Tag: Islam and Democracy

  • How Revolutions Work: Turkey, America, and the Arab World

    How Revolutions Work: Turkey, America, and the Arab World

    By Barry Rubin

    A fascinating article on Islamism in Turkey also reflects on the situation in Arabic-speaking countries has been written by Soner Cagaptay, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Turkish research program. I’m a fan of his analysis so nothing in the following article should be taken as criticism but rather as an exploration of his article’s themes.

    There’s also a very interesting parallel here with domestic events in the United States. But first, Cagaptay’s theme us as follows:

    –There are strong limits on how far Islamism can go in Turkey.

    –The Arabic-speaking states are very different from Turkey in lacking a strong secularist (or at least anti-Islamist) sector that is deeply embedded in the country’s culture and history.

    I think he is right on both points but let’s look more into the details.

    First, on Turkey itself. Cagaptay’s article was prompted by a personal experience in Istanbul. In a café he saw a group of Salafists, who had just finished  prayers in a near-by mosque, interact politely with a waitress who had tattoos and wore a short-sleeved shirt. He writes that in both words and body language one could see there were no real “tensions between the two opposing visions of Turkey brought into close encounter for me to witness.”

    He continues that while “Turkey’s two halves…may not blend, neither will [either one] disappear. Turkey’s Islamization is a fact, but so is secular and Westernized Turkey.” After a decade of Islamist rule—I should note here that few Western experts, journalists, or political leaders acknowledge or understand that the regime ruling Turkey is Islamist in a real sense—there has been, “a rising tide of Islamization in Turkey.” He mentions a recent law that mandates teaching Islam in public schools and a shift in Turkey’s professed identity from European to being Muslim and Middle Eastern.

    But, Cagaptay adds, there are limits in a country “so thoroughly westernized that even the AKP and its Islamist elites cannot escape trappings of their Western mold.” As examples he cites the role of women and Turkey’s membership in NATO.  He explains that “Turkey’s Islamization is meeting its match” because, for example, there was a consensus that Turkey deploy NATO Patriot missiles on its territory to defend itself from a possibly attack by Syria. “The Turks have lived with NATO too long to think outside of its box.”

    Now there is no question that in the broader sense Cagaptay is correct. Turkey is not going to be another Saudi Arabia or Iran. And yet beside that glass is half-full argument is a shocking glass is half-empty counterpart. As Cagaptay notes, Islamist or semi-Islamist parties received 65 percent of the vote in the 2011 elections. That means, he continues:

    “35 percent of the population, totaling twenty-five million people, did not vote for the [Islamist regime]. These voters stand for secularism, and they will never buy into the religious movement in Turkey. This block will constitute the domestic limitation of Turkey’s Islamization. After ten years in power, and likely to run the country for another term with a humming economy boosting its support, the AKP is making Turkey in its own image. But the new Turkey will have a uniquely distinct flavor: a bit Islamist, a bit secularist, a bit conservative, and a bit Western.”

    Absolutely true. And yet who would have believed twenty years ago that about two-thirds of the people would vote for Islamist candidates, even after a decade of Islamist rule. Will that 35 percent ever be able to get the Islamists out of power and reverse the process? And what about the process itself? Revolutions, even quiet ones, keep on going. Will 35 percent of the nine-year-olds now likely to get Islamic teaching (which may well amount to Islamist indoctrination) vote for secular parties when they grow up?

    And doesn’t much of Turkish foreign policy on regional issues under the AKP look like Iran or Egypt today? The attitude toward Israel, Iran (despite competition in Syria), the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hizballah are all in line with an assessment of it as a radical Islamist policy.

    And how real is the current regime’s commitment to democracy? Not that much deeper than that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Prime Minister Erdogan’s latest remarks have stirred a controversy in Turkey but haven’t even been reported in the West. In a speech in Konya, Erdogan said:  “Separation of powers is hindering service to the people. We have to do something about it.” In other words, having now laid the foundation for beginning the Islamizing of the courts, he’s now going to go after parliament.

    And what about the patronage enjoyed by Islamist leaders? For example, I’m told that men working for the government know now that they are more likely to be promoted if their wives wear “Islamic clothing.” Companies know they are more likely to get government contracts if they toe the line. Once Islamists are permanently in power—even if they have to face elections—the transformation of the country continues.

    When Islamists–like Communists, fascists, or Arab nationalists, reach a certain level of power their behavior becomes more authoritarian. Let me tell an anecdote. A friend of mine who fits the profile of a left-secularist Turk has energetically argued with me in conversation that the current Turkish regime is not really threatening to transform the country. But he told me that the nanny for his children, though secular, must wear “Islamic clothing” when she goes to work because otherwise she might be physically assaulted in her neighborhood. I have heard journalists talk in private about how scared they are to offend the regime, though some still do speak their conscience in very loud voices.

    Thus, the fact that there will still be a lot of secular people in Turkey doesn’t mean things will remain static. And having about one-third of the population on your side is cold comfort indeed in a democratic state when those people’s votes don’t really count in writing laws, choosing judges, and determining school curricula.

    This is where an interesting comparison to the United States comes in. Within Turkey, most of the mass media and almost all of the universities are still in the hands of secular forces. By way of comparison, in the United States those two institutions are overwhelmingly in the hands of the left. This institutional control has gradually led to a remarkable change in popular attitudes that may end up enshrining the left in power for a long time to come. Other views will certainly not disappear in America. But, again, how important is that when the power to set law and customs resides in the hands of one side?

    So, yes, Turkey will remain in large part a secular country but that will not determine public or foreign policy. As for NATO, the Turkish regime is accepting NATO support in order to promote an Islamist regime in Syria. Let’s also remember that the revolutionaries in Libya accepted NATO backing and those in Syria would quickly do so if it were available. Both of these groups include large Islamist elements.

    As for Cagaptay’s second argument, he writes:

    “Countries such as Egypt lack Turkey’s institutional westernization experience and constitutionally-mandated secular heritage, and are therefore more susceptible to thorough Islamization. In Turkey, Islamization will be tempered by the unique heritage of institutional and structural westernization. This has ushered in a blend of Western ways and Islamist politics — a first anywhere in the world.”

    True. But this makes me think of two Arab countries with a somewhat similar profile, Tunisia and Lebanon. Both countries are ruled by Islamists, the former by the Muslim Brotherhood, the latter largely by Hizballah. They might also be seen as blends. Even in Egypt, the secularists will not disappear. Yet they, too, are likely to be powerless. In Egypt’s presidential election, only 52 percent voted for the Muslim Brotherhood in the second round. Even in the first round the Islamist candidates got around two-thirds, the same as in Turkey’s election.

    The point is that if a radical movement seizes control of the state, even by elections, and can hold it for a very long time, it can fundamentally transform policies and foreign policy. If they stay in power long enough they might even change the country’s political culture. If a minority of secularists remain but, for example, are also intimidated by threats and encouraged to conform by the offer of government benefits, it’s still a revolution.

    Turkey will remain Turkey; Egypt, Egypt; Lebanon, Lebanon; and so on. But they will nevertheless be very different for their own people, pose tremendous challenges for Western interests, and basically change the nature of the Middle East.

    Incidentally, Erdogan recently unleashed his police on the students of the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara where I once spent a very enjoyable semester teaching. No previous government in Turkey could have gotten away with such a violent action against students not threatening any violence. See here, here and here

    And for the best article about the struggle for power between Islamists and moderates in Tunisia, see this superb article by Bruce Maddy-Weitzman here. He concludes:

    “Tunisia’s political and economic prospects, and with it the secular-Islamist partnership which had guided Tunisia for nearly a year, appeared increasingly fragile. To be sure, the underlying rationale that had resulted in the partnership still existed. The fact that Tunisia’s primary Islamist movement was relatively “soft”, in comparison to sister movements elsewhere, had rendered it more amenable to cooperating with secular forces. Tunisia’s fragmented secular camp, while certainly militant in its desire to protect the Bourguiba-modernist legacy and suspicious of the Islamists, was similarly desirous of avoiding a ruinous confrontation with the Islamists which would destabilize the country beyond repair. Tunisia’s neighbors, in this case Egypt and Libya, continued to provide examples of what to avoid. But the public sphere appeared increasingly polarized, and the way forward in the process of institution-building appeared murky, which did not bode well for the future. Tunisia had made important strides in its democratization experiment but, as with all such cases, there was no guarantee that it would culminate in a functioning, institutionalized democracy. Olivier Roy’s argument that Arabs can become democrats without becoming secularists or liberals, and that, indeed, the new context of Arab society is mandating exactly such a circumstance, may well apply in Tunisia. But it will hardly be a democracy that the country’s secular-Left camp will find easy to digest, let alone be enthralled with, thus ensuring that Tunisia’s political life will be messy and contentious for years to come.

  • Turkey’s Failed Attempt at Democratization

    Turkey’s Failed Attempt at Democratization

    Turkey’s Failed Attempt at Democratization

    Turkey has signalled a shift from European to Islamic values.

    By Robert Ellis
    Contributor
    February 25, 2013

    Turkey

    U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone incurred the wrath of the Turkish government when he drew attention to the shortcomings of the country’s legal system. Military leaders are locked up as if they were terrorists, parliamentary deputies and university professors are detained on unclear charges, and non-violent student protesters are imprisoned for protesting tuition hikes as evidence. Despite this, the United States remains a staunch supporter of Turkey’s European Union membership.

    When accession talks started in 2005, the reform process which began under Turkish Prime Minister Ecevit’s coalition government and continued under the AK (Justice and Reform) Party’s rule in 2002 started to grind to a halt. Soon after talks started, Olli Rehn, the European Union’s Enlargement Commissioner, noted that the pace of change had slowed and the implementation of reforms remained uneven. Rehn also warned that pluralism and free speech were basic values which could not be compromised.

    Nevertheless, the AKP government was met with a chorus of praise. In 2007, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice stated that the AKP was “a government dedicated to pulling Turkey west towards Europe.” A year later, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt declared “the AKP government is made up of profound European reformers.”

    Although it was apparent that the reform process had stalled, Rehn’s successor, Stefan Füle, claimed at a conference in Istanbul in June 2010 that Turkey had been making “remarkable advances” in reforms. Füle was not the only victim of wishful thinking. Last June, 16 EU foreign ministers proclaimed Turkey to be “an inspirational example of a secular and democratic country.”

    In response, Deputy Chairman of Turkey’s opposition CHP (Republican People’s Party), Faruk Loğoğlu, called on the EU to “acknowledge the realities of Turkey with objectivity.” According to Loğoğlu, the EU ministers’ perception of the state of affairs in Turkey was “sadly out of focus” and ignored the fact that the AKP government pursued an authoritarian policy of gradual Islamization in all walks of life, including education, science, politics, the economy, the armed forces and civil society, leading to the erosion of Turkish democracy and secularism.

    In 1997, Fareed Zakaria wrote in Foreign Affairs about the rise of illiberal democracy, where he made a distinction between democracy as an electoral form and a liberal democracy, where citizens’ rights are protected by the constitution, a separation of powers, and the rule of law.

    Zakaria concluded that democratization in the Islamic world had led to an increasing role for theocratic politics, eroding long-standing traditions of secularism and tolerance. Furthermore, he held that if elections were to be held, the resulting regimes would be more illiberal than the ones currently in place.

    Nuray Mert, a Turkish professor and commentator, recently asked whether Turkey is going to be another illiberal democracy. She compared the present government’s political values with the absolutism of Putin’s Russia and its model of economic growth, which comes at the expense of democratic rights and freedoms, with that of China. According to Mert, because Islamic conservatism represses the liberal democratic culture of rights and freedoms, Turkey has become a Muslim country with a failed attempt at democratization.

    Moreover, the EU Commission has expressed concern for Turkey’s reform process. Its 2012 Progress Report on Turkey criticized the catch-all indictments which have led to the mass arrests of military personnel and critics of the AKP government, as well as lengthy periods of pre-trial detention. The Commission also expressed serious concern about the increase in violations of the freedom of expression, which has caused Reporters Without Borders (RSF) to call Turkey “the world’s biggest prison for journalists.”

    Regardless of EU interests, under the AKP government there has been a shift in consciousness. In his key 2001 work “Strategic Depth,” the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, the architect of Turkey’s new foreign policy, stated that the EU’s demands for political reform are interpreted as the return of foreign hegemony. Therefore, EU membership has become less of a goal in itself as an instrument to facilitate the country’s economic development.

    In a keynote speech held at the Istanbul Forum in October, Prime Minister Erdoğan’s chief advisor Ibrahim Kalın rejected the European model of secular democracy and pluralism, which he believes has little traction in the Arab and larger Muslim world. Furthermore, he posits that there is “a mental gap” between Islamic and Western notions of what constitutes sacred religious rights and freedom of expression.

    Turkey’s president Abdullah Gül has said that the EU must decide whether it represents a community of values or a narrowly defined geographic entity. But Turkey belongs to neither. There has been much debate about Turkey’s ‘axis shift,’ which is justified. In Sarajevo in 2009, Foreign Minister Davutoğlu spoke of an Ottoman renaissance and last April in Konya he went further and spoke of “the mission for a new world order” under Islam.

    In a recent interview, Prime Minister Erdoğan also stated his preference, when he remarked, “The Shanghai Five is better and more powerful and we have common values with them.”

    Therefore, to talk of Turkey’s EU membership is illusory, as the best that can be hoped for is a modus vivendi based on mutual interest.

    Robert Ellis is a regular commentator on Turkish affairs in the Danish and European press.

    Photo courtesy of the United Nations via Flickr.

  • Is Turkey a Democratic State?

    Is Turkey a Democratic State?

    “With elections up-next, Islamic political parties in Pakistan are also trying to get attention of the people of Pakistan by chanting slogans of ‘Islamic Democracy’, the idea which has never been able to take roots in the masses. Govt. of Justice and Development Party in Egypt, led by Tayyab Erdogen is often presented as a role model by these Islamic democratic parties in Pakistan. These parties believe and promote that Justice and Development Party (AKP) is fulfilling the job of implementing Islam as a system of life by reforming current constitution in a democratic manner. They think that AKP is perfectly putting the idea of ‘Democratic Islam’ in practice in Turkey and slowly and gradually, one day, AKP will turn Turkey into Islamic State that was formed in Madina. AKP, for them, has successfully fused Democracy and Islam and their achievement is a big boost to the call of Islamic Democracy in Pakistan.

    deHowever, a closer look at Turkey’s current constitution is more than enough to clear all the mist about implementation of Islam as a system of life in Turkey. With almost five years in office, AKP’s ‘Islamized’ Turkey is nothing but a practical joke. Under this ‘Islamist’ govt., there are around 3,000 brothels that are regulated by government. Prostitutes pay tax to this ‘Islamist’ govt. from their ‘halal’ income. Besides govt. operated brothels, there are a large number of brothels which are privately owned and also contribute to national tax with their ‘halal’ income.

    Sale and consumption of Alcohol is another feature of ‘Islamic’ regime of Turkey. They have even surpassed ‘Kaafir’ USA in this matter as the legal age to purchase alcohol in Turkey is 18; this is lower than the legal drinking age in the ‘Kaafir’ USA. It seems that five years in office for ‘Islamic’ AKP are not enough for them to understand and implement Islamic laws about alcohol; after all, they are implementing Islamic laws gradually. All this bru-ha-ha about Turkey being an ‘Islamic’ state is nothing but a fairy tale.

    Friendly relationship with Israel is a corner stone of foreign policy of ‘Islamic state of Turkey’. Prime Minister Tayyab Erdogan visited Israel in 2005 offering to serve as a Middle East peace mediator and looking to build up trade and military ties. Erdogan also laid a wreath at the Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem. He mentioned that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are a threat not just to Israel but to ‘the entire world’. Economic ties between ‘Islamic’ Turkey and Israel are also very healthy as Turkey is the sixth-largest export destination for Israel. Keeping the issue of Palestine in mind, calling Turkey a model Islamic state shows either lack of general knowledge or complete intellectual bankruptcy as there is no way an Islamic State can have any kind of ties with state like Israel. Romance of ‘Islamic’ AKP’s Turkey with Israel is not limited to economic treaties; these two countries also share many military treaties.

    Gaza issue, that pops up after every six months or so, is surely a litmus test for any state that is labeled as ‘Islamic’. Turkey was secular and is still secular. Erdogen’s wife may use scarf but it is not enough to declare Turkey an ‘Islamic’ state although such action have been used repeatedly to confuse masses about implementation of Islam as a system of life.

    For those who are fascinated by the slogans of ‘Islamic Democracy’ and looking at Turkey as a model, they need to look into details and believe me, it doesn’t require a genius to conclude that current regime of Turkey has nothing to do with Islam as a system of life

    via TheNews Blog » Is Turkey a Democratic State?.

  • Turkey continues to remake Muslim democracy, says author

    Turkey continues to remake Muslim democracy, says author

    David Lepeska


    AD20130126273029-Recep_Tayyip_Er

    Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks
    Jenny White
    Princeton University Press

    Related

    • ■ Turkey is a model for every Muslim state, Recep Erdogan says
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    • Iran-Brotherhood ties: rooted in history with eye on future
    Topic

    • Books essays
    • Turkey

    One evening in September 2011, thousands of Egyptians heralded the arrival of Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at Cairo airport with cheering and shouts of “Allahu Akbar!” Many of the well-wishers were members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the rising Islamist organisation that has in recent years cited Erdogan and Turkey as an inspiration. On his first post-Arab Spring visit to the region, observers expected the tough-talking leader of the world’s most successful Islamist party to offer support and guidance.

    But in his speech that night, Erdogan explained that Turkey was a secular, rather than an Islamic, democracy, and advised Egyptians to build a state that respects all religions. Days later, in Tunisia – where the leading political party, Ennahda, has also acknowledged the influence of Erdogan’s party – he explained his remarks. “A person is not secular; the state is secular,” Erdogan said in Tunis. “A Muslim can govern a secular state in a successful way.”

    Though likely to disappoint ascendant Arab Islamists, this idea of a personal Muslimhood, free from state oversight, is at the centre of Turkish life today. It’s also the focus of Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks, a deeply insightful book by Jenny White, a professor of social anthropology at Boston University. As a number of nationalist groups battle for Turkey’s soul, White sees the “new Turks” strutting on the world stage, remaking Muslim democracy and finding great pride in their Ottoman past and their ability to consume God and goods as they choose.

    ***

    With the founding of modern Turkey in 1923, Mustafa Kemal, later given the name Ataturk, or father of the Turks, began to remake Turkey as a westernised republic in which an authoritarian government oversaw religion. Ataturk also established the Turkish national identity, centred on Muslimhood, racial purity, and Turkish language and culture.

    The Turkish military soon emerged as the guarantor of secularism, repeatedly stepping forward to push out leaders it thought had compromised Kemalist ideas. To this day, says White, the Turkish army purges its officer corps of anyone who refuses to drink or whose wife wears a headscarf.

    To outsiders, the 2002 rise of Turkey’s Islamists seemed at the time a startling event. But White’s hindsight outlines a natural progression, linked to globalisation and the broader, regional resurgence of Islam. Starting in the 1970s, the Turkish military allowed greater Islamic freedom, with open discussions in the press and in public about Islamic intellectuals like Maulana Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb.

    The country’s first Islamist political movement appeared in 1975, when a group led by Necmettin Erbakan released its National Vision, a pro-business platform linking Islam to nationalism. In the 1980s, the success of thousands of pious businessmen from the Turkish heartland, dubbed the Anatolian Tigers, gave rise to a more conservative elite and to influential networks like the followers of religious educator Fethullah Gulen.

    Erbakan’s Welfare Party stood against westernisation and secularism and preferred alliances with other Muslim countries to Nato, the European Union (EU) and Israel. Yet it was also seen as forward-looking, progressive and pro-Turkey, and had support in small towns and major cities, among rural women, urban professionals and the Anatolian Tigers. The party gained ground, and in 1994 mayoral elections, its candidate, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, became mayor of Istanbul.

    By the time Erbakan became prime minister two years later, 40 per cent of the party’s supporters were secularists, and Welfare had emerged as Turkey’s modern political party. To the military, of course, that meant Erbakan had to be pushed from office and the party shut down. Its successor, the Virtue Party, rose quickly, until it too was banned in 2001. But that same year, Erdogan founded the Justice and Development Party (AKP), adding an embrace of globalisation to Erbakan’s vision and downplaying the Islamist elements. The party won the 2002 elections and has dominated Turkish politics ever since.

    ***

    On the surface, Turkey’s AKP decade has been one of social stability, economic growth and hope for the future. But White reveals how the public discourse has fractured. As Ataturk’s vision has collapsed, Turks have splintered into a million shifting shades of nationalism: Kemalist, Islamist, rightist, ultranationalist, neonationalist, liberal and more.

    Despite their disagreements, all these groups place great value on the country’s Ottoman past. Today, the year that most evokes Turkish pride is not 1923, but 1453, when Constantinople fell to the army of Sultan Mehmet II. That victory is now celebrated in malls and history museums, bestsellers and popular soap operas.

    Ottoman glories also undergird Turkey’s new quasi-imperialist foreign policy. Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s bold foreign minister, often speaks of reintegrating the greater Middle East to “bring back the golden era”.

    “Since 2002, when the AKP won its first major election,” writes White, “an Islamist vision of political life has given way to a Muslim nationalist vision that is focused less on a shared global umma and more on a structured relationship with the Muslim world in which Turkey takes a leading role, as it had in Ottoman times.”

    We see this in Turkey’s toughness with Israel and the creation of a visa-free zone with Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Yet just as Turks treasure their Ottoman heritage, they also see themselves, and their religion, as distinctly un-Arab. “One thing all nationalists agree on,” writes White, “is that Turkish Islam differs from Islam tainted by Arab influence.” But what does that mean? How can Islam be uninfluenced by the people who midwifed its birth? Speaking to White, Omer Ozsoy, a reformist theologian at Ankara University, wonders: “While reading the Quran, to what extent am I facing an Arab reality and to what extent the demands of Allah? We have to distinguish between these.” Such comments might be blasphemous in many Sunni Arab-dominated countries, but Turkish Islam has been steeped in centuries of moderate, Sufi ideology.

    Turkey’s leaders stress a modern, personalised Islam, as suggested by Erdogan’s remarks in Tunis. The new Turk can wear Gucci and still go proudly and with purpose to Friday prayers. With more than half the country’s population under 30, this marks a profound shift. “The choice to be suurlu, a ‘consciously believing Muslim’, as opposed to blindly following tradition, has become highly valued as a sign of Muslim modernity,” White writes.

    The word “tradition” has become shorthand for Wahhabism, Salafism, and other deeply conservative Sunni belief systems that have gained a foothold across the broader region. “This government is rather different than the Muslim Brotherhood,” Ceylan Ozbudak, the executive director of the talk show Building Bridges, said during a recent episode. She and her co-hosts explained that they didn’t like the word “Islamist”. “We have a Muslim government,” Ozbudak explains, “but they apply the rules of Islam, not the rules of tradition.”

    Indeed, Erdogan has said he views Sharia not as a strict legal code but as “a metaphor for a just society”. The country has no influential, deeply rooted religious establishment, no body akin to Egypt’s millennium-old Al Azhar – which is mentioned in that country’s new constitution – or Saudi Arabia’s powerful ulema. This allows AKP leaders to determine, largely free of outside influence, how to build a 21st-century Muslim democracy, and forge a new national identity.

    ***

    White uses her fluent Turkish and more than 30 years of extended stays in the country to flesh out this bold and unpredictable social and political experiment. Of her two previous non-fiction works on Turkey (White has also written three Ottoman-era crime novels), the second, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey, won the 2003 Douglass Prize for best book of European anthropology. White is indeed an anthropologist, rather than a journalist or political analyst, and her book goes on to detail the uncertain place of women in 21st-century Turkey and the “contradictory nature of Turkish social and political life as it accommodates individual choice while validating primacy of family and community in determining ethics and norms.”

    But academic jargon of that sort is rare; the writing is generally clear and straightforward, and the book is chock-full of rich titbits from Turkish society. White highlights changing fashions among Turkey’s elite in the evolution of the word for squatters – from gecekondu (literally, “placed there at night”) in the 1970s, to varos, a Hungarian term referring to an area beyond the city walls, today – and the sudden disfavour of moustaches. Once a proud, defining facial feature for nearly every Turkish man, they now signify the meaner classes (“men from the varos”).

    White has a clear affection for Turkey, which may serve to mute her criticism. Though she does briefly discuss the vast Ergenekon trial, in which a shadowy group of 200-odd military, police, journalists and activists have been accused of plotting to overthrow the government, she neglects to discuss the government’s oppression of journalists until the book’s final pages. And she mentions Ahmet Sik, a journalist who has spent the past year in prison awaiting a verdict on questionable, Ergenekon-related charges, only in her endnotes.

    Yet crackdowns on the press have been skyrocketing. No country jailed more journalists than Turkey in 2011, including China and Iran, and no country is currently holding more reporters in prison. In recent months, the European Union and the London-based writers organisation PEN International have criticised the Erdogan government for using antiterrorism laws to justify arrests and create a climate of fear.

    A greater oversight may be the short shrift given to Turkey’s long-suffering Kurds. Kurdish militants have since the late 1970s fought the Turkish government for their own state. But the vast majority of Kurdish Turks, estimated at 13 million, or about 16 per cent of the country’s population, seek only to maintain their own language and traditions. The willingness of the Erdogan government to accept and integrate them is key to the country’s future.

    White does better detailing how the state and society marginalise non-Muslims. She visits Ishak Alaton, an 82-year-old Jewish Turk and a well-known entrepreneur, who says he “has never been given the feeling by this nation that I am part of it”. The Turks even have a word for such people: vatandas, non-Muslim minorities, who can be citizens but not true Turks. She also points out how the authorities, the military and the media regularly voice concerns about the threat of Christian missionaries, engendering widespread fear and occasional, vicious attacks on priests.

    ***

    Filled with insight, Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks is sure to become a leading text for those looking to read the Turkish tea leaves – a readership on the rise of late. In her conclusion, White considers the Turkish model, acknowledging similarities between Turkey and newly free Arab countries. Ultimately, the differences win out.

    Turkey was never conquered and colonised, and is thus able to view western ideas with interest, rather than suspicion. It has been a democracy, or has at least resembled one, for 90 years – time enough to strengthen its institutions and solidify its political system. Finally, decades of economic growth have created a large, globalised middle class able to balance Islam with modern living.

    Speaking at a political conference in 1998, Erdogan quoted from an Islamic poem: “Democracy is just the train we board to reach our destination. The mosques are our barracks, the minarets our bayonets.” How did he go from there to the secular Muslim statesman of today? Perhaps it was the five-year political ban that came as a result. Perhaps his time in office, bumping up against the possible, altered his perspective. Perhaps he hasn’t changed at all, and we’ll find with his government’s release of an updated constitution later this year that he has merely been biding his time.

    Whatever the case, Islamist groups like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood are unlikely to emulate Turkey’s Muslimhood model anytime soon, though the AKP vision might suit the young activists of Tahrir Square. Yet, if Turkey’s history is any indication, their time in power is decades of democratic and economic development away.

    David Lepeska is a freelance writer who contributes to The New York Times, Atlantic Cities and Monocle, and previously served as The National’s Qatar correspondent. He lives in Chicago.

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  • Letter from Istanbul

    Letter from Istanbul

    Letter from Istanbul

    Posted By Stephen M. Walt

    The conference I’m attending has been pretty interesting, although as much for the atmospherics and side conversations as for the formal presentations. Here with a few quick thoughts before I head off for the second day.

    turkey 8

    In some ways this event — the Istanbul World Political Forum — is like a smaller-scale DAVOS, but with an emphasis on issues like global justice, emerging powers (e.g., Turkey), and (obviously) the Arab spring. The plenary session featured speeches by an Egyptian activist, the president of Libya, and a British MP, and there was a lot of rhetoric about the need for a new world order (which nobody quite defined). My first panel — on a “A New Just and Global Order” didn’t involve formal presentations (though we all had them ready), but instead was a discussion led by a moderator. The other participants were Gideon Levy of Ha’aretz and Professor Paul Taylor of the London School of Economics, and a lot of our discussion revolved around possible connections between the financial crisis, the Arab spring, and the need to adapt existing institutions (or create new ones) that better reflected the underlying balances of power in the world.

    I emphasized that the U.S. was not disappearing as the world’s most powerful country, but that it was going to have make strategic choices and wasn’t going to interfere as often in the future as it had in the past. I also suggested that global institutions were likely to evolve, but that this would lag behind the shifts in the balance of power, in part because agreement on how to build new institutions or revise old ones was going to be elusive. Perhaps the most interesting thread in our conversation was the importance of each nation “coming to terms with its past,” which can only happen when there is freedom of thought and discourse and a willingness by scholars and journalists and other thought leaders to take advantage of that freedom to hold policymakers accountable.

    I was also struck again by how Turkey is becoming a poster child for my colleague Joe Nye’s concept of “soft power.” Turkey’s growing stature obviously rests on certain “hard power” elements (economic growth, a large population, substantial military power, a key geographic location, etc.), but it is greatly enhanced by being perceived as a successful embodiment of Islamic democracy. And this conference — which is merely one of many that the Turkish government seems to be sponsoring these days, is a very smart illustration of “soft power.” There’s no explicit or overt agenda, and in fact a fairly wide range of views represented by the attendees — but the key point is that they are able to get lots of people from various countries to show up, converse, and generally have an interesting time. Organizing international forums isn’t that expensive, and by bringing lots of people from all over the world to Istanbul, Turkey undoubtedly generates a positive impression and builds connections with various people who might have some influence back in their home countries.

    If they keep doing this for a decade or more, then over time there will be a growing cadre of people who are familiar with Turkish policy, and some of them will be favorably inclined to the Turkish point of view. It won’t work with everyone, and it’s nothing so crass as “buying influence” (i.e., we’re not getting paid to attend). Rather, it’s more a matter of simply creating a positive impression. Just contrast this with countries who remain largely cut off from regular exchange with others (North Korea, Zimbabwe, etc.) and you can see how this degree of openness could be a nice supplement to Turkey’s rising economic clout. And the cost for Turkey is probably trivial compared with purchasing an advanced fighter plane or equipping an armored division.

    I’ve also been struck by the number of students in attendance, and especially by the range of countries they represent. For example, I had a fascinating conversation last night with two students from Kazakhstan, both studying politics at a Turkish university and obviously very familiar with contemporary thinking about foreign policy and democratic theory. Another sign of globalization, as well as the rapid growth of higher education here.

    Finally, I flew here on Turkish Airlines via John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. The flight was fine, but the on-the-ground experience in JFK was one of the more miserable I’ve had in the past decade. And I couldn’t help but wonder — and not for the first time — how this affects how non-Americans view the U.S. when they arrive here. So I have the following modest proposal to offer: Every U.S. congressperson should be forced to fly through JFK on their own (i.e., with no staff to help), and to go through the normal TSA procedure (no VIP lines). And then they should be flown to a really first class airport in some foreign country (say, in Singapore, or Munich), so that they can see just how decrepit U.S. transportation infrastructure has become. And a few hours interacting with the Keystone Cops at JFK’s TSA checkpoints would be instructive for them too. I’d like them to have those experiences in mind the next time they have to vote on some expensive nation-building project far away.

  • Solidarity action in Istanbul/Turkey for the 64 punks arrested in Aceh/Indonesia

    Solidarity action in Istanbul/Turkey for the 64 punks arrested in Aceh/Indonesia

    Contributed by: aforum

    On the 11th of December 2011, in the very conservative and religious province of Aceh in Indonesia, 64 punks who were attending a punkrock show, were arrested and taken to jail without any criminal charges whatsoever. The only reason for them to be victim of that totally arbitrary state repression was that they are punks. The police shaved their hair off and removed their piercings, their clothes were taken away from them, replaced by “decent” ones and they were forced to wash themselves in a “religious ritual”. Then they were brainwashed and “re-educated” for ten days through “religious education” and “military discipline”.

    demo punk di polri

    Solidarity action in Istanbul/Turkey for the 64 punks arrested in Aceh/Indonesia

    On the 11th of December 2011, in the very conservative and religious province of Aceh in Indonesia, 64 punks who were attending a punkrock show, were arrested and taken to jail without any criminal charges whatsoever.

    The only reason for them to be victim of that totally arbitrary state repression was that they are punks. The police shaved their hair off and removed their piercings, their clothes were taken away from them, replaced by “decent” ones and they were forced to wash themselves in a “religious ritual”. Then they were brainwashed and “re-educated” for ten days through “religious education” and “military discipline”.

    Against this outrageous police action, solidarity actions and demonstration took place in Moscow, London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, China and Malaysia.

    On the 24th of December a solidarity concert for the Indonesian punks was organized in Istanbul with the Hardcore/Punk bands POSTER-ITI and FRANKENSTEIN to inform people and gather supporters for the protest on the following day.

    On the 25th of December at 3:00 in the afternoon, as a sign of solidarity with the “Aceh 64”and as a reaction to this ultra-repressive measure of the Indonesian state, 30 punks and anarchist activists attacked and vandalized the outside walls of the “Indonesian Consulate General” located at “Seneryildizi Sokak, No. 22/11 Etiler” in Istanbul, Turkey.

    While playing punkrock music with a portable sound system, those 30 activists spray-painted the consulate with slogans saying: ”Dinleriyik Yoket (Abolish all Religions)“, “Free Aceh Punx”, “ACAB”, “Punklar burda (The Punks are Here)” and “Özgur Kal (Stay Free)”. The doors were covered with stickers and graffiti and two large banners were hung on the consulate walls saying: ”Free the Indonesian Punks” and “Bütün Devletler Fasittir, Polisler kiralik Katil (All governments are fascist, all cops are assassins)”. Afterwards a small but loud demonstration took place in the very rich and elitist vicinity of the consulate in support of the 64 Indonesian punks, expensive cars were decorated with anarchist symbols and some vandalism occurred until the 30 activists dispersed and vanished.

    There was no interference with the police whatsoever and fortunately nobody was arrested.

    Flyer that distributed during action:

    In the region Aceh in Indonesia, 65 punks were put into police custody without any criminal charges.

    They were arrested just for being different. The police shaved their hair off and removed their piercings and they will now be brainwashed through “religious education” and “military discipline”.

    We strongly protest against this new fascist attempt to oppress and punish everybody who does not want to fit into their disgusting capitalist mainstream. State repression and police brutality is getting worse and worse every day worldwide and we are sick of it. We will fight back.

    WE MIGHT BE FEW BUT WE STAND TOGETHER!

    ———————

    What happened in Aceh?

    After years of war and the devastation of the 2004 tsunami, a peace process was started which resulted in considerable autonomy for Indonesia’s northernmost province. Former GAM fighters won the elections. One of the changes they brought in was a form of Islamic Syaria’h law, which is not enforced in any other part of Indonesia. Currently Aceh is in the run-up to new elections and different candidates are pitching their image to the public.

    In nearly all parts of Indonesia there is a large punk scene. Many young homeless kids are attracted by the music and the lifestyle and can support each other in many ways, forming a subcultural community. Indonesian punks often earn a living by busking on buses or at traffic lights, and travel the country for free, hitch-hiking on the back of trucks. But at concerts, which are usually free or cheap and organised according to DIY ethics, people from all backgrounds come along.

    The concert on 10th December 2011 was a benefit gig to raise money for orphans. Apparently the event started at about 3pm and it was supposed to continue into the night. but at 21.30, police climbed onto the stage and demanded that the event should finish. The people there tried to negotiate for the gig to continue, but the cops didn’t seem to care. Reacting to the cops’ behaviour, the punks started singing a popular resistance song, Darah Juang (blood of struggle), but as it happened, that song seemed to provoke the anger of the cops who then started beating people and arresting them.

    The arrested punks were taken to the Seulawah National Police School one hour from Banda Aceh city. That’s where their hair was shaved off and they were forced into the lake. Punks in Aceh who weren’t arrested have found it difficult to get any communication with their friends, because it seems they are in isolation.

    Worldwide solidarity actions: