A CENTURY OF MISTAKES FOLLOWED BY A DECADE OF CHANGE
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
May 31 2013
MARKAR ESAYAN
[email protected]
Turkey has been changing radically in recent years. The dynamic for
this change has been created by two large groups, the devout Muslim
base and Kurds.
Serious mistakes and wrong choices made during the years of the
formation of the republic wound up condemning Turkey to nearly a
century in a straightjacket. Yes, a new country was formed, but upon
an ideology that rejected the very people of the nation. I am not
someone who views the republic years as categorically negative. But
the essential character of something often determines direction and
choice. And I can say with ease that the Kemalist republic had a
malevolent character. We still see now that mistakes made in that
era are slowing us down.
Where the minorities are concerned, for example …
The final stage of the Ottoman era was an unmitigated disaster for
everyone in the empire. As a matter of fact, the end of the 19th
century and first half of the 20th century were like a living hell for
minorities. And the same sort of dark periods that were experienced
in Turkey during these times happened all over the world. When the
new Republic of Turkey was formed, the Armenians, Greeks, Arameans,
Jewish people, and other non-Muslims who had managed to survive all
dreamed of a new beginning. And they were right to get caught up in
this dream. Because after all, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his men all
asserted that they were forming a modern, secular and democratic new
country, and received the praise of the world in doing so. And while
they maintained this about the new country, it really didn’t turn
out that way in practice.
Peace with PUK
First, peace was made with the bloody-handed members of the Committee
of Union and Progress (CUP) in 1914 and 1915, with the bureaucracy of
the state being turned over to their hands. At this point, everyone
had to be a Turk, and embrace the identity given to them by the state.
And then the feelings of guilt from 1915 were transformed into hatred
for Armenians and other minorities. No more large massacres could
be carried out, but the minorities could be brought to their knees
economically-speaking, with constant harassment from the state. The
population was on its way to becoming more homogenous, as assimilating
Kurds and Muslims was easy business anyway.
While Mustafa Kemal Ataturk asserted that he was forming a people’s
republic, the real truth was that he was forming a republic that
belonged to a privileged minority. Minorities were fleeing abroad
due to economic harassment and incidents like those that took place
in Thrace in 1934. How interesting it was then that the Lausanne
Treaty, seen as the sacred forming text of the republic, was being so
regularly violated by the Turkish state itself. And in the meantime,
a new state religion was created, one that only appeared to be Muslim,
but which had been purged of spirituality and was quite secular
and used the Sunni belief system as the center. It was actually a
new religion. Yes, the Kemalists had created this religion and to
spread it, they formed the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Homilies
designated by the state were read in all the mosques of the country,
with religion being used as a tool to promote the state’s ideology. The
goal here was to see Muslims no longer as a “threat,” but to instead
“civilize” them and assimilate their masses.
As for the West, for as long as Turkey stayed within the parameters
of the West club, it didn’t matter what sorts of violations of human
right were being carried out.
The Muslims had pulled back. But it appeared that the Kurds were
going to be a big problem. There were so many of them, and they
were generally quite religious. In fact, some of the most important
religious figures that were preventing this new state-created
religion from taking root throughout the region were Kurds like
Said Nursi. It appeared the Kurds were both racially and religiously
speaking resisting assimilation. In the 1924 Sheikh Said rebellion,
the 1930 Agrı rebellion and the 1937-1938 Dersim “uprising,” the
state rained down great tyranny on the people, later trying to sell
these incidents as serious uprisings that needed to be quelled. What
was really going on though was a serious resistance to the founding
principles of the regime, as well as to societal engineering. And,
as occurred in Dersim, state violence led to more protests, and more
protests led to thousands of deaths.
There is a general sort of hypocrisy that exists in Turkey. The
above-described stories were always treated as though they had occurred
in different eras and different countries. Ataturk was kept separate
from any nasty business, with mistakes that he made only thrown into
the public arena after his death. As it was told, everything was just
fine until 1938, but Ataturk’s immoral successors ruined everything
that had been going so well. In fact, everything that went wrong
was blamed on İsmet İnönu, while Ataturk was kept clean. And
when really pressed, those holding to this argument point to the
“conditions of the era.” Some even claim, “With the Jewish Holocaust
going on in Europe, what took place in Turkey could even be seen as
democracy.” As though the entire world was populated solely by Nazis
at the time, or that there were no examples of democratic countries.
No one can claim that Kemalism was not able to create a society, or
that Kemalist social engineering was a complete failure. And what’s
more, this was not only true for those city-dwellers getting by because
of the state. Everyone, from those able to build homes on free state
plots of land to those richer folks able to impound minority goods,
got their share of benefits from Kemalism. As for the Alevis, despite
their experience from the Dersim massacre, they were scared off by
radical Islamism, tying themselves completely in response to this
to the Kemalist state, and its party, the CHP. The reasoning here
seemed to be that while the Kemalists might brush shoulders with
violence every now and then — as seen in Dersim –this was nothing
compared to Sharia, which held the potential (thought the Alevis) to
completely eliminate them. The state did not hang back from keeping
this fear alive either, using countless provocations to achieve this
aim. By turning Turks, Kurds, Alevis, Muslims, Armenians, secularists,
leftists and so on against one another, Kemalism was easily able to
construct a guardian authority over the people of the country.
The Kemalist guardian authority’s advantage
On the cusp of the millenium, Turkey experienced an open-ended
post-modern coup. During the coup of 1960, Prime Minister Adnan
Menderes had been hung, with clashes between rightists and leftists
leading to the deaths of thousands of youths. It was always the
Kemalist guardian authority that emerged in an advantageous position
from these incidents.
So who was to change the order of things?
The great social power forces left far from the center and the
ruling seats were the Muslims and the Kurds. There was nothing else
left. The number of minorities in Turkey had shrunk to one thousandth
of their previous numbers and had turned inwards in reaction to the
events of the past. The Alevis were paralyzed as a result of the
false “Sunni” danger, and their own splintering. In the meantime,
let us add that area citizens did in fact voluntarily support the
state-rooted provocations — like in Madımak, an attack in which
Alevis were targeted and killed. After all, our goal here is not to
aestheticize history. There is still a widespread antipathy towards
Alevis throughout Turkey, and this is a factor which has always worked
out very well for the deep state and its business.
In the wake of the Feb. 28, 1997 post modern coup, a respectful
uprising against Necmettin Erbakan took place in the ranks of the
reformist cadres of the overturned Welfare Party (RP), after which the
Justice and Development Party (AK Party) was formed. The founders of
this new party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Abdullah Gul and Bulent Arınc
carried out a serious set of self-criticisms, in light of lessons
learned from the 1997 coup process. What was emerging was an Anatolian
Muslim voter threshold more at peace with the West, taking more of a
leadership role in democracy, and open to change as well as to reform.
Millions of people kept at arm’s length from power throughout the
history of the republic thus far suddenly had a voice, without having
to turn to violence, and without losing their patience. In its first
election, the AK Party took power on Nov. 3, 2002, picking up huge
levels of support from Kurds as well as secular democrats. A silent
revolution had thus begun in Turkey. The revolution that had begun was
one to rely not on violence and upheaval, but on democratic methods
and parliamentary representation. Of course, it was also a period
that would require some time and patience.
Now the AK Party is headed into its fourth election. And the prime
minister has taken a great risk, starting an historical initiative
involving the greatest weapons possessed by the guardian authority,
the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Kurdish problem. In
the meantime now, this same ruling party is engaging in a number
of imposed-from-above projects like the chopping down of trees
in Taksim’s Gezi Park to make way for a shopping center and other
similarly bad projects. In addition, new changes in regulations like
the Court of Auditors Law are very discomforting. But it does appear
that in general, the weighty role played by Muslims and Kurds under
the mantle of the AK Party will continue to make its mark on Turkey,
as the country is carried into the future. What this means is that
the revolution is set to continue. Let me say here that the guarantee
for this mission lies in the desire and the energy of the threshold
of voters who support this revolution and the fact that the AK Party
is aware it needs to fulfill these things.
The biggest risk for the AK Party will be when it is unable to
reflect the energy of its voter base in its own politics. At the
same time, it is important that the Republican People’s Party (CHP)
and the secular factions not be scared off. One significant example
of this is the new alcohol regulations passed by Parliament. I am
not someone who believes that this new law threatens a modern life
style. Aside from a couple of objections I hold, I do think this is
a law quite similar to those found in other countries, much like
laws concerning the sales of cigarettes. At the same time though,
given the tremendous levels of polarization in Turkey, it probably
would have been wiser to postpone this law’s passage.
Turkey looks set for exciting times until 2020. And I do believe that
in another decade or so, we will see a different state along with
the emergence of an opposition with a different sort of flavor. We
will just have to keep on living and see this all unfold.
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnistDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=317068