| Afterword
Turkey’s Western Trajectory
Soli Ozel
In strategic terms as well, whereas during the cold war membership in the Western security system was taken for granted, the post–cold war period gradually led to a search for new orientations on the part of some critical actors. Undoubtedly for some, particularly in Islamist circles, the desire to engage with the larger Muslim world and the Middle East was strong. The initiative by the Islamist prime minister Necmeddin Erbakan to form an economic club of leading Muslim countries, the D-8, in 1997 was one manifestation of that desire. Another alternative, the Eurasian perspective proposed by Turkish secularist nationalists and identified by the authors, was meant to move Turkey away from its Western alliance system. The rationale behind such searches for foreign policy alternatives was the perception or conviction that Turkey’s interests and those of its erstwhile allies were no longer in sync.
In fact, so the secularist nationalists’ argument went, Turkey’s and Western democracies’ interests were often at odds with one another. The proof of such a point of view was the Iraq War, when the clash of interests between Washington and Ankara became painfully obvious. For these nationalists, the United States violated Turkey’s most sacredly held national interest and seemed to encourage the founding of a Kurdish state. The domestic political vision that complemented this so-called Eurasian alternative, which led in some circles to deep admiration for Vladimir Putin and Putinism, was an authoritarian-secularist Turkey. The secularist nationalists also defended closer strategic cooperation with Iran, although the desire of staunch secularists to harmonize policies with Islamist Iran was certainly an anomaly. As the authors state, it is impossible to separate Turkey’s foreign policy choices from its domestic issues, the legacy of its history, the power struggles within its polity, and the ongoing transformation of Turkish society. The end of the cold war, the refashioning of the Middle Eastern state system, and new power balances in the Persian Gulf and the Caucasus undoubtedly create for Turkey new strategic opportunities. The relative stability of Turkey’s politics and the appeal of its economic success and dynamism prepare the geopolitical structural conditions for the rise of neo-Ottomanist designs in foreign policy. But so do the urbanization of Turkey, the rise of a new, more conservative and religious provincial business class, and the coming of age of a more Islamically oriented counter-elite.
Just this combination alone, at a time when debates abound concerning the nature of Islam as a religion and its compatibility with democracy or secularism, has put Turkey in the spotlight of Western political analysis and foreign policy discussions. As a result, in the years since 2003 arguably more has been written on Turkey—its politics, its strategic importance in the post–cold war and post–September 11 world, and the Turkish experiment in nation building itself—than in the previous fifty.
Since the Turkish military issued its so-called e-memorandum on April 27, 2007, to block the election of then Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as president, news from Turkey has frequently occupied the front pages and the editorial columns of major newspapers around the world. Recently two court cases—one concerning the closure of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the other, the so-called Ergenekon case, concerning the elimination of rogue elements within the security apparatuses of the Turkish state as well as the exposure of former military commanders for having tried to stage coups in 2003 and 2004—have drawn much attention. For most domestic and foreign observers, it was inconceivable that the ruling party of a democracy would be charged with subverting the regime it governed, let alone be guilty of such subversion. The case and the debates surrounding it polarized public opinion and finally came to a happy ending on July 30, when the Constitutional Court found the AKP guilty as charged but not so guilty as to deserve closure. With this sublimely if shamefully political decision the court kept the AKP in place, put it on probation, and gave the country a respite from the poisonous atmosphere. The Ergenekon case, too, exposed the deep fissures in the country. Some segments of the population and dominant newspapers of the mainstream press approached the case with suspicion. They questioned the motives of the prosecutor and linked the progress of the Ergenekon case to the closure case, suggesting implicitly or explicitly that the government’s ulterior motive in pursuing this case was to move against its detractors who might be implicated. In an environment where the judicial processes are overpoliticized, such a supposition may be considered justified.However, the facts unearthed by the voluminous if flawed indictment—some 2,500 pages and hundreds of thousands of documents of evidence—make it necessary to take the case seriously.
In view of the enthusiasm generated by the July 22, 2007, election results both domestically and abroad, it is hard to believe how rapid the deterioration of Turkey’s political fortunes was.How did the euphoria of Election Day, when the electorate sent a strong message to the military to keep out of civilian politics and boosted the power of a conservative party with Islamist roots, segue into the state of affairs of summer 2008? Will the Constitutional Court’s decision just lead to a temporary lull in hostilities, or will the country’s political actors use the occasion to finally deal with the fundamental problems of the Turkish Republic? On the one hand, Turkey’s established political system is sclerotic, as evidenced by its current distribution of institutional power and its approach to the role of Islam in politics (namely, it should have either no role or a subservient one) and to the Kurdish question. The authors identify these as two of the three main pillars of Kemalism, namely “radical secularism” and “assimilationist nationalism.”Turkey seems to be unable to devise new ways and methods of thinking within the existing paradigm so as to rise to the challenges that a more market-oriented, socially mobile, urbanized—if not yet urbane and politically transformed—Turkey faces in the post–cold war era. This in turn leads the established order’s custodians to revert to authoritarian methods and in some cases to vilification of just that “West” of which the Turkish Republic at its foundation explicitly aspired to be an equal member. This drive for Westernization is the third main pillar of Kemalism. Secularist nationalists resent Western pressures for liberal democratization as much because of the power shift such a course entails as because of their ideological commitment to a peculiarly fashioned understanding of secularism delineated in this book.
On the other hand, the challengers of the established order (represented in this instance by the AKP) lack the comprehensive vision, the imagination, and the cadres that are necessary to transform the system along liberal democratic lines and to consolidate the rule of law. It may well be unfair to expect the AKP, a self-styled conservative party, to go beyond its own agenda, customs, and worldview and push for a more radical liberalization and democratization of Turkey’s political landscape. Thus, the fact remains that the agents of a possible new order are incapable of taking over from a corroded old system,much less of substantively transforming it. Together, these two groups of political agents—the establishment and its challengers—condemn a dynamic, vibrant, aspiring nation to stasis, confusion, and crisis. The malaise thus engendered manifests itself in a multidimensional polarization, and the poles are defined in the language of the politics of identity. This is not simply a matter of Turkey’s aligning its foreign policy with the West—it goes further and deeper than that.
The Litigation against the AKP
To assess the full implications of Turkey’s political and constitutional crisis it may be useful to review the mechanics and the facts of the process that began to unfold in spring 2008. On March 31, 2008, the Constitutional Court agreed to consider the case to close down the ruling AKP and ban seventy-one of its active and retired politicians from politics. The list of politicians to be banned included the sitting president of the Republic, Abdullah Gul, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. There is little doubt in the minds of most observers that the 162-page indictment prepared by the prosecutor general of the High Court of Appeals was more a political document than a legal one.
Along with some legally dubious arguments, the indictment documented instances since 2003 when the listed personalities said or did things that the prosecutor deemed to be in violation of the principle of secularism. The text also included commentary by the prosecutor that saw the alleged efforts by the AKP to Islamize Turkey as an extension, if not the direct outcome, of Great Power strategies.
Following the AKP’s election win in July 2007—prior to the launch of the court case—Turkey’s prospects looked very different. These elections were held earlier than scheduled because the military intervened in the process of electing the AKP’s foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, as Turkey’s new president. Turkish democracy proved its maturity and the AKP won a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections. The AKP then had the chance to overhaul Turkey’s system by drafting a new, more democratic constitution. It had a mandate to continue with the EU reform process that it had basically ignored for the previous two and a half years. Instead, after an initial attempt in September–October 2007 to present a new constitution drafted by a panel of experts it had commissioned, the AKP acted as if it did not wish to spend much political capital on the arduous EU reform process.With its sights fixed on the municipal elections of 2009, the party must have concluded that the EU as a cause had no domestic political payback.Nor did the party show much interest in seeking a broad consensus for its major initiatives. The most daring AKP move was changing two articles of the constitution with the help of the ultranationalist Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetci Hareket Partisi—MHP) to allow headscarf-wearing students to attend classes at the university.
In early June the Constitutional Court ruled that the amendments to the constitution were themselves unconstitutional and declared these null and void and effectively made the headscarf ban permanent.
After hesitating between different options that ranged from a defiant set of amendments to the constitution that would make party closing much more difficult to doing nothing at all, the AKP decided just to follow the procedure. It presented its defense and asked for no extra time, an indication that it wanted the matter to be over as soon as possible and wanted to have enough time to regroup if the decision was for the party to be banned.
During this period, though, the AKP made no moves to reach out to the significant segment of the population that is concerned about the rising profile of religion in public life but does not share the innate antagonism of AKP’s fierce secularist opponents. It also has not shown the public the way out of the crisis. The Kurdish nationalist Democratic Society Party (Demokratik Toplum Partisi—DTP) has also been challenged with possible closure by the court. If both the AKP and DTP were to be closed down, the two parties that together have received about 85 percent of the votes in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast would have been driven out of politics. Such an eventuality could have dire consequences for Turkey’s national cohesion: it would further alienate Turkey’s Kurdish population, could play into the hands of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan—PKK), and might rekindle widespread terrorism in the region and elsewhere. This was precisely the line of argument AKP strategists presented both to the public and to state elites.An unidentified senior member of the AKP government (widely believed to be the former justice minister and current deputy prime minister, Cemil Cicek) noted in a conversation with the journalist Fikret Bila of Milliyet, “While Turkish politics is immersed in this fight, what will happen when both sides suddenly realize that they can no longer go to the southeast? . . . [If the AKP is closed down], political ties to the southeast will have all been cut except for the [pro-PKK] DTP.” There are intricate relations between developments in Turkey concerning the Kurdish issue and PKK terrorism and the political situation in northern Iraq as well as Turkey’s relations with the region. Given this context, the repercussions of closing the AKP would potentially not be confined to Turkey.
For understandable reasons, the unfolding stories and particularly the closure case elicited a strong response from the European Union, which is holding accession negotiations with Turkey. Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn immediately criticized the indictment and the propensity to close down political parties. The idea of suspending accession negotiations with Turkey (a notion that was never realistic but enjoyed considerable support among Turkey bashers within the EU) entered circulation. The long-scheduled visit to Turkey of the head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, took place in this environment. In his contacts and speeches Barroso reiterated the EU’s commitment to negotiation for Turkey’s full membership, suggested a preference for a more liberal interpretation of secularism, and expressed his view that the headscarf issue is a matter of personal choice and not a symbol of an existential threat to the secularism of the Republic.
The American response to the court case was more subdued. Officials at first voiced their wish that both Turkey’s secularism and its democracy be safeguarded, an almost neutral and therefore inadequate position vis-à-vis the two sides of the ongoing political struggle. This was partially a function of the desire not to jeopardize the recent improvements in Turkish-U.S. relations (which have suffered because of the Iraq War) resulting from the United States’ giving Turkey critical help in its fight against PKK camps and Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq. Washington may have wished to avoid antagonizing the military by taking too strong a position against the prosecution of the case, since it believes, rightly, that it could not determine its outcome. The position could even be a function, as many pundits in Turkey claimed, of the divisions within the U.S. administration concerning the AKP and the nature of that party’s rule and intentions. Still, the concerns of the U.S. government about the effects of the case and the possible closure of the AKP on Cyprus and on relations with Iraqi Kurds and with Armenia were voiced by Ambassador Ross Wilson when he met with AKP deputies. In retrospect it is becoming evident as well that the United States may have exerted subtle but effective pressure on authorities by making its displeasure with the idea of closure known.
The Constitutional Court was thus put in the unenviable position of becoming the final arbiter of Turkey’s politics and the ultimate custodian of its secularism—burdened with the task of blocking a steamroller AKP that Turkey’s other political parties were unable to contain or balance. But this level of politicization of the judiciary in general and the Constitutional Court in particular risked ending in a descent into a regime crisis. Ultimately the court did not assume this burden partially to preserve the integrity of the institution. Despite the conviction of ten of its members that the ruling AKP was indeed engaged in antisecular activities, it did not hand down a closure decision, instead simply cutting by half the amount the party received from the treasury. The justices probably took the domestic and international context of their decision into account. Fierce opposition within the country to the case in general, an outright reprimand from the European Union, and belated yet consistent probing from Washington all played their part in determining the outcome. The Constitutional Court in the end acknowledged the supremacy of the ballot box in a democratic order and refrained from jeopardizing Turkey’s relations with its Western democratic allies. Ironically, by making a primarily political decision the court also reinforced the view that in Turkey the legal system is one of the instruments of politics and not an independent, impartial branch of government. Indeed, the court’s decision to put the AKP on probation also meant that the conviction of those within the justice system that they are empowered to exercise tutelage over politicians was alive and well. These are habits the country needs to shed as rapidly as possible.
Ultimately the decision was a significant gain for Turkish democracy, despite the shadow cast by the notion of the judiciary’s tutelage over politics. It returned the resolution of the country’s problems to where they belonged, that is, the political sphere. However the polarization along the secular-religious axis and the broader struggle over the redistribution of power in the polity that were at the roots of the case are still in place, as is the lack of trust that pervades the opposing political camps.
In the wake of the decision that headed off a potentially severe systemic crisis, the first task of all stakeholders ought to be the refashioning of Turkey’s political and administrative structures. The many crises the country currently experiences are actually signs of painful, traumatic change. So it is incumbent upon the civilian political actors, mainly the elected representatives in Parliament, to ease this transformation and help build a bona fide democracy.
Turkey Still Looking West
Many Western observers, particularly in the United States, have of late been concerned about Turkey’s possible drift away from the West. Some of the more vocal among them hold the AKP and its Islamist roots responsible for such a turn, which would lead to privileged relations with Turkey for Middle Eastern countries, most notably Iran and Syria. As the present volume and the foregoing analysis and observations make clear, however, the character of Turkey’s international relations and the nature of its policy choices are such that a simple dichotomous West vs. East approach cannot cover all nuances. The problems of Turkey’s sense of political identity and cultural belonging run deep. The cultural and political fault lines of the country—secular-Islamic, Sunni- Alevi (a subgroup of Islam), Turkish-Kurdish—are amassing energy. The continuing irresolution of problems related to these fault lines, the collective inability to reach a consensus toward reformulating the Turkish polity, and managing these tensions within a democratic framework are straining societal relations. Furthermore, basic facts of recent Turkish political history inform us that in such conditions illicit organizations or even some state agencies can engage in provocative actions and contribute further to the polarization in society.
This was in fact precisely what the Ergenekon case brought to the light of day. The case, being heard in the Istanbul Court of Assize, was built against an illicit organization that called itself Ergenekon (from the founding legend of the Turkish nation). The prosecution, after an investigation that lasted for thirteen months, prepared a voluminous indictment against a network of security personnel, business people, mafiosi, journalists, and assorted others who had organized themselves to undertake the overthrow of the civilian government, create conditions for a military coup, abrogate the constitutional order, and engage in terrorist activities. It is becoming evident that the organization—a spinoff from cold war–era extralegal organizations whose raison d’être was to fight the Soviets in case of invasion of a NATO country, but that also engaged in illedgal activities—was responsible for numerous unsolved murders and sensational terrorist activities since 1990 as well.
The indicted—eighty-six individuals so far, including two retired generals—are being charged with, among other things, forming a terrorist organization. It is expected that at least one additional indictment will be prepared against the former commander of the gendarmerie for having attempted to stage two military coups back in 2003 and 2004 while on active duty. These attempts were aborted by the then chief of staff and his immediate subordinates at the general staff. (The story of these attempts is chronicled in the diaries of the former commander of the navy, although he denies that the diaries, published by a now defunct weekly magazine, are his).
All available information suggests that the case is at least partially about the reconstruction of the Turkish military. By now it is clearly understood that two broadly defined camps within the military were fighting it out for ideological dominance within the institution. One is still West-oriented and therefore supportive of the democratic order; the other is more Eurasia-oriented, prone to secular authoritarianism and willing to move Turkey in the direction of Russia. Ergenekon in that sense is a cleaning-up operation. Both the success in aborting the coups in 2003 and 2004 and the generally supportive posture of the current military top brass regarding the Ergenekon arrests and indictments mean that the days of military intervention and rule in Turkey are finally over. Even if the legal case does not go as far as it currently promises, the political significance of the case and its liberating effect on Turkey’s civilian politics are to be celebrated. The domestic political convulsions in Turkey are to a considerable extent also related to the end of the cold war and the strategic disorientation this has generated among policymakers, particularly in the context of the Iraq War. The end of the cold war changed the basic parameters of Turkey’s relations with the West. Although Ankara remained committed to the transatlantic alliance, it also felt that its partners did not appreciate Turkey’s particular security concerns. In fact, Turkish authorities and the public long suspected that the PKK was being given shelter by European allies and the United States. It also became evident that the commonality of security and strategic interests that existed during the cold war was no longer as easily identifiable. The most dramatic illustration of this was the parliament’s refusal to allow the deployment of American troops to open a northern front against Iraq, a decision supported by a majority of the public and a significant section of decisionmaking elites, including the then president of the Republic, Ahmet Necdet Sezer. The sum of these many issues is that Turkey’s domestic politics and foreign policy orientation and preferences are linked in contradictory ways. The traditional Westernizing elites are resentful of the West because of pressures to democratize that in their minds are akin to encouraging both separatism and Islamization. Democratization of the Turkish political order does indeed mean a profound shift in the balance of power and this process entails loss of power and privilege for those on the losing side. Therefore the most virulent anti-Western positions as well as proposals for a non-Western strategic option nowadays come from some Westernized elites, including retired military officers. The ideological content of the language of that resentment and reaction is either the sanctity of secularism at the expense of democracy or the threat to the territorial integrity of the country.
As Gordon and Taspinar point out, a transformation has taken place such that the AKP and the Islamically inclined forces in the country that were the standard bearers of anti-Westernism have converted into the unlikely and at times reluctant champions of Turkey’s Western orientation. Since the general election in July 2007 their lack of commitment to liberal democratic principles and their lethargy about the EU accession process have cost them significant support among people who are not necessarily part of a power bloc but jealously defend their secular lifestyles. Far more important for Turkey’s future than the issue of secularism is the Kurdish problem. The irresolution of that problem and the continuation of PKK terrorism turn the politics of Turkey into a tinderbox. The way the domestic Kurdish problem is handled is closely linked to the way Turkey relates to northern Iraq and the Iraqi Kurds. For some years now the AKP government has wanted to improve relations with Iraqi Kurds and end the awkward situation in which Turkey spoke with all the parties in Iraq except the Kurds. Turkey was the only neighboring country that Iraqi President Talabani did not visit because former President Sezer and the military were opposed to meeting him. The opportunity to change course came when the United States finally took a more straightforward position against the PKK after the organization overplayed its hand by resorting to terrorism following the general elections. The elections clearly demonstrated that public support for terrorism, or at least support for violence, had considerably declined among the Kurds of Turkey.
In light of the support given by the United States to Turkey in its struggle against the PKK, many observers in Turkey also expected the government to finally deliver on its promises to present a major reform package on the Kurdish issue. This has not happened and is unlikely to happen, given the party’s current troubles and resistance from within the ranks by conservativenationalist elements. The government wishes to open more channels of cooperation toward northern Iraq and Iraqi Kurds in order to better isolate the PKK and gain the trust of Turkey’s own Kurds, but it is being blocked by the security establishment. Rising PKK terrorism or a spectacular terrorist incident perpetrated by the PKK would rekindle both the anti-Kurdish and the currently subdued anti-American sentiment in the country. In the wake of the Constitutional Court’s decision on closure of the AKP and with the unfolding of the Ergenekon case, one can conclude that the days of military intervention and terror by rogue elements in Turkey are over. The political sphere now has an opportunity to build a truly civilian system where the rule of law is indeed supreme. Turkey’s secularism debate, the Kurdish problem, and the general question of minority rights will still take some time to be resolved. It is the contention of Gordon and Taspinar that this can only be accomplished if Turkey consolidates its democracy. The most significant symbol of the will to do this is the rekindling of the EU accession process, which must move forward, at times in spite of actions or words of the EU or some of its members. This is the challenge facing the AKP, which needs to own up to this goal and drop the complacency it has shown over the past three years. In the absence of a viable opposition that pressures the AKP to move in the direction of EU accession, this may be politically inconvenient, inexpedient, and even difficult. But it is the right thing to do. Only when Turkey clearly chooses this path, will there be no need to figure out ways of “winning Turkey.” |
