Turkish Forum

Tag: Secularism

  • Turkey not a Muslim democracy

    Turkey not a Muslim democracy

    Turkey not a Muslim democracy

    Re: Turkey’s risky gambit, Editorial Sept. 17

    The statement, “Turkey has flourished as a Muslim democracy,” implies that Islam is the state religion of Turkey. It is not so. Although the current Prime Minister is from an Islamist party, the constitution of Turkey is secular and without a state religion.

    Secondly, and more importantly, the term “Muslim democracy” is incorrect. A cardinal principle of democracy is that it must be secular and that there must be a separation of church and state. If a country has a state religion — let’s say Islam — then it can be called an Muslim republic or theocracy, but it can never be called a democracy.

    Sukumar Roy, Newmarket

    via Turkey not a Muslim democracy – thestar.com.

  • What Turkey has done right

    What Turkey has done right

     

    Turks are proud of their language, and Turkey is emerging as Europe’s new shinning star. PHOTO: AFP

    Turkey is turning heads. A few weeks ago the top brass of the entire Turkish army resigned- an act that could have previously brought down whatever democratic government was at the helm- but Prime Minister Erdogan reacted coolly and appointed a new army chief. The present AKP (Justice and Development Party) government has slowly chipped away the power of the deep state. Moreover many have alluded to Turkey’s pluralism and democracy as an example for all Muslim countries to follow.

    Turkey was also the fastest growing country in the world last year, with a growth rate of just over 9%. It has transformed itself from the sick man of Europe to its shining star, as countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain, because of their inability to depreciate currency, gasp under the Euro zone’s hangman noose. Indeed, in a conversation I had with a member of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, I discovered that Turkey was not going to go begging for European Union EU) membership but would accept it on its own terms if offered.

    The greatest challenge the country faces is making a new constitution.

    In a 1980 coup the military drew up a defacto constitution for the country. As one would expect the focus of this constitution was stability, not individual rights. With the AKP’s third term in power, it looks like the party is going to attempt to draw up a new constitution. From the perspective of an international observer the two most interesting things to look at will be how the constitution defines (or does not define) the role of religion and secularism, and the Kurdish issue.

    It is common to associate Turkey with secularism – where religion has no business of the state. However, the Turkish state is not secular in that sense, in fact it is laicist – where the state controls what parts of religion are acceptable and what are not – an important distinction. A secular state does not care whether a woman adopts a headscarf or not; a laicist state decides whether a woman should be allowed to wear a headscarf in a university or another public space (France and historically Turkey have ruled that they cannot). The laicist state was established by Ataturk whose cult still lives on even after more than 60 years of his passing. Ataturk’s paintings are ubiquitous inside homes and on public spaces. A friend of mine who was travelling the country related to me that a person she spoke to said Ataturk was like a father to him. His importance can be judged by the fact that the Turkish blasphemy law protects Ataturk not religion!

    The Kurdish question also needs to be resolved. After the breakup of the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire because of various rebellions of nationalism within the country, the Turkish state imposed homogeneity. There was a single idea of Turkishness and anything that deviated from this was perceived to be a threat to the Turkish state. The largest dissidents against this policy have been the Kurds. The Kurds (who have no country of their own but are split over 4 countries) demand that their cultural rights be accepted and that they be allowed to learn their language in schools. The state has been slow to respond, but in the past few years there have been signs of progress; recently a Kurdish channel was allowed to broadcast for the first time in Kurdish. The new constitution is likely to raise many questions about what kind of state Turkey wishes to be for the better part of the twenty first century.

    What lessons can be learned from Turkey?

    The first thing to note is that Turks are proud of their language. They do not have insecurities or inferiority complexes about not knowing any English and their pride in their language gives them a strong and authentic sense of identity – for both the elites and the non-elites, something which post colonial states like Pakistan lack.

    The second lesson is that democracy does work given time. Whenever the Turkish army has come to power it has caused short term stability but in the long run it has not helped the country. In the absence of transparency and checks, all militaries make questionable policy decisions. It may surprise readers to know that even the staunchly pro-secular Turkish military employed violent religious militant groups (sound familiar?) at one point to suppress the Kurdish rebellion.

    Ataturk’s reforms lifted Turkey from a backward country to a modern nation but they came at a cost; his secularization reforms were harsh on practicing Muslims in the country and have galvanized support against secularism by conservative Muslims all over the world. Some people told me stories about Qurans being flushed into toilets in the countryside during the post reform years. There was no way to confirm the veracity of this claim but it’s important to note that this impression was created. The fear of secularization as a threat to religion is a real one from the perspective of conservative Muslims and it must be addressed

    The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of The Express Tribune.

    via What Turkey has done right – The Express Tribune Blog.

  • ATATURK SOCIETIES OF USA AND THE UNITED KINGDOM STRONGLY OPPOSE

    ATATURK SOCIETIES OF USA AND THE UNITED KINGDOM STRONGLY OPPOSE

    ASoA

    ATATURK SOCIETIES OF USA AND THE UNITED KINGDOM STRONGLY OPPOSE

    THE TURKISH RULING PARTY’S DECLARED INTENTION
    TO CHANGE “TURKEY’S FOUNDING PRINCIPLES” PROTECTED BY THE CURRENT CONSTITUTION

    Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, PUBLICLY STATED its intention to change the Turkish Constitution right after the General Elections, scheduled for June 12, 2011.  Erdogan is asking  voters to enable him to come back to the Turkish Parliament with at least 367 deputies so that he can CHANGE THE TURKISH CONSTITUTION UNILATERALLY.

    Erdogan is basing his arguments for a “new constitution” on his party’s desire to have a “more democratic and civil” constitution.  This is a disguise of his real intention to change “THE FOUNDING PRINCIPLES OF TURKEY”, explained in the PREAMBLE and enshrined in the FIRST FOUR articles of the CURRENT CONSTITUTION.

    The letter and the spirit of the “preamble” and the “irrevocable first four articles” of the current Constitution reflect Ataturk’s philosophy and vision of a “PRO-WESTERN, MODERN, SECULAR, and DEMOCRATIC TURKEY, governed by the RULE OF LAW, EQUALITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE, its NATIONAL UNITY AND INTERESTS DEFENDED.  These founding principles have been protected throughout several amendments of the Constitution since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923.

    The AKP wants to Change Ataturk’s Philosophy and Vision

    Since coming to power in 2002, the “Islamist AKP” has gradually but increasingly moved away from the Republic’s founding principles and national identity.  Numerous foreign observers as well as many Turks are convinced that the AKP is trying to transform Turkey into an Iranian-style Islamic state.  Despite its occasional official denials, the AKP’s actions and media statements demonstrate its clear intentions. Most recently, on May 10, 2011, a prominent AKP leader and a State Minister told the Turkish Press openly that “the only irrevocable article in the Turkish Constitution was Article 1, that Turkey was a ‘Republic’. All other articles, he said, could be (and will be !”) changed” once AKP has enough number of deputies in the Parliament. Today, even with less than 367 deputies, the AKP firmly controls the country’s  legislative and executive branches and already took control of the judiciary by appointing AKP-sympathetic prosecutors and judges.  Security forces are transformed into an oppression machine against opponents and protesters.  Academia is silenced by replacing university presidents.

    TURKEY’S PRO-WESTERN identity and image have already been tarnished. Initially, the AKP renounced its Islamic heritage and began working to secure European Union(EU)-membership, and turn Turkey into an even more liberal and pro-Western state.  However, more than eight years later, the AKP seems anything but pro-Western, liberal and democratic !  It has returned firmly to its Islamist roots.  Erdogan has openly played the “Islamist card” in order to boost himself and his political party, and establish greater dominance in the “Islamic world”.  Under the AKP rule, liberal political trends have quickly disappeared and EU accession talks have stalled. In foreign policy, relations with the West and Israel have deteriorated.  President Gul and Erdogan spent more time visiting Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Syria and Egypt, and hosted a series of anti-Western leaders  including Sudan’s president Al-Bashir when the Hague International tribunal was accusing Al-Bashir committing atrocities in Darfur.  Al-Bashir, who received a warm welcome from Erdogan, was defending the implementation of Sheria Law in resolving the Darfur conflict.  Turkey’s foreign policy has shifted decidedly towards the East and promoted solidarity with Islamist, anti-Western regimes.

    SECULARISM has been denied and ignored…  Erdogan’s famous quote “one can not be a Moslem and secular at the same time” best explains his political philosophy and intentions…Under the AKP rule, religiosity in Turkey has increased markedly. The government began to hire top bureaucrats from an exclusive pool of religious candidates and the percentage of women in executive positions in government, dropped sharply. Religious observance has become a necessity for those seeking government appointments or lucrative state contracts.  Bureaucrats in Ankara now feel compelled to attend Friday prayers lest they be by passed for promotions.  Turkey today has over 85,000 active mosques, one for every 350 citizens, the highest per capita in the world, compared to one hospital for every 60,000 citizens, with 90,000 imams, more imams than doctors or teachers.  It has opened up thousands of madrasa-like Imam-Hatip schools and about four thousand more official, state-run Qur’an courses.  Spending by the government’s Directorate of Religious Affairs has grown five fold from 553 trillion Turkish liras in 2002 to 2.7 quadrillion Turkish liras (about US$325 million), during the first four years of the AKP government. The Directorate has a larger budget than 8 other ministries combined. The objective is to train people for every position in the public service in the country.  The AKP has also fought very hard, though unsuccessfully, to lift the ban on “head scarves” in schools and government offices.
    Erdogan’s desire to change the Constitution unilaterally and his disrespect for secularism may lead to a turnaround in Turkey’s founding principles, and put the country under governance by Islamic Sheria Law.

    DEMOCRACY and FREEDOMS have been severely restricted.  The mysterious Ergenekon case has become the largest and most controversial judicial investigation in recent Turkish history.  Hundreds of people, mostly opponents of AKP and Erdogan,  including the high-ranking Army officers, famous journalists, writers, artists, university professors, and heads of modern, secular civil societies have been detained, mostly in multiple simultaneous dawn raids by members of the Counterterrorism Department of the Turkish National Police (TNP).  They are tried under detention that has been going on for  more than three years without any sign of conclusion.  None of the detainees has been  convicted, yet.

    At the same time, severe restrictions have been put on “freedom of speech” and “freedom of press”. On April 2010, Turkey’s Justice Minister said that police intelligence listens to the private conversations of 70,000 people; almost one in every 1,000 Turks live in police scrutiny today.  Turkey also ranks at the bottom of the list in Western Europe with regard to the “freedom of press”.  The President of Turkish Journalists Union (TGS) complained that there are thousands of cases filed against journalists, more than hundred filed by Erdogan alone.  Currently about 100 Turkish journalists are in jail.  One of them was arrested even before the book was published, for authoring a book that investigates the grip on Turkish politics of a religious group.  The police seized and burned the unpublished book, while imposing a ban on its internet accessibility. Working closely with the PM’s office, the Turkish Telecom and Communication Ministry (TIB) put thousands of wire tabs on political rivals and  introduced censorship on “Google” and  “YouTube” many times.  TIB recently announced its intention to impose, more restrictions on internet.  The great majority of the independent media, critical of the government, were forced through unclear legal reasons to sell their businesses, daily newspapers and TV stations to AKP supporters.  As a result, the share of Turkish media held by religious, pro-AKP groups rose from about 20 to over 65 percent, at present. In these sale transactions, large credits were granted to AKP supporters from state-owned banks. Furthermore, the Public Procurement Law was amended several times and thresholds for tenders reduced steadily to avoid competitive bidding and allow sales to AKP supporters.

    We oppose to any change in Turkey’s “Founding Principles and Vision”

    We, the members of the Ataturk Societies of USA and the United Kingdom, STRONGLY OPPOSE  AKP’s plan to change the constitution and remove the “founding principles of Turkey” from its text.  Even with these principles in place in current Constitution, the AKP has moved ahead with its Islamist agenda and already tarnished Turkey’s pro-Western, modern, secular and democratic identity and image.  With the removal of Ataturk’s philosophy and vision from the Constitution, it would be harder, if not impossible,  to prevent Turkey’s slide into an  anti-Western, anti-Democratic, and anti-Secular Islamist  state.*

    References:
    1.  Turkish Constitutional Court Documents. (Ankara ) May 27, 2011;
    2.  “Degismez Maddeler Degisebilir !” Bulent Arinc, Radikal (Istanbul) May 10, 2011
    3.  “The Islamists Show Their Hand” and “Abandoning Ataturk”, Soner Cagaptay,
    Newsweek, Feb.14, 2009 and Newsweek, Sept. 19, 2009
    4.  “Sayilarla Kendine Gelmek…” Can Dundar, Milliyet (Istanbul), June 22, 2007
    5.  “Turkey’s Turning Point”, Michael Rubin, Apr. 14, 2008
    6.  “Ergenekon – Between Fact or Fantasy”, Gareth H. Jenkins, Silk Road Papers, Aug.2009
    7.  “Corruption in Public Procurement – Turkey “Global Integrity Report, 2008

  • A Turkish Solution For Egypt

    A Turkish Solution For Egypt

    JONATHAN SCHANZER and KHAIRI ABAZA

    The New Republic, February 2, 2011

    hittheroad
    Patrick Baz /AFP/Getty Images – Egyptian demonstrators hold up a placard in Cairo as protesters flooded Tahrir Square in their relentless drive to oust President Hosni Mubarak's regime. If Mubarak's government falls, Egypt may have to navigate a transitional period.

    Jonathan Schanzer is vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Khairi Abaza is a senior fellow at FDD, and a former Wafd Party official.

    President Mubarak’s government may soon collapse. Popular support for him has evaporated, and while the Obama administration has declined to officially take sides in the Egyptian protests, it is clearly looking toward some sort of endgame. But what form would such a transition take? Oddly, the most obvious possibility is a plan that has, in its broad contours, been around since the mid-1980s.

    In September 1980, Turkey’s government was overthrown in a military coup, but the military cooperated with interim civilian leaders and ultimately presided over a peaceful democratic transition that included the creation of a new constitution in 1982 and elections in 1983. This example inspired members of Egypt’s nationalistic, business-oriented Wafd Party, which was resurrected — after disappearing in 1952 — at about the same time. So in 1984, a plan based on Turkey’s experience was drawn up and presented by Ibrahim Abaza, a member of the executive bureau (and the father of one of this article’s authors), Yusuf Hamed Zaki, a member of the party’s high committee, and a handful of others. It envisioned a military-backed caretaker government that could maintain order on the streets, create a safe political space, and then guide the nation into representative governance. While Egyptian newspapers debated the merits of the plan, the Mubarak regime, which had been in power for only a few years, ignored it. Similarly, several successive U.S. presidential administrations listened politely, but opted not to pressure their allies in Cairo.

    Now, former International Atomic Energy Agency Chief Mohammed ElBaradei and his followers are demanding a series of reforms that track closely along these lines. As ElBaradei explained to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, “the next step … as everybody now agrees on, is a transitional period” followed by “a government of national salvation, of national unity” that would “prepare the grounds for a new constitution and free and fair elections” while the “army will be able to control the situation.”

    Echoing the Wafd Plan, ElBaradei hopes the military will ensure that President Mubarak flees the country and then keeps the peace during a period of transition to democracy. To safeguard against abuses of power, the opposition plan would ensure that no one figure holds a monopoly of authority within the provisional government. Order would be maintained by the military, while an interim cabinet would handle political matters and the transition to democracy. Cooperation between the two would be critical.

    The plan also envisions a gradual, managed transition to open political competition that would give political parties — which have suffocated under Mubarak’s rule — time to put down roots and sprout branches. The process would be designed to mitigate the power of the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups that reject democratic principles, without excluding them entirely from the political process. The transition period of a year or more would potentially level the playing field; the Brotherhood has a head start on everyone else, having developed social infrastructure throughout the country, and significant grassroots support.

    Egypt would also need an interim president — such as ElBaradei or recently appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman — who would oversee the drafting of a new constitution that guarantees the liberties of all Egyptians. This is particularly necessary because the political opposition stands unanimously against the current constitution, which is based on socialist and non-democratic principles.

    After this transition period yields a governing document and functioning political parties, Egyptians would go to the polls, while the military would ensure the safety of the voters and international vote monitors, who must be invited into the country to observe and certify free and fair elections.

    For President Obama, supporting such a plan would make good sense. It would enable him at last to shun Mubarak and support the Egyptian people, while doing everything possible to ensure that the Muslim Brotherhood does not fill the country’s political vacuum. It should also be attractive to Washington because it relies on the Egyptian military. True, this is the same military that started this mess with the Free Officer’s Coup of 1952, but it still has the trust of the people (it has not fired on the protestors). President Obama might even have a little leverage here, thanks to the estimated $2 billion per year in aid that buys Egypt advanced military hardware.

    This is not a plan without risks, but inaction carries risks of its own. Embraced by the reformers and protest leaders, the plan prescribes concrete steps toward democracy while minimizing the likelihood of chaos or Islamist rule. And the fact that it has its origins in the Wafd Party means it is an indigenous idea, not a foreign imposition on the Egyptian people.

    Washington Mulls Its Role In Egyptian Politics Feb. 2, 2011

    What Should The U.S. Do To Encourage Democracy? Feb. 2, 2011

    The Limited Influence Of The U.S. In Egypt’s Upheaval Feb. 1, 2011

    Partner content from: THE NEW REPUBLIC

    www.npr.org, February 2, 2011

  • Without secular government, there is no religious freedom

    Without secular government, there is no religious freedom

    Without secular government, there is no religious freedom

    By Susan Jacoby
    3rd January 2011, Washington Post

    To end the old year and begin the new, there is more entirely predictable bad news from the world of radical Islam. On New Year’s Eve in Pakistan, Islamist political parties brought business and government to a standstill with massive protests against any potential changes in a blasphemy law that carries a mandatory death sentence for anyone convicted of “insulting Islam.” On New Year’s Day in Alexandria, Egypt, a suicide bomb attack in a Coptic Christian church wounded at least 96 and killed 21 people. In Iraq, attacks on Christians that began in October continued, causing the flight of additional refugees toward the more tolerant Kurdish territory to the north.

    The governments–our putative allies in the Muslim world (and in Iraq, a government that would never have come into being without American military force)–seemed unable or unwilling to display any backbone on behalf of secular principles of governance. The target was a Christian minority but the truth is that without secular government, freedom of religion can never flourish. To look at the violence as an issue of “interfaith relations,” as this week’s On Faith question does, is to ignore the obvious: Equality among either believers of different faiths, or between believers and nonbelievers, can never exist when one religion occupies a privileged legal position.

    Of course, all of this casts even more doubt on post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy, based under both the Bush and Obama administrations on the notion, unsupported thus far by evidence, that a combination of war and diplomacy can hobble radical Islam as a threat to the democracy and security of the world.

    What interfaith relations? In Islamic theocracies, of course, there are no such relations by definition–except when theocratic rulers smash dissent. In fragile nation-states like Pakistan and Iraq, Islam has pride of place but there is supposed to be some toleration of minorities. These governments have little will or ability to protect the rights of non-Muslims (or even of Muslims who disagree with their more radical co-religionists).

    The question for the United States is not what religious and political leaders should say about “challenges” to “interfaith relations.” It is whether America should continue spending its blood and treasure on wars based on the wishful notion that an American military presence, for whatever length of time, will somehow make majority Islamic nations more amenable to a democracy that accomodates many forms of religious belief and nonbelief and is therefore less of a threat to the West.

    My guess is that nothing anyone has to say about these events from the West will have any effect at all. There are courageous citizens of these countries, though, who put mealymouthed western multiculturalists to shame. I strongly recommend the New Year’s Day editorial by Hani Shukrallah, editor of Ahram Online, titled, “J’accuse,” in which he says, “I am no Zola, but I too can accuse. And it’s not the blood thirsty criminals of al-Qaeda or whatever other gang of hoodlums involved in the horror of Alexandria that I am concerned with. I accuse a government that seems to think that by outbidding the Islamists it will also outflank them. I accuse the host of MPs and government officials who cannot help but take their own personal bigotries along to the parliament, or to the multitude of government bodies, national and local, from which they exercise unchecked, brutal, yet at the same time hopelessly inept authority…But most of all, I accuse the millions of supposedly moderate Muslims among us…I’ve been around, and I have heard you speak, in your offices, in your clubs, at your dinner parties: `The Copts must be taught a lesson,’ ‘the Copts are growing more arrogant,’ ‘the Copts are holding secret conversions of Muslims’….” Coptic Christians now make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s population.

    Shukrallah concludes, in language worthy of Zola, “Our options…are not so impoverished and lacking in imaginination and resolve that we are obliged to choose between having Egyptian Copts killed, individually or en masse, or run to Uncle Sam. Is it really so difficult to conceive of ourselves as rational human beings with a minimum of backbone so as to act to determine our fate, the fate of our nation?”

    I’m wondering just how long Shukrallah is going to be walking around, free to raise his voice. I’m wondering what will happen to Mehdi Hasan, chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, who said of the strike, “The liberal and democratic forces in this country have retreated so much that it has created an ideological vacuum that is now being filled by religious extremists.” This independent human rights commission has documented persecution of Christians and of members of the Ahmadi sect, a minority within Islam, who have been accused of blasphemy.

    The U.S. media has paid insufficient attention to attacks on Christians that have been escalating for years and do not happen to have occurred on a major Christian holiday. President Obama denounced the most recent attacks, but such denunciations have a way of making violence against Christians and Muslim minorities appear to be an exceptional event rather than an ongoing reality.

    Men like Shukrallah in Egypt and Hasan in Pakistan have every right to say “J’accuse” not only to “moderate” western Muslims but to non-Muslim multicuturalist liberals who have been silent about the behavior of radical Islamists. They also have a right to say “J’accuse” to supporters, inside and outside the U.S. government, of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These war apologists won’t admit how bad things are because it would call the whole military effort question. What are we fighting for in Afghanistan? Surely we can’t be sending our soldiers to die for the right of Afghanistan’s neighbor, Pakistan, to be free to execute people for blasphemy.

    Only in a secular world, informed by the best Enlightenment values upholding all freedom of thought (which includes but goes far beyond freedom of religion), has blasphemy been relegated to the ludicrous medieval status it deserves.

  • America’s Dark View of Turkish Premier Erdogan by Maximilian Popp

    America’s Dark View of Turkish Premier Erdogan by Maximilian Popp


    01Dec10

    By Maximilian Popp

    REUTERS

    Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, center, has surrounded himself with “an iron ring of sycophantic (but contemptuous) advisors,” according to US diplomatic cables.

    The US is concerned about its NATO ally Turkey. Embassy dispatches portray Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a power-hungry Islamist surrounded by corrupt and incompetent ministers. Washington no longer believes that the country will ever join the European Union.

    Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the most important Muslim ally of the United States. On coming into office he promised a democratic Islam — a vision that could have become a model for other countries in the region.

    But if the US dispatches are to be believed, Turkey is far from realizing that vision. Erdogan? A power-hungry Islamist. His ministers? Incompetent, uneducated and some of them corrupt. The government? Divided. The opposition? Ridiculous.

    US diplomats have sent thousands of reports from Ankara to Washington in the past 31 years. Recent documents, though, are merciless. They convey an image of Turkey which is at odds with almost everything the US government has officially said about the country.

    First and foremost, the US distrusts Erdogan. A dispatch dated May 2005 says that he has never had a realistic worldview. Erdogan, the document says, thinks he was chosen by God to lead Turkey and likes to present himself as the “Tribune of Anatolia.”

    US diplomats claim that Erdogan gets almost all of his information from Islamist-leaning newspapers — analysis from his ministries, they say, is of no interest to him. The military, the second largest among NATO member states, and the secret service no longer send him some of their reports. He trusts nobody completely, the dispatches say, and surrounds himselves with “an iron ring of sycophantic (but contemptuous) advisors.” Despite his bravado, he is said to be terrified of losing his grip on power. One authority on Erdogan told the Americans: “Tayyip believes in God … but doesn’t trust him.”

    Accusations of Corruption

    Erdogan took office as prime minister in 2003, two years after having founded his party, the Islamic-conservative AKP. During the campaign Erdogan announced his intention to tackle corruption.

    Since 2004, however, informants have been telling US diplomats in Turkey of corruption at all levels, even within the Erdogan family. None of the accusations have been proven — it could be that the informants merely want to denigrate the premier. But their reports help shape the Americans’ image of Turkey — and as such they are devastating.

    The rumors sound outrageous. A senior government advisor is said to have confided to a journalist that Erdogan enriched himself from the privatization of a state oil refinery. Furthermore, a source within the Ministry of Energy told the US that the prime minister pressured the Iranians to ink a gas pipeline deal with a Turkish company owned by an old schoolmate of his. The deal surprised observers: the company builds ports, but has little experience in the energy business. Two unnamed US sources claim that Erdogan presides over eight Swiss bank accounts.

    Erdogan’s party, the AKP, vehemently denies all allegations. And the premier says he acquired his wealth in the form of gifts presented by guests at his son’s wedding. Furthermore, he says, a Turkish businessman is paying for his four children to study in the US. The American Embassy sees such explanations as “lame.”

    A ‘Lack of Technocratic Depth’

    Erdogan, though, apparently knows how to score points at the grass roots level. According to US dispatches, when his AKP suffered a painful defeat in the Trabzon mayoral election of 2004, he allegedly installed his close friend Faruk Nafiz Özak as the head of the local Trabzonspor football club. In accusations which have not been proven, informants told the US Embassy that Erdogan sent Özak millions of dollars from a secret government account. Özak was to use the money, states a dispatch dated June 2005, to buy better players in an effort to overshadow the mayor. Erdogan did not respond to SPIEGEL efforts to contact him, but said on Monday that the credibility of WikiLeaks was questionable.

    According to US Embassy analysis, he has transformed the AKP into a party which works almost exclusively on his behalf. Many top AKP leaders including Erdogan and President Abdullah Gül are said to be members of a Muslim fraternity.

    There is generally a “lack of technocratic depth” in the government, criticized US Ambassador Eric Edelman back in January 2004: “While some AK appointees appear to be capable of learning on the job, others are incompetent or seem to be pursuing private … interests” or those of their religious congretations. “We hear constant anecdotal evidence … that AK appointees at the national and provincial levels are incompetent or narrow-minded Islamists.”

    Many high-ranking state officials have told the Americans they are appalled by Erdogan’s staff. Erdogan, one such official told US diplomats, appointed a man exhibiting “incompetence, prejudices and ignorance” as his undersecretary. Another informant told the US that Women’s Minister Nimet Çubukçu, an advocate of criminalizing adultery, got her job because she is a friend Erdogan’s wife, Emine. Another minister is accused of nepotism, links to heroin smuggling and a predeliction for underage girls.

    Getting Off the Train

    Erdogan and the AKP are revered by the electorate. The prime minister is a “natural politician,” US diplomats wrote in one dispatch from early 2004. He “possesses a common touch,” is “charismatic” and has “street-fighter instincts.” The prime minister grew up in Kasimpasa, a rough port district of Istanbul, and became involved in a radical Islamist organization as a young man before joining the conservative Order of the Nakibendye. Before entering government, he said: “Democracy is like a train. We shall get out when we arrive at the station we want.”

    As a young man he met Abdullah Gül, with whom he later orchestrated the rise of the AKP. A deep-seated rivalry now exists between the two. Again and again Gül has stirred up trouble against Erdogan, particularly when the prime minister is traveling abroad. In a report from March 2005 when Gül was Turkish foreign minister, US diplomats described this as Gül’s attempt to undermine Erdogan’s policies and gain more power in the party. Unlike Erdogan, Gül speaks English, say the diplomats, and presents himself as moderate and modern.

    In truth, however, the US sees Gül as more ideological than Erdogan and anti-Western, according to embassy dispatches based on statements from those close to Gül. Gül uses almost every opportunity to make Erdogan look bad, the documents claim, even talking badly about him in front of state visitors. Gül worked for a long time to become president and therefore Erdogan’s equal. Erdogan tried to prevent his rise — without success. In the summer of 2007 Gül took up residence in the presidential palace in Ankara.

    ‘Murky’ and ‘Muddled’

    US diplomats are likewise unflinching when it comes to Erdogan’s advisor and foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. They say he understands little about politics outside of Ankara. They see this as unfortunate, because they want to see Turkey join the EU — but they don’t believe it will ever happen. In order to make progress toward EU accession, the US ambassador wrote, the government must “hire a couple thousand people skilled in English or other major EU languages and up to the bureaucratic demands of interfacing with the Eurocrats.” The AKP, write US diplomats, had thus far employed mostly confidants from the Sunni brotherhoods.

    Some AKP politicians, according to a US assessment, support Turkish membership in the EU for “murky” and “muddled” reasons, for example because they believe Turkey must spread Islam in Europe. A US dispatch from late 2004 reports that a member of a leading AKP think tank said that Turkey’s role is “to take back Andalusia and avenge the defeat at the siege of Vienna in 1683.”

    Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu largely shares this viewpoint and the Americans are alarmed by his imperialistic tone. In a summary of a speech by Davutoglu delivered in Sarajevo in January 2010, the US ambassador wrote: “His thesis: the Balkans, Caucasus and Middle East were all better off when under Ottoman control or influence; peace and progress prevailed. Alas the region has been ravaged by division and war ever since…. However, now Turkey is back, ready to lead or even unite. (Davutoglu: ‘We will re-establish this (Ottoman) Balkan’).”

    Of Rolls Royce and Rover

    Davutoglu’s hubris and his neo-Ottoman vision is cause for US concern. Turkey has “Rolls Royce ambitions but Rover resources,” reads the same 2010 cable. According to embassy dispatches from 2004, Defense Minister Mehmet Gönül warned of Davutoglu’s Islamist influence on Erdogan. He is “exceptionally dangerous” Gönül told the US.

    Under Erdogan, relations with Israel have dramatically deteriorated. The two governments are at odds over the war against Hamas in late 2008 and early 2009 and over the attack on the Gaza fleet earlier this year. The Israeli ambassador to Ankara, Gabby Levy, claimed in October 2009 that Erdogan was behind the cooling of relations: “He’s a fundamentalist. He hates us religiously,” Levy was quoted as saying in a confidential US embassy dispatch from October 2009.

    The Americans are watching with concern as Erdogan distances NATO member-state Turkey further and further from the West. They are concerned about the country’s stability. “Every day is a new one here, and no one can be certain where this whole choreography will fall out of whack,” James Jeffrey, then the US ambassador in Turkey, wrote in late February 2010. “Then, look out.”

    Translated from the German by Josie Le Blond