now), from an analysis from UPI, May. 11, 2007, by RAYMOND J. MAS [my emphasis added - SL]....

WASHINGTON, May. 11 (UPI) -- The confrontation between Turkey's ruling Islamist party, the AKP, and those who view themselves as defenders of the nation's secularist tradition reveals a schism in Turkish society that runs deep and threatens to challenge the basic assumptions that have governed this state since its founding in 1927.

Modern Turkey is the successor to the Ottoman Empire, whose collapse after World War I created an enormous power vacuum in the region that is still felt today. Unlike Turkey's tightly controlled ethnocentric, nationalist state, the Ottoman Empire was a multiethnic, multinational, multi-religious state. At its height in the 16th and 17th centuries, it held sway over vast territories that stretched from the Balkans to Central Europe to the Middle East and North Africa. At a time when Europe was mired in religious wars, intolerance and persecution, Turkey was an example of religious harmony and cooperation, albeit in the firm control of its temporal and spiritual ruler, the sultan.

But the rise of Europe's mercantilist trading nations, together with rapid developments in industry and technology, and a concurrent Ottoman suspicion of European influence, ensured that the Ottomans began a slow inexorable decline in power and influence. By the 19th century, Turkey had been dubbed the "Sick Man of Europe," and Europe's powers began chipping away at the empire, successfully backing Greek and Balkan independence movements. Ultimately, after World War I, the allies succeeded in carving up the empire into small states, with much of Turkey's Aegean territory going to Greece, including Istanbul (Constantinople).

This death by a "thousand cuts" left a deep scar in the Turkish mentality, which to this day believes that there is an international conspiracy to weaken and divide Turkey -- the latest case in point being the rise of a proto-Kurdish state in Iraq and the fears (not entirely unjustified) that Kurds in Turkey will want to secede and join this state.

Into this devastating, humiliating defeat, Mustafa Kemal (later known as Ataturk or "father of the Turks") a Turkish general who gained fame in the disastrous defeat of ANZAC troops at the battle of Gallipoli, led a military campaign that pushed the Greeks to the sea, regained Istanbul and western Turkey, and created indisputable "facts on the ground" that the European powers had little choice but to recognize.

The Turkish nation without a doubt owes its existence to the powerful personality and iron will of Ataturk. Faced with the calamitous dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Ataturk devised an entirely new Turko-centric state. Minority rights and privileges granted by the Ottomans were eliminated, and many were expelled in large population exchanges with Greece and other states.
...Ataturk was an admirer of Europe, its science and technology. To him the Ottoman Empire was fatally weakened by an oriental despotism mired in religious superstition and distrust in the advances of science. Ataturk strove to fashion a state that embraced science, technology and modern education while rejecting "backward" religious practices. He closed madrassas (religious schools) and outlawed numerous Sufi spiritualist sects. He put the state in firm control of the mosque, where it continues to this day. He eliminated Arabic script and adopted the Latin alphabet. He also granted women the right to vote and banned all but Western clothing. Ataturk did not use the dictatorial repression of his Soviet atheist contemporaries, but he clearly viewed religion as antithetical to "progress," and this served to marginalize religion in the civic culture.

This marginalization has been the hallmark of Turkish nationalism, and Turkish secularists, including and especially the military, who view themselves as the guardians of "Ataturkism."

The late Turgut Ozal, who is considered by many Turks today as the nation's second-greatest leader after Ataturk, changed this dynamic. Pro-Western (he was a good friend of George H.W. Bush), vigorous and enormously charismatic, Ozal dispensed with Turkey's state-controlled economy, eliminating regulations and barriers to trade and investment, both domestic and foreign. Ozal unleashed Turkey's dynamic entrepreneurial spirit, which has been the engine of the nation's dramatic growth.

Ozal, who had Kurdish roots, was also a devout Muslim and saw no contradiction in being both religious and modern. He loosened many of the restraints on religion and sought to integrate religion into the civic culture in much the same way as it exists today in the United States.

In this new climate, religion found a way to make its mark .... Religious parties were formed. However, little political headway was made, and the Turkish military and the secularist judiciary managed to have most of these parties successively banned. In 1997 all that changed when Turkey's first female prime minister, Tansu Ciller, cut a power-sharing deal with an Islamist party (predecessor to the current [ruling] AKP).

This brought to power Necmettin Erbakan, shaking Turkey's secular roots to the core. ...he made his first foreign visit to international pariah Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and suggested that ties with Israel (long an ally of Turkey) might be cut. In going to the Libyans, Erbakan was clearly signaling that he wanted to take Turkey away from its Western proclivities and toward an alliance with Eastern and Islamic nations. That was enough for the generals. The tanks took to the streets, and Erbakan got the message. No shots were fired in this "soft coup," but it seemed that the one chance Islamists had to prove themselves had been blown, and few predicted a quick return to power.

Erbakan's downfall was followed by a succession of weak governments plagued by scandals, spiraling inflation and political squabbles. Meanwhile, the latest incarnation of the Islamists, the AKP, was going through a period of retrenchment and soul-searching. A younger generation of leaders came to power, and a new, more moderate message was crafted. They embraced Western democratic ideals and even supported Turkey's EU entry. They set out to rebuild their traditional power base in the more religious interior and the fast-growing lower-middle-class suburbs of Istanbul. They offered social services not covered by the country's creaky welfare system, job retraining, and even small-business loans. But they also sought out Turkey's intelligentsia, who were looking for an alternative to corrupt party politics.

Today the AKP dominates Turkish politics and has held comfortable control of the Parliament. Moreover, Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who as mayor of Istanbul made a name for himself as a populist and effective administrator, remains enormously popular in the country, and in the recently called elections his party stands to gain even more power.

But when he assumed power in 2002, Erdogan had a lot to prove to a highly skeptical nation and a very nervous military. His arrest in 1998 for reading an Islamist poem at a political rally, an action considered tantamount to sedition in secular Turkey and for which he served several months in jail, did not help....

...The military continues to mistrust the motives of Erdogan and the Islamists, and is convinced of a hidden agenda to create an Islamic state. The candidature to the presidency of his internationally respected foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, was perhaps a final straw. Although the president's position is largely ceremonial, it has become a bully pulpit for secularism and has been viewed by the secularists as a check against feared Islamist excesses.

The secularist political parties, fractured by personality-driven cliques and burdened with a reputation for dishonesty, are unable to field a unity candidate who can effectively challenge the Islamist's hold on power. The 1 million Turks who took to the streets in Istanbul a few days ago are therefore denied an effective political voice for their views. The danger is that they will turn to the military to do what their politicians cannot fairly do, an option Turkey has sadly turned to far too often....