Forget Wonderland. Through the Looking Glass, lies Turkey

If asked to take a guess, would you suppose that:
A western-oriented, secularist, aggressively modernising party would be in favour or its country joining the EU?
An army would be traditionally conservative and sympathetic to religion and tradition?
A populist government would always make sure they carry the people with them?

Yeah, you would, wouldn't you?
Only if you were talking about Turkey you'd be wrong.

In Turkey, the populist Islamist government currently in power is in favour of EU accession and the secularist, traditionally westernising opposition (the CHP, Atatürk's own party) are vocally against all reform efforts and, although theoretically in favour of accession, effectively blocking the path to EU by demanding that the EU 'respects' Turkey in ways that make no sense to the EU whatsoever. Not that the Euros mind. All delays to Turkey's accession are well and good by Brussels, but that's another story altogether.

Meanwhile the AKP is locked in a battle to the death with the country's high-profile, aggressively secularist military who, quite frankly, loathe the AKP and everything it stands for and are – possibly, maybe – trying to undermine the government quite actively. A series of leaks (more on this in a minute) have caused the army's otherwise impeccable reputation to suffer and for the first time in the Republic's eight decades, the people are losing faith in the military and are beginning to see the value in purging politics from military influence and putting the soldiers back in their box.

The AKP, of course, agrees and has been trying to do just that for the best part of a decade now. But do they manage to carry the people with them?
No sir.
They manage, magically, to make the people feel excluded from proceedings and by-passed as the government is acting on what everyone in principle agrees upon but without any public debate or evident deliberation. And although agreement over the bottom line is there, these are vital questions affecting the nature and future of the Turkish polity and reform without deliberation is unacceptable in principle, agreement notwithstanding.
You'd think that for sheer ease the government would have capitalised on the popularity of the idea, being populist and all. But paternalistic habits die hard and even populists take a leaf out of the book on old school Turkish politics traditions.

Under normal circumstances you would expect the opposition to make the most of the government's failures roundabout now. But don't hold your breath.
The opposition is even more paternalistic than the AKP who have nothing to worry about because the CHP seems hell-bent on working itself into extinction one statement at a time.

First of all, the CHP are perceived (and dismissed) as a mouthpiece for the increasingly discredited military. This, at least, gives them something relevant to say as, when not saying what the generals want them to say, the CHP have little to say that is of any interest to the people. Out of touch? And then some as the CHP have been outside power for the best part of two decades and once, after the 1999 elections, also outside Parliament. Popularity is evidently not the word here but has the CHP leader Deniz Baykal resigned to let a more credible (not to mention likeable) candidate to take the reigns? Like hell he has.

Now being perceived as the mouthpiece of the military wouldn't have been all that bad had it not been for a series of recent leaks and almost-scandals that show the military getting really jittery, planning coups, plotting against the government and against powerful religious brotherhoods, particularly against the Gülenists. Obviously, none of these plots have come off – or I would have been blogging about that instead – and most of them have been stopped by the military leadership themselves but the fact remains that people believe the military is taking things too far. All cries that the memos are fabricated or that the army purges itself fail to drown out the feeling that the time is right for change.

The people want it.
The Gülenists want it.
The AKP want it.

So why is it not happening?

Well. Bits of it are happening. Change is afoot and has been non-stop since 2001. To a Turkey buff like me the changes that have come to pass in the past 8 years are immense, mind-boggling, 'I never thought I'd see this' type changes. But to the naked eye, things are not as great. To the close-up look of a Turkish citizen or the bird's eye view of an external observer, change is slow, sluggish, halting, half-hearted and above all: a bit of a sand-castle on the surf. Because you can reform all you want, unless you tackle the constitutional foundations of the state, it's like selecting toppings before you make sure you have enough flour to make a pizza.

And what I mean by that is this: for all the bravado and all the radical mini reforms, the AKP's policy has been a balancing act so far. Pushing change as far as it can go before things snap, break, shatter and come back to bite you in the proverbial rear. The AKP's genius – if you will permit me the term – is that they have managed to play on all their opponents' weaknesses while using their opponents' ideas to further their own cause. And it has worked. It has worked well enough to keep the AKP in power, to keep the EU happy and the accession process ticking over. It has also helped accomplish important and much needed reforms and keep the people on side. Most of the time.

But a balancing act rarely bodes well as a sign of decisive political will, which is what fundamental constitutional reform would entail.
In short.
Turkey's constitution was written by the army in the 80s. It reflects their ideas, it promotes their priorities and it upholds their role as guardian of the Republic.
Amen.
This constitution has been massively amended. It is now a patchwork of ideas and a lot of the 'in your face' militaristic provisions have been removed. So what? The heart of it remains and it will always do until someone has the political balls to say 'enough of this, let's make a new constitution that tells the soldiers what to do rather than the other way round'.

But who is going to be that guy?
And assuming we get 'that guy', where on earth will he start?
Where do you start in a political system where nothing is what you expect, allegiances are very idiosyncratic and nobody ever says exactly what they mean because there are laws against that.
And even when things seem aligned, groups seem to agree, consensus seems almost inevitable nothing ever happens like you'd think it would. Because you are through the looking glass and nothing is as it seems.

And as with the fairytale, so with Turkey, while the white rabbit, the mad hatter and the queen of hearts indulge in their games, express their quirks and pursue whatever takes their fancy, it is the common folk that have to dodge the Cheshire cat, ensure they hold onto their heads and try to build for themselves a semblance of normality despite it all.
And you can't help but think that, given the circumstances, 'that guy', 'those guys' the people who can visualize and implement real change are exactly the people who are trying to get past the cat and the deranged queen of hearts. The people who could change it all are exactly the people who are too busy trying to build a life, despite it all.

Plus ça change: Turkey 12 years on

This Saturday past marked 12 years since Turkey’s latest coup.

Twelve years is a long time. A lot can change in twelve years. And a lot has changed in Turkey, in the 12 years since the post-modern coup of Feb. 28, 1997.
It is now legal to broadcast in Kurdish, family law has been liberalised, Turkey has deepened its rapprochement with Europe and, in economic terms, the Anatolian heartland is flourishing. Even the make-up of the National Security Council has been changed to achieve increased civilian control over the army.

Things have undoubtedly changed.
In 1997, the religious Refah party was ousted by army memorandum.
Twelve years on, the AK party (openly religious and counting many ex-Refahites among its members) has been governing for the better part of a decade.
The AK party is itself proof of profound change – the secularists have changed enough to endure it and the Islamists have changed enough to join and vote for the reformist, Euro-phile AKP. Even the army are yet to take drastic action against them. And many believe that the fact that the AKP is still around is proof enough that the TSK (Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri, the Turkish Armed Forces) have also changed.

When the AK party was investigated for unconstitutional activities and acquitted, some hailed the end of an era. When the TSK failed to intervene as pious Abdullah Gül was elected to the revered office of the President of the Republic, some were convinced that was the end of the TSK as we knew it. Just because they did not intervene.
Are we not forgetting something?
The army didn’t get the troops out in 1997 either. But a government fell nonetheless.

The TSK has not changed since 1997.
The TSK is done changing.
Between 1960 and now, they have perfected the art of interfering without intervening. Why change any more?

The position of the TSK within the polity is clear:
Past and present versions of the constitution and the uniform code of military justice recognise the TSK's duty to protect the land, the people, the Republic and Atatürk’s legacy from enemies within or without.

So Turkey has changed. But within certain limits.
After all, protecting a legacy from enemies within clearly means that the TSK are there to block the wrong kind of change.
In fulfilling that duty, the TSK intervened once every ten years, never holding onto power for long, between the advent of multi-party democracy in 1950 and 1980 when it appeared that a more ‘lasting solution’ was needed. Thus far, the army had been intervening in a correctional manner, addressing a perceived problem swiftly and returning to barracks. It was actually widely believed that to hold onto power too long would corrupt the corps.

But in 1980 things were different. Turkey was in chaos. Basic good shortages, government failures and violence on the streets meant that this time, when the TSK intervened, they were reluctant to withdraw immediately. Or even soon.
General Kenan Evren would retain power until he has satisfied the system had been re-jigged appropriately.
That took three years.
Before returning to democratic politics he made sure he had given Turkey a new constitution, new institutions and himself as President of the Republic for the next 7 years.

Since then, the army has interfered a lot and intervened little.
Although in 1997 some tanks did leave the barracks – in the city of Sıncan, following an unfortunate incident including a fiery oratory and the Iranian ambassador – 1997 was a very civilised coup, done via communiqué rather than military action.
Since then, the TSK’s unquestionable power has been turned into diffused influence. So diffused, you can hardly see it. But that doesn’t make it less real or less potent.

Of course, it helps that the core principles of the constitution are the TSK’s guiding principles. And it also helps that the current constitution is a heavily amended version of the document the junta drafted in the early 80s.
It also helps that the TSK have a say in all high-level judicial appointments. They have influence over all high-level state university appointments as well as in a number of other areas including a number of regulatory bodies.

Of course things have changed. But plus ça change…

Granted, the TSK don’t always get their way.
Neither Erdoğan nor Gül are to their taste. And they are both still around.
But neither Erdoğan nor Gül have pushed through any particularly controversial legislation, despite numerous tense stand-offs. Somehow AKP politicians manage to reign it in before it’s too late. For instance, Erdoğan tried, early on in his first term, to criminalize adultery, yet he soon dropped the issue like the hot potato that it was. The EU saw it as a sign of respect for the Copenhagen criteria.
But the secular TSK knew better.

The EU was also pleased when the number of civilians in the National Security Council was increased and the TSK chiefs were given ‘line managers’ lower down the food chain – from the head of state to the minister of defence.
The EU stopped being so pleased when they realised that the change in the National Security Council make-up had absolutely no bearing on the Council’s decision-making patterns as the TSK’s views still carried the day and that Army chiefs carried on being treated with deference by their civilian superiors.

Turkey has changed, say the EU observers, and now it’s time for the TSK to do the same.

Look again, says me.
Turkey was Atatürk’s project: an exercise in collectivism, statism, secularism and modernisation. The project is working, the legacy is upheld and the TSK is overseeing proceedings.
Of course Turkey has changed since 1997.
Turkey has been changing since 1923. It has been changing according to Atatürk’s plan and legacy. And since 1923, the TSK has also changed, to ensure it remained best placed to protect and forward the plan.

The one thing that hasn’t changed is the plan.
The TSK made sure of that.

El divo: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

I was not going to blog about this.
Say it again. I was not going to blog about this.
But when people make mountains out of molehills I get annoyed. So here it comes.

Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stormed out on Israeli President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in Davos. That’s funny, of course and every Tom, Dick and Harry blogged about it. But I didn’t. No Sir.
But then I started reading what other people wrote and I started getting annoyed, predictably, at how so many commentators managed to royally miss the point. People always miss the point when it comes to Turkey. But that’s another story for another time. So here I am, blogging about the things I was not going to blog about. Bloody typical.

Still.
Anyone vaguely interested in geopolitics knows that Turkey has traditionally been an ally of Israel’s.
In practice, this translates into a strained security understanding that enjoys the full backing of the all-mighty Turkish Armed Forces while civilian authorities remain ambivalent. At times, politicians have even expressed open hostility. That never lasts long. The last prime minister to do so (the notorious Necmettin Erbakan) was summarily deposed (for a variety of reasons) by an army communiqué in 1997. No violence, no coup, no fuss. Just a bit of paper and a press conference. Job done. It as called a post-modern coup with no hint of irony.

My point is, Turkey's security bonds with Israel are strong. And although Erdoğan’s personal preference for the Arab world ahead of Israel is well documented, his outburst was not a sign that Turkey is breaking with Israel as the press reported. Nor is it a sign of latent anti-Semitism, as the Economist’s Amberin Zaman claims, out of left field.
For the millionth time: disagreeing with Israel is not tantamount to anti-Semitism. Millions of Jews disagree with Israeli policy. Israelis disagree with Israeli policy.

Still, I don’t mean to defend Erdoğan.
A grown man, a professional politician and a, now, seasoned Prime Minister should be sober enough to not storm out when things don’t go his way. But to accuse him of anti-Semitism is to miss the point of what happened.

Erdoğan is a religious man. That much is well-known.
What that means is hard to tell as current legislation prevents him from expressing extreme religious sympathies even if he harbours them. We know he is pious and devout; we know he has fallen foul of the secular authorities and served a short jail sentence for ‘inciting religious violence’ through the use of some patriotic verses written in a time when secularism was not yet in vogue. And we know Erdoğan seeks to bring Turkey closer to the Arab states for the first time in its history. What that means is, again, not clear because this is rhetoric, scoring points with the religious heartland at home, rather than a genuine foreign policy position.

But that’s what Erdoğan does: he says out loud the things everyone had hitherto whispered. That is what makes him popular even with people who don’t actually agree with him, especially those who don’t have to live with his policies: the Europeans. With every nod from Europe, Erdoğan is a little safer at home, and so it continues.

Yet his record remains mixed.
He has liberalised the penal code but imposed restrictive legislation on alcohol; he has strengthened civilian control of the polity but he has also politicised the judiciary and skewed the demographics of the civil service.
He has brought Turkey closer to Europe and that has ensured his survival. But the truth is, he is pro-accession because he has no choice: his religiosity can only survive under an EU-sponsored freedoms discussion and his personal politics can only be legitimised as by-products of EU membership efforts. The secularists scowl, the traditionalists cheer and he walks the political tight-rope with ease, agility and flair.

Of course many wonder whether he’s worth all this effort. Whether EU accession is compensation enough for putting up with him. Recently, the Courts came close to resolving this dilemma as they questioned the constitutionality of the ruling AK Party, but Erdoğan survived again. By the skin of his teeth. And that made him even more of a hero with his constituents. Of course.

So, for me, his dramatic departure in Davos was not an act of political defiance.
It was a primadonna moment.

A perceived pro-Hamas leaning in Turkey meant that Erdoğan’s meeting with Peres was never going to be easy. But it doesn’t follow that Erdoğan’s outburst signifies, as one writer put it, ‘Turkey’s shift away from the West’. Easy tiger. The West is currently telling Israel off just as much as Turkey is. Erdoğan is, for once, on message and in good company.

Equally, to read too much into his actions is to give him credit he has not earned. Zaman, Turkey’s most religiously-minded mainstream daily, ran editorial upon editorial suggesting that what Erdoğan actually meant is that peace-building requires an honest assessment of the corruption and incompetence on the Arab side, US and European naïveté when it comes to Israel and the simple fact that Israeli hard-liners always seem to carry the day in Israeli domestic politics.
I’d have a lot of respect for Erdoğan had he said all that. But he did not.

Of course he objected to the Gaza killings. And of course Peres pushed back. That much was expected.
But then Peres accused him of not knowing what actually goes on in Gaza. And then the moderator, David Ignatius, started tapping Erdoğan on the shoulder, so he would cede the floor. And without wanting to trivialise this, Erdoğan does not take kindly to any slight to his personal authority. Satirists, cartoonists, journalists have found themselves fined and tried for mocking Erdoğan. He is under EU caution for his intolerance to any slight to his authority. Tap taps on the shoulder and accusations of ignorance don’t sit well with him.

So is that why he stormed out?
I’d say partly. The other part being made up of a plethora of factors including his religiosity, personal dislike for Israel and commitment to his pro-Arab, Muslim brotherhood rhetoric.

This was not about Turkey’s radical repositioning on the geostrategic map. This was not a symbolic departure from the straight and narrow as defined by the acquis communautaire and EU lore. This is not even about Turkey breaking with Israel (although stranger things have happened and one never knows what tomorrow brings). This is simply a diplomatic blunder by a man who occasionally gets carried away by his own self-importance.

So here’s my two kuruş’ worth: there’s no massive political realignment afoot. Just a garden-variety case of over-inflated political ego and a bit of a temper.

Now let’s sit back and watch him spin this to his advantage at home.

Paranoid R Us?

A few days ago, I got a forward. I get a few of those. I get too many of those.
I never thought I’d be blogging about them.

This particular email was informing me that Lonely Planet magazine printed a two-page spread with the catchy title ‘How about Turkey for Christmas’ inviting people to catch some winter sun on the island of Kastelorizo.
Which is in Greece. Not in Turkey.
There is even a Greek flag in one of the beachfront public buildings on the edge of the photo, which kind of gives the game away.
So Lonely Planet had a d’oh moment and I had a laugh.

But the Greeks went bananas.
Greek TV is reporting on this ‘despicable act of propaganda’, bloggers are frothing at the mouth about the ‘known Turkish-leaning tendencies of Lonely Planet’, the ministry of external affairs is ‘monitoring the situation closely’ and I am aghast.
That people are seriously thinking that this is more than a mistake.
That people seriously believe that Turkey could be using this as a strategy for territorial expansion or political destabilisation in Greece.
That people seriously believe Lonely Planet would actively compromise their credibility in such a way just to do Turkey’s presumed bidding over an island for which Turkey has no known annexation agenda.

Obviously Greece and Turkey are not the best of friends. Never have been. But there is no actual territorial dispute over Kastelorizo. Disputes over the continental shelf or national airspace? Yes. Over Kastelorizo? No.
Unless you assume that Turkey is after every Greek island near their coast. Which many in Greece do.

This paranoia is not new.
Foreign affairs coverage in the press, political history coverage in schoolbooks and educational material – all work on the simple storyline of the little friendless nation whose land possessions are in constant danger, whose dignity and interests are under constant assault; the little country that needs to forever be vigilant.

So here we are talking about Lovely Planet’s political positioning, Turkey’s agents abroad and Greece’s diplomatic retaliation options. This is serious, we are told. Of course it’s serious. But not as a threat to Greece’s territorial integrity. Not as a threat to peace and stability in the Med.
This is serious because when you set off travelling, your Lonely Planet is your bible. And if they manage to leave you with the impression that a tiny Greek island off the coast of Turkey is in a different country to the one it’s actually in, then what else are they getting wrong?

And while my friends in Greece see this as a diplomatic episode, I’m thinking thank God I've always been a Rough Guide gal.
Paranoid? You bet ya.

The future is what you make of it

2009. Not a nice round number.
Still, the Turkish press celebrated its arrival as the ‘make or break’ year for Turkey’s EU membership aspirations. Again.
Turkey seems to be having such ‘make or break’ years quite often since 1965 – when attempts to join the European institutional family first started. Since then, each year is make or break. Only it never is.
Granted. There have been good years. Customs union was achieved in 1996. That was a huge step. But not the breakthrough some had hoped for. And while Turkey was striving for membership, the EU was itself changing dramatically, becoming an increasingly complicated institution. And making membership increasingly harder. So Turkey was chasing a moving target. And in 2001 a decision was made to go all out in its pursuit.

2001. Not a nice round number. But a momentous year. Because a collective choice was made by the public, parties and state agencies to channel all creative energies on an unconditional drive towards membership. This consensus was long coming and it made unlikely bedfellows of politicians, generals, activists and academics who shared the EU membership aspiration, albeit for different reasons.
2001 was a momentous year for Turkish politics, civil society, domestic reform.
But make or break, it wasn’t.

Eight years on and this reform drive, having achieved a lot but not its stated objective, is faltering as fatigue and disillusionment are setting in. Reform has gone far, but not far enough. Change has been rapid, but not rapid enough.
And although a lot has changed, Turkey’s fundamentals remain unchanged. Its system (the foundation of the laws, the cornerstone of the polity) remains collectivist, nationalist, secular. EU-sponsored individualism, multi-culturalism and freedom of religion have coloured many laws but not the legal system. They have informed much change, but have not changed Turkey’s political core.

Part of the problem may well be that the system works.
The EU is made up of liberal democracies. Some members started off that way. Others were taken in after the end of bloody dictatorships or after the collapse of communist regimes. All were ready for a new start, all were keen to be guided into EU-sponsored liberal democracy.
Turkey is different. It is membership it covets, not a new political system. And as it is becoming clear that one without the other is not an option, the question is will 2009 be a make-or-break year after all?

Turkey already has a customs union.
And as financial handouts and free movement of people within the Union are restricted for new members, the practical appeal of membership is not all that great any more for Turkey.
After years of crushing humiliation and rejection, the feel-good factor of being accepted in the European club is losing credibility fast as well.
And the Europeans don’t want Turkey. After the longest negotiation in the Union’s history, Turkey is still out in the cold and many within the EU still clamour for ‘privileged partnership’ but not membership.

So many in Turkey are saying ‘enough is enough already’ – 2009 is the time to make or break this one for ourselves.
But what about the reforms?
The EU drive has allowed much-needed reforms to take place, protecting freedom of speech and expression. Without the EU drive, will all this die in the water?

NGO statistics show human rights abuses being on the up in 2008. Legal reform has been wide-ranging but not far-reaching and the amendments made to specific laws have had little effect on the realities of the courtroom. Reform is not yet consolidated and if membership negotiations buy the reformists time, then at least they are good for something.
Yet the debate around freedom of speech is robust. Change is taking place. And a lot of it is self-referential. It is not about the EU. It is about Turkey.

So 2009 may be a make or break year after all. Membership or no membership, it may be the year when the balance tips and reform picks up pace again, not because the EU decrees it but because civil society demands it. 2009 could be the year of consolidation. EU or no EU.
If people put their minds to it, this could be Turkey's last ‘make or break’ year.

What’s secularism for?

The latest hullabaloo over an academic appointment in Turkey got me thinking. What’s secularism for? Is it a good in itself? Or is it a means to ensuring greater freedom in public life?

Yunus Söylet was appointed rector of Istanbul Univesity and the secularists are unhappy. Why? Because the President likes him and what Gül likes they don’t, as a matter of principle. Because he has links to the ruling AK Party and the ruling AK Party is flirting a bit too much with religion. Because the current government have made political (read religious) appointments wherever and whenever they could and now having Gül in the presidential palace makes that so much easier. And secularists worry. But there is little that doesn’t worry the secularists.

Islamists worry the secularists. But the mildly pious worry the secularists too. The AKP government worries the secularists, as does Turkey’s traditionalist periphery. Traditional ways of life worry the secularists, but so do the EU’s demands for greater freedom of religion and expression. Secularists fear granting these demands would weaken secularism. But what is secularism about, if not freedom?

Still, the secularists protect what they value. Don’t we all?
But Turkey’s secularists have the army on their side, an army that has in the past ‘forced people to be free’ in one way or another. Now, you might say that the army siding with the secularists is better than the army siding with the Islamists, but I’d still rather the army didn’t side with anyone at all on this one. Because when you are debating the nature and boundaries of freedom and one side has guns, the debate is pretty much dead before it starts, even if the guns are with the good guys. Even if the guns are not used.

Secularism is a good thing, I hear you say. Protecting a good thing is a good thing, I hear you say. But is it?
What good is a good thing if it doesn’t do what it’s good for?

Turkey’s secularism translates to freedom from religion in public life. And that is fine by me. But it is not fine by many Turks. To each their own, you may say, only not in Turkey where religion has to be private. So a veiled woman has the choice of staying at home, removing her veil or negotiating public disapproval and legal bans on wearing the headscarf in public places. Because a veiled student, a veiled lawyer, a veiled teacher is a challenge to the secular republic and the modernisation project. But is she? Or is she the surest sign that Turkey is a modern, secular state within which a girl (veiled or not) is not locked up at home but free to choose, to study, to practice a profession? Only she isn’t. Not if she chooses to wear a veil. And the secularists do not want to relax the rules because they fear they may set a dangerous precedent. Today you allow headscarves in public buildings, tomorrow you move back to an Islamic calendar and next thing you know you’ll be banning alcohol and women won’t be able to drive any more, they say. To the secularists, any relaxation to the constitutional provisions banning religion from public life could push Turkey down a slippery slope towards theocracy. So they are taking no chances.

But isn’t democracy about taking chances?
A democracy may vote itself out of existence. That’s a risk you must take if you are to have a democracy. If you protect yourself against that, you’ve killed your democracy before the reactionaries even had a chance to think about it.

So what’s secularism for, if a veiled girl is not given a chance to be all that secularism allows her to be? What’s secularism for, if the pious are bundled with religious reactionaries?
What’s secularism for, if it can’t make religion less, not more, controversial?