National Observer – Australia and World Affairs
December 22, 2007
Europe’s Turkish Conundrum.
by Poprzeczny, Joseph
Pg. 51(6) No. 73 ISSN: 1442-5548
Is the 71-million-strong, nominally secular, Turkish state suited to
become a fully-fledged member of the European Union (EU)? That is a
question which increasing numbers of European politicians and voters
are asking themselves and will continue to ask over coming years,
with many already concluding in the negative.
And this despite Turkey having been a NATO member since 1952, ongoing
commercial ties with the EU and its predecessor, the European Common
Market (ECM), plus a sizeable Turkish minority living within the EU’s
borders, especially Germany’s, since the 1960s. Not widely knownis
that Turkey was the first country outside the ECM’s six foundation
members to seek membership in 1960. When it realized this would
nothappen, it gained associate status in 1963, following Israel.
It is perhaps also worth recalling that when Turkey was at the centre
of the powerful Ottoman Empire, its formidable armies besieged Vienna
twice–in 1529 and 1683–first under Sultan Suleiman I (the
magnificent) and then under Grand Vizier Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa
Pasha. The intention, in 1683 at least, was to establish an Islamic
fiefdom that stretched across central Europe–the lands of
present-day Austriaand Bavaria.
If the Hussars of Poland’s King Jan III Sobieski (1629-1696) hadn’t
arrived in the nick of time to help rout the Ottomans outside
Vienna’s walls, Europe would now be Islamised in part or in whole
from theAtlantic to the Polish-Russian border, and resemble, on a
larger scale, multi-ethnic present-day Bosnia-Herzegovina, with
Muslims in the majority. Instead, Austria’s Habsburgs, through the
military genius of French-born Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736),
who fought with Sobieski outside besieged Vienna, steadily rolled
back the 200year Ottoman advance into the heart of Europe, southwards
towards Belgrade.
Thereafter, Austria’s Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa (1717-1780)and
her son Joseph II (1714-1790) fostered costly ongoing colonisation
programmes to re-Europeanise or re-Christianise Hungarian and
northern Balkan lands which were largely depopulated and Islamised,
as Spain had been until the late fifteenth century. It was only in
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that Turkey was finally
forced out of all of Greece, the spiritual home of Western art,
literature and philosophy, and out of neighbouring lands which it had
held for centuries.
The EU’s final decision on Turkey, whether for full membership or a
special status, which may involve referendums in all member
states,therefore promises to be a truly historic one since it could
be viewed as an accommodation of two earlier Turkish attempts to
enter Europe, even if under markedly different terms and
circumstances. Althoughthere is nothing happening in Turkey today to
suggest the likelihoodof anything resembling the 1529 and 1683
attempted entries into Europe, there are nevertheless a range of
disturbing features that make Europeans uneasy.
TENSIONS IN MODERN TURKEY
In highlighting some of these it must be stressed that Turkey
conducted a national election on 25 July that received widespread
acclamation from unbiased observers. Even so, it would be myopic to
ignore several other proclivities within modern Turkish society,
especially its political landscape. The first is that the majority
party that forms Turkey’s new government is the Islamic-rooted
Justice and Development Party (AKP), which strengthened its hold on
the parliament. The AKP–a 17-group coalition–is headed by
Istanbul’s former mayor, long-time Islamist Recep Tayyib Erdogan,
whose family is descended from Georgian immigrants. (Interestingly,
the iconic Kemal Ataturk, who stamped secularism upon Turkey in the
1920s and earlier had commanded a division against the ANZACS at
Gallipoli, was born in Greece.)
Erdogan set about remoulding the AKP into a broadly-based,
centre-right entity that is ostensibly seeking EU membership. He has
argued that Turkey’s established secularist parties had failed to
manage theeconomy effectively, especially during the crises of the
late 1990s and early 2000s. In July, the AKP boosted its vote from 34
to 47 per cent with a voter turnout of 81 per cent, up from 79 per
cent in 2003. Most attribute this success as due to Erdogan’s
competent economic management record, which followed precepts laid
down by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The next-largest party, the People’s Republic Party (CHP), which
seeks to preserve a secular or European-style Turkey, won 112 seats,
or just over 20 per cent. After that, with 70-seats, came the
ultra-nationalist National Action Party (MHP), which strongly opposes
Turkey’s entry into the EU. According to Middle East expert Amir
Tahiri:
"Instead, it preaches a milder version of the classical
pan-Turkism–the idea that Turkic nations should unite under Ankara’s
leadership and create a new ‘superpower’. The pan-Turkists believe
that Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and
Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang) should join Turkey to create the ‘broad
Turkic space’ that would also include Finland and Hungary, two
European nationsthat they regard as of Turkish origin. The ‘broad
Turkic space’ could also be extended to northern Iraq, where a few
hundred thousand Turkmen live, and northwest Iran that is home to
some 15 million Azeri speakers. In a sense, the surprise return of
the pan-Turkists is a reaction to fears that the AKP is harboring
pan-Islamist ambitions."
The MHP’s nationalism is therefore based on a quasi-historical
fantasy that claims common Turkish ancestry for a disunited but
raciallyhomogeneous set of peoples living in a diverse number of
countries, two of which are EU members. One of the party’s
ideological tracts reads:
"Turks, do not have any friend or ally other than other Turks. Turks!
Turn to your roots. Our words are to those that have Turkish ancestry
and are Turks…. Those that have torn down this nation [referring to
the Ottoman Empire] are Greek, Armenian and Jew traitors, and
Kurdish, Bosnian and Albanians…. How can you, as a Turk, tolerate
these dirty minorities? Remove, from within, the Armenians and Kurds
and all Turkish enemies."
As well as such revanchistes, Turkey’s new parliament now has 27
Kurdish politicians who won as independents, signalling that Ankara
also faces a continued Kurdish nationalism on top of a racially-based
Turkic nationalism. Also worth noting is the fact that all this
occurred in the context of an expanding economy, the only one in the
Islamic world that is generating jobs–so much so that Turks have
virtuallyceased seeking employment in Europe and oil-rich Middle
Eastern states.
SECULARISM AND ISLAMISM
Although the 2007 election was the first in Turkish political history
in which an incumbent prime minister and his party were re-elected,
standing over Erdogan is the military, the ultimate protector of the
1920s transforming revolution that Ataturk led in order to infuse
secularism into a hardly willing Islamic nation–though even the
officer class presumably harbours quite a few members who silently
favourErdogan.
Just as one swallow does not make a spring, one democratic election
has not transformed Turkey into an ongoing democracy. Any bid to
further Islamise Turkey must inevitably confront both the
pan-Turkists on the right, militant atheists on the far left,
secularists across the middle, and the military overseeing all.
Moreover, if Erdogan misjudges his Kurdish problem, he’ll find
himself confronting not just 27Kurdish parliamentarians (who on
entering parliament swore their oath in Kurdish, causing much upset
amongst the Turkic majority), but also the long-time rebellious and
battle-hardened separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is
not averse to terrorist tactics. Thus,below the surface of
institutions such as a parliament, beyond the control of the
governing majority, outside the democratic framework ofparliamentary
elections, and underneath the expanding economy, an array of
turbulent and contradictory currents flow.
Could, or more pertinently, should, Europe be expected to accommodate
all or even some of these?
SUSPICIONS ABOUT AKP’S INTENTIONS
Overriding these uniquely Turkish problems is the full gamut of the
Islamisation question, in other words, the stances being taken by the
AKP on one side and the CHP, plus the military, on the other. The
crucial point, which Erdogan’s AKP coalitionists no doubt realise,
isthat, even though they attracted 47 per cent of the vote, the
majority–53 per cent–of Turks voted otherwise, including for some
ardent anti-Islamic political entities. And amongst the leadership of
those representing that other Turkey–the 53 per cent–great
suspicion about the AKP prevails.
The AKP is seen as a party that has embarked on a transformationist
path, and many of those in its 17 groups are perceived by its enemies
as wishing slowly to remove the secularist or Kemalist facets
thathave been adopted over the past 80 years. Put bluntly, the AKP is
seen, rightly or wrongly, as a purposive party that is secretly
seekingto restore the Caliphate so as to transform Turkey into a
second, but rival Sunni, not Shiite, Iran. If the frequently voiced
suspicions (admittedly self-serving) of those who head up the 53 per
cent of Turks opposed to Erdogan are correct, then Turkey’s destiny
will certainly fall well short of the kind of state that would
qualify for EU membership.
The AKP is suspected by its enemies of having embarked on what
hasbeen described as a "slow or silent purge" of Turkish
institutions, with Islamists taking control of all the "commanding
heights". The fact that July’s election was sparked by the AKP
attempt to elevate itsforeign minister, Abdullah Gul, to the
presidency is significant. MrGul’s nomination not only triggered a
political crisis but also a warning from the military that it could
intervene. Secularists rejectedGul’s bid to gain the presidency
because of his career in the pro-Islamist Welfare Party and the fact
that his wife, like Erdogan’s wife,wears the headscarf–an extremely
divisive symbol in Turkey.
But that is just the tip of what secularists believe is a far larger
Islamic iceberg that is threatening the nation. The AKP’s
supposed"transformationism" is seen as being embedded in covert or
highly conspiratorial politics. Taheri put it as follows:
"There is plenty of evidence that the party is engaged in a
silentpurge of its political opponents, and placing its cadres in
control of the machinery of state and the state-controlled public
sector of the economy. Over the past four years, many judges of
secularist persuasion have been pushed into retirement, or demoted,
and replaced by AKP sympathizers. A slow purge has also hit the
nation’s educational apparatus, with an unknown number of those "not
Islamic enough" replaced by individuals close to the party. A similar
change of personnel has been taking place within the armed forces
that have always acted as guarantors of the secular republic. As far
as appointments to key posts in the public sector of the economy are
concerned, the AKP has gone beyond the limits of normal grace and
favour or even straight nepotistic politics."
The AKP’s bosses have been acting like the nomenclatura of the
Chinese Communist Party that has promoted a "privatised" economy by
frequently favouring relatives and friends to man the new class of
capitalists. Such crony-capitalism, which helps enrich the party in
campaigning and propaganda, alongside family members and ideological
pals, is common to both. "The joke in Ankara is that while the IMF
sets the policies that produce prosperity in Turkey, it is the AKP
that distributes the fruits," Taheri says.
TURKEY’S FUTURE
Turkey has, after nearly half a century of close association with
Europe and Western institutions, such as the IMF, NATO, and the
WorldBank, been greatly helped to elevate itself towards what Ataturk
andhis heirs, particularly those within the military, sought. It is
up to the AKP to continue along that path if it is really seeking
modernity, and all that that means.
However, if the "transformationism" its enemies perceive is
reallythere strongly beneath all the disclaimers, if the party has
really set out to construct something that has more in common with,
say, Tehran, than Europe, then unanimity will inevitably emerge
across European electorates in the view that the Erdogan-created
Turkey has no place in the EU. Time will tell.
Meanwhile the question remains: does Erdogan and do those heading the
AKP’s 17-segment coalition aspire to something resembling what
Ataturk’s heirs and over half the electorate desire, or do they
secretly wish to associate themselves far more with the ideological
aspirations, though of course not the same military aims and methods,
that marked the reigns of Suleiman I and Mustafa Pasha?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
JOSEPH POPRZECZNY is a Perth-based freelance journalist and
historical researcher. He is author of Odilo Globocnik, Hitler’s Man
in theEast (2004).