Category: News

No welcome – now the Turks don’t even want to join Europe by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Europe had the chance to end the chasm between Islam and the West. It chose to be bigoted

Monday, 4 August 2008

Just back from Dalyan in Turkey, a place of such natural beauty and human kindness you almost cry with relief and released joy. A lush river full of fat turtles and thin, dancing water snakes runs through the smallish town (only a hamlet when we last stopped over 15 years ago), making its way to the Aegean/Mediterranean seas, warm and playful. Although tourism is changing the nature of Dalyan, nobody hassles you and you don’t begrudge the inhabitants the economic surge delivered by delighted visitors.

Our compatriots behaved with such courtesy, it made us proud to be British. Most were non-Metropolitan, involved in building, making and selling awnings and blinds, engineering, farming and so on. A few were in public service. Several came back every year because, they said, the people were even warmer than the summer sun. No moody novelists or sulky media types were spotted. At a local fish restaurant (sea bass and bream for £4 with real chips and the sharpest rocket leaves in the world) sat a tipsy, buxom northern English blonde in a red polka-dotted dress. Oh, she loved this place, she said, most of all the Turkish Tommy Cooper in the café, who told bad jokes in his fez.

This goodwill only helped to emphasize the criminal failures of the EU political classes, who have betrayed their own post-war ideals. Western Europe promised to confront its heart of darkness after the war and Holocaust. Zero tolerance against anti-Semitism was the ransom that had to be paid and was, rightly and properly. But other racisms have been allowed to grow and ancient enmities reawakened. Fresh hate victims have been found to fill the continent’s gaping pits.

Black migrants are treated like vermin, including in those EU countries known for easy charm; Muslims have had to accept institutionalised prejudice and Turkey has been treated as an abject and alien supplicant who must be kept that way. An essentialist, Christian definition of Europe has been settled upon, arguably one of the most self destructive of EU ideologies.

Sarkozy says: “Europe must give itself borders … beginning with Turkey which has no place in the EU.” Merkel and others in the enlarged club are even more phobic and Britain’s honourable opposition to such a view has no effect. Patiently waiting to be admitted since 1987, the Turks are no longer asking. Never have I met so many young graduates and older secularists so violently opposed to joining the Union.

They believe a new power bloc of India and some of the more enlightened Muslim states offers them better prospects. In 2002, 70 per cent wanted to go in; in 2006 the figure had gone down to 35 per cent. Today I would guess enthusiasm has dropped to single figures. The Turkish journalist Farina Ahaeuser astutely observes that by keeping Turkey on the edge ( and on edge) relations with Europe “have certainly hit rock bottom”.

This is appalling news for both sides. The EU has admirably democratized nations previously under authoritarianism. Turkey’s ruling Islamicist AKP party has shown better governance because it wanted to impress Europe. The death penalty was abolished, human and minority rights were finally getting somewhere and the PM, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, agreed to abolish the abominable Article 301 that makes it unlawful to “insult the Turkish nation”. He has reneged on this commitment.

The latest, failed attempt by the Turkish Constitutional court to undemocratically close down the AKP is another sign that the country is abandoning EU principles of politics and justice. Islamicisation is creeping in. Almost all the wives of government ministers are hijabed and “pious” homemakers. It frightens modern Turkish women who have had equal rights for longer than we have in the UK. I used to love meeting these sisters who were as deeply religious as I am but also strong secularists. These days they are depressed and angry.

Europe had the chance to end the ideological chasm between hardline Islam and the west by embracing its Christian and Muslim heritages, to heal the world. It has chosen instead to be injudicious, obtuse and bigoted. Even George Bush understands how dumb this is.

At a bar in Dalyan, the owner, a handsome man with green eyes said some mosque elders would soon close up and come over for a glass of rose wine: “Our God is inside. We are not crazy like those Saudis. We are both west and east. But these people in Brussels don’t understand us and I am afraid they will push us away too far and then who knows what will happen? Only Allah knows.“

y.alibhai-brown@independent.co.uk

Source: The Independent 4 August 2008

August 4, 2008
Sarkozy’s Club Med Experiment Is Sure to Fail: Michael R. Sesit

Commentary by Michael R. Sesit

Aug. 1 (Bloomberg)

Beware of French presidents seeking grand projects.

Amid great fanfare, Nicolas Sarkozy last month unveiled the Mediterranean Union of 43 countries, consisting of the European Union’s 27 members, 14 non-EU member countries that border the Mediterranean Sea, as well as Jordan and Mauritania.

The ostensible goal is to improve the economic lot of Europe’s poorer neighbors, curb terrorism, stem illegal immigration, clean up the polluted Mediterranean, prevent the proliferation of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, improve maritime and land transport and promote human rights.

The experiment — Sarkozy’s attempt to establish a legacy for his presidency — is doomed to fail, not the least because it attempts to accomplish too much, with too few resources among too disparate a group of countries. The project is also rife with hidden agendas, including the promotion of French national interests, while ignoring some of the biggest dangers in the former European colonies in the Middle East and Africa.

The founding of the Mediterranean Union three weeks ago was accompanied by grandiose language saluting human rights, praising democratic principles and condemning terrorism. “We must surmount all the hatreds to make space for a great dream of peace and civilization,” Sarkozy said. France’s real motive, though, is to establish a French southern sphere of influence to counter Germany’s dominant position in central and eastern Europe.

German Resistance

The Germans caught on quick. Not wanting to see the EU divided, nor German funds used to finance contracts awarded to French companies, Chancellor Angela Merkel objected. Sarkozy retreated and agreed to include the entire EU, instead of just the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. It was also agreed to frame the effort somewhat as a successor to the ill-fated Barcelona process, a 1995 plan to promote economic development and conflict resolution among Mediterranean states.

Still, even in a watered-down version, French companies are well positioned. The union’s initial projects in energy, water systems and transport all play to French industrial strengths.

Any doubts that the Mediterranean Union isn’t a venture dedicated to the greater glory of France should be dispelled by the date chosen for its launch, July 13 — the eve of Bastille Day, France’s national holiday. That way, the assembled heads of state and other senior dignitaries could be treated to a parade that a Wall Street Journal editorial once called the most ostentatious display of military might west of Moscow.

French Armory

Replete with everything from a marching unit of the French Foreign Legion — which for decades was France’s instrument of repression of its North African colonies — to armored tanks and a flyover by fighter jets spewing out the tricolor in smoky trails, the celebrations seemed to be a cross between a photo opportunity and an armaments bazaar.

At the political level, Turkey sees the union as a consolation prize for its eventual denial of EU membership. “It would send a very bad message to the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims,” Egeman Bagis, chief foreign-policy adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told the New York Times. Sarkozy has said that Turkey doesn’t belong in the EU.

Meanwhile, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade on July 17 said that Europe wants Algerian and Libyan oil-and-gas reserves and accused the EU of deliberately choosing to isolate Africa through the new union. Libyan strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi denounced the project.

Hodgepodge of States

Alain Leroy, the French diplomat who was overseeing the Mediterranean effort, said today’s EU began as the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951. The comparison is a weak one. The ECSC had only six members, all European, all true democracies. None was a theocracy, nor was any infected by terrorism.

By contrast, the Mediterranean region is a hodgepodge of European, Arab and African states consisting of democratic regimes, monarchies and dictatorships — some with a strong religious orientation — and made up of Christians, Muslims and Jews, most of whom don’t get along.

The region is mired in strife between Israel and the Arab world generally and Israel and the Palestinians specifically. Israel and Syria remain technically at war. Syria doesn’t recognize Lebanon. At odds over the Western Sahara, Algeria and Morocco have had closed borders for more than 13 years. Cyprus remains divided; the Balkans lack stability; and Turkey and Greece have disputes that date back to the successors of Alexander the Great.

Iran’s Ambitions

What’s more, the experiment ignores the majority of the African continent, and the presumed debt Europe’s one-time colonial masters owe it. Although North Africa’s former French colonies seek freer access to Europe’s food markets, France, eager to protect its farmers, opposes granting it.

By restricting itself to the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, the project also ignores the area’s most dangerous problem: Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Should Sarkozy’s efforts bring peace to the Middle East, succeed in cleaning up the Mediterranean Sea, persuade the region’s populations to abandon terrorism and help boost living standards from Algiers to Amman, he and his union will have earned their place in history.

But don’t bet on it.

(Michael R. Sesit is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Michael R. Sesit in Paris at at msesit@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: July 31, 2008 20:01 EDT

Source: Bloomberg.com, Aug. 1, 2008

August 4, 2008
Exxon Mobil in talks with Turkey for Black Sea oil

Exxon Mobil is among the companies that seek to co-operate with Turkish Petroleum Corporation in the oil exploring studies at Black Sea, a company executive told Anatolian Agency on Sunday.

“Exxon Mobil is an important company for us. Our studies continue at the moment… Sending and receiving letters continue at the moment… We expect these to finalize with an agreement,” the AA quoted Yurdal Oztas, vice general manager of Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO).

The area at 2,000 meters deep and the below had the real oil potential and the drilling operations here were in need of high technology, Oztas said and added that small companies had not much to do due to this difficulty.

TPAO estimates more than a total of 10 billion barrels oil reserve, which can meet Turkey’s 50-year oil requirement, exists at Black Sea.

Turkey has also recently initiated a mobilization to search oil and natural gas in southeastern Turkey.

Photo: AFP

August 3, 2008
Democracy’s Close Call in Turkey

Turkey narrowly averted an incalculable disaster last week. The Constitutional Court turned back a state prosecutor’s request to dissolve the ruling Justice and Development Party and ban 71 of its leading figures from politics for five years, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul.

The court ruling is a victory for Turkey, for democracy and for the politics of moderation in the volatile Near and Middle East. That makes it a victory for the United States as well.

Had it gone the other way, Turkey’s chances of joining the European Union would have been demolished and the clearly expressed will of Turkish voters outrageously thwarted. Worst of all, an alarming message would have been sent to religious-minded voters throughout the Muslim world that scrupulous adherence to the ground rules of democratic politics was no guarantee of equal political rights and representation.

The margin by which these multiple catastrophes were averted could scarcely have been narrower. A majority of six of the 11 justices voted to ban the party. Fortunately, a super-majority of seven was required. Still, the party had half of its public financing cut for the next election and was warned to steer away from policies the court considered too Islamic, like allowing women in head scarves to attend universities.

Those aspects of the ruling provided some consolation to Turkey’s powerful military-secular establishment. But they are hardly consistent with democracy as it is practiced in the United States and the European Union. Nonetheless, Turkey’s ruling party would be wise to move slowly and carefully in its efforts to expand the civil rights of the religiously observant, and make greater efforts to cultivate understanding and support from its wary secular opponents.

Turkey has progressed a very long way from the not very long ago days when the secular establishment and its powerful military and judicial allies felt little inhibition about staging overt and covert coups of every variety against elected governments that did not do their political bidding. The last such event was in 1997.

Since then, the lure of European Union membership, shifts in the Turkish electorate and the generally responsible behavior of the Justice and Development Party in power have brought a healthy change in attitudes, as seen in the votes of the five justices who blocked the ban. Continued restraint by the ruling party can help widen democracy’s still perilously thin safety margin.

August 3, 2008
Turkey: A battle in the war of elites

Mushtak Parker | Arab News

The decision on Wednesday by Turkey’s Constitutional Court, the country’s highest judicial authority, not to ban the ruling AK Party, or the Justice and Development Party, headed by Prime Minister Recept Tayyip Erdogan, came as a relief to liberal democrats the world over.

The action should never have been brought to the Constitutional Court in the first place. It would never have seen the daylight in any of the established liberal democracies. Chief Public Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcınkaya’s submission of his indictment against the AK Party to the Constitutional Court on March 14 this year on the grounds that the ruling party had to be shut down because it allegedly had become a focal point of anti-secular activity is fundamentally an anti-democratic act and should be a cause for concern for democrats, especially in Turkey. It would probably also give succor to the rejectionist chauvinists in the European Union that are actively seeking to block any accession of Turkish membership of the European liberal democratic club.

Yalcinkaya’s request for the five-year ban of 71 individuals affiliated with or members of the AK Party, including president of the republic, Abdullah Gul, an ex-member of the AK Party; Prime Minister Erdogan; eight incumbent Cabinet ministers; and 30 members of Parliament, further betrays his anti-democratic instinct, which is more akin to those who run police states such as South Africa under the successive apartheid regimes of the National Party. Then, the Nationalists had an array of legislation “legitimizing” the banning, house arrest and detention without trial of hundreds of political opponents and so-called liberals.

How ironic for a seemingly secular chief prosecutor trying to use the same tactics as a theocratic Iran, which bans certain individuals from participating in presidential or parliamentary elections; or as Burma, which is ruled by a pernicious and corrupt military junta.

Turks, especially the extremist fundamentalist “secularists,” harbor a fundamental misconception of what liberal democracy entails. And unfortunately this is pervasive in the psyche of large sections of Turkish society, most disconcertingly in that of the powerful military. The guardian of the constitution and of democracy is not the armed forces, as many Turks tend to regurgitate ad nauseum, but Parliament. This is a fundamental ethic of a liberal democracy which cannot be compromised. If it is, then the country cannot call itself a liberal democracy and should have no pretence to being one.

Political and civil liberties are the backbone of a liberal democracy and no matter what in-built judicial and other safeguards politicians conjure up from time to time, including the Blair and Brown governments in the UK and the Bush administration in the US under the clarion call of fighting “Islamic” terrorism, the actions themselves are against the spirit of the liberal democratic ethic if not against the law of the day, which indeed would have the founding fathers of liberal democracy turn in their graves. Turks should be careful not to allow the extreme fundamentalists amongst their elites to hijack the agenda of secularism, which is eminently compatible with political Islam, as the latter is with democracy. Secularism does not mean anti-religion. If it did, then the proceedings in the White House, the US Congress and US Senate, and the UK House of Commons would not start each morning with religious prayers, in this case the (Christian) Lord’s Prayer.

This case as previous others — for instance relating to the election of Abdullah Gul to the presidency — is primarily a manifestation of an ongoing undeclared war between Turkey’s traditional elites centered in the metropolitan cities of Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir, and the emerging new elites emanating from the Anatolian heartlands of Kayseri, Afyon, Malatya etc.

The religious bogey and the threat to secularism are mere smokescreens in this war. Visions of the AK Party as an Islamist Trojan horse in the body politic of Turkey is used by the military and their business supporters to undermine the rise of the new Anatolian pashas. The US and Europe rightly prefer to see the rise of the AK Party as the Islamic equivalent to their own Christian Democrat political parties. This fits in with their worldview of democracy and the Muslim world, and to certain extent gives some “legitimacy” (in their eyes) for their campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The official Turkish state mantra is that it is a bridge between Asia and Europe, between the East and West, between Islam and Christianity. Unfortunately, at home Turks continue to be polarized. Military secularism, steeped in an authoritarian “father state” ethic, is one Kemalist legacy which continues to undermine bridge-building between Turks, between the elites of Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir and the emerging ones from Anatolia. How ironic it should be the AK Party who seeks to serve and liberalize the Turkish polity with individual rights and freedoms bringing the country into the 21st Century.

The latest constitutional court drama is just one battle in this ongoing war between elites. The losers are Turkish democracy and citizens.

August 3, 2008
Turkey’s Islamists Inspire a New Climate of Fear

From the August 2, 2008 Wall Street Journal

August 2, 2008
by Zeyno Baran

This week’s verdict by Turkey’s Constitutional Court — which rejected an attempt to ban the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) for undermining the country’s secular foundations — has been hailed by the U.S. and the EU as a great step forward for democracy and rule of law. Fair enough. Banning a party that last year renewed its mandate in office with 47% of the vote would have been a huge setback for Turkey. But that doesn’t mean we should all sigh with relief and conclude that liberal democracy is flourishing under the Islamic-oriented AKP’s rule.

Government surveillance of AK Party critics and leaks to media of personal phone conversations have created a climate of fear. There is concern among some liberals that the country is becoming a police state. The foundation of a healthy democracy — the right to dissent and hold an elected government accountable — is gradually being undermined.

When asked about mass wire-tapping, Minister of Transportation Binali Yildirim gave a Kafkaesque response: “It is not possible to prevent being listened to; the only way is not to talk [on the phone]. If there is nothing illegal in our actions, we should not be concerned about such things.”

Some examples of recent intrusive practices in Turkey include the appearance on YouTube of voice recordings of prominent figures either from the military or antigovernment circles. Several anti-Islamist senior military officers have reportedly resigned over the past few years when faced with the possibility that their private conversations would be leaked. The leaks involve some top-secret military documents, so they are also highly illegal and might pose a serious security breach for the NATO alliance.

In this context, several aspects of the so-called Ergenekon trial are worth highlighting. Ergenekon is alleged to be a secret antigovernment organization named after a pre-Islamic Turkish myth. The case involves a network of ultranationalists — including journalists, military, business and civil society leaders — who allegedly have been involved in a range of terror attacks since the early 1990s, and most recently conspired to attempt a coup against the AKP.

The investigation began in June 2007, when over two dozen hand grenades were found in an Istanbul house. The same type of grenade was used in the attacks on the Istanbul offices of the prominent anti-Islamist newspaper Cumhuriyetin 2006. At the time, many believed the attack against the newspaper was carried out by Islamists. Now, according to the prosecution, this and other such attacks were not carried out by Islamists, but by Ergenekon conspirators.

The indictment reads like a Solzhenitsyn novel; it includes private conversations between suspects, who discuss their conversations with prominent figures, such as former president Suleyman Demirel and business tycoon Rahmi Koc. While these do not by themselves make a case, they are highly embarrassing when reprinted on the front pages of major newspapers. The message that many people took from the indictment is that those critical of the government are officially on notice.

The case is built around retired Brig. Gen. Veli Kucuk, an alleged leader of Ergenekon, who is accused of a number of illegal activities, including some of the most shocking crimes in recent Turkish history. Ergenekon conspirators are also accused of planning to murder the current chief of the Turkish military’s general staff, Yasar Buyukanit, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk (among others), and of planning attacks on NATO facilities.

Most Turks would welcome the elimination of such furtive armed networks, and the clear restoration of the rule of law. However, the timing of this case, as well as the movie-like aspects of the indictment, have aroused suspicions that the AKP or its supporters are behind a campaign of intimidation — and that they are striking back in the legal arena against the same people who tried to ban the party.

First, the timing. The Istanbul court declared its acceptance of the indictment and released the 2,455 page document on July 25 — the weekend prior to the start of the AKP closure case. While AKP and its supporters claim the two cases are not related, those in opposition see the two closely linked, and point to the headline of the strongly antimilitary daily Taraf the next day: “Founded in 1923, cleansed in 2008” — i.e., it declared the collapse of Mustafa Kemal’s secular Turkish Republic.

Second, the leading opposition paper Cumhuriyet seems to be a key target. The phones of its senior journalists have been tapped, and some conversations deemed anti-AKP leaked to the press — including one involving a readout of an off-the-record conversation between the paper’s U.S. correspondent and members of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s staff. The paper’s senior editor and columnist, Ilhan Selcuk, was arrested in March as a result of the information extracted from his private phone conversations. He is one of the leading figures among the 86 people charged with being a member of a “terrorist organization.”

A third point made by those who managed to go through those 2,455 pages is that the indictment is full of unsubstantiated speculation, and that its attempt to blame all kinds of terror attacks and assassinations on Ergenekon is far-fetched. These include the killing of prominent anti-Islamist scholars and journalists, and what were thought to be Kurdish acts of terror and killings by the Islamist group Hezbullah (unrelated to the Lebanese organization).

The Ergenekon trial has so far raised more questions than answers. If the allegations can be proven, it would be a huge success for the AKP for having the courage to tackle such a horrendous entity. If, however, it turns out to be mostly a show trial, then those concerned about Turkish democracy and rule of law need to reconsider where Turkey is headed.

Zeyno Baran is a Senior Fellow and Director of Hudson’s Center for Eurasian Policy.

August 3, 2008