Speech | November 13, 2012
Turkey on the Way to the 100th Anniversary of the Republic
*Editor’s Note: On November 13, Kemal DerviÅ spoke at the Turkish Embassy
in Washington, D.C. on Turkey’s road to the 100th anniversary of the
Republic. This lecture was hosted by the Turkish Embassy and the American
Friends of Turkey .*
It is a great honor and pleasure to be able to share some thoughts with
this group of distinguished guests tonight. I am very grateful to the
organizers, the AFT and Elizabeth Shelton, and to Ambassador Tan for
hosting it. Turkey is about to embark on the decade leading to 2023, the
100th anniversary of the Republic founded by Atatürk and his companions.
Prime Minister ErdoÄan has set as a national objective to have Turkey in
2023 become one of the 10 largest economies in the world ( Turkey is ranked
16th today ). It is a good time to briefly look back at the last 90 years,
but even more so, to look ahead 10 years and try to see what kind of Turkey
is emerging in this first half of the 21st century. This lecture is about
Turkey, not only about Atatürk. I am an economist, not a historian. But we
are discussing the 100th anniversary of the Republic and I will start with
a story about Atatürk, which is also a story about modern Turkey.
>From 2005 to 2009, I was Executive Head of the United Nations Development
Program, headquartered in New York. In 2007, I hired a new research analyst
for my front office. She was a very bright young Turkish woman, perhaps
about 25 years old. She was not from Istanbul, Ankara or Izmir, but from
Samsun, on the eastern Black Sea coast in Anatolia. I went to her office to
welcome her on her first day of work. She had not yet unpacked anything,
the office was full of boxes, her table was empty and the walls were clear
of posters or pictures. Clear, except for one picture which she had hung on
the yet bare walls: a picture of Atatürk, of Mustafa Kemal PaÅa.
I asked myself, is there any other leader who passed away decades ago, in
the first half of the 20th century, the picture of whom would be the first
thing a young research analyst would hang on her bare walls, by her own
initiative, outside of her own country, the minute she started a new job,
in the first decade of the 21st century? I could not come up with any other
example that even came close. This is not to say that there have not been
very great leaders in the 20th century, whose names emerge forcefully from
history books and who have had a determining impact on their countries and
the world. But the association between the Turkish Republic and Mustafa
Kemal Atatürk has been particularly strong. I should add that Nergis was
certainly patriotic, she loved Turkey and her `Turkishness’, but not at all
in a narrow excessively nationalistic way. She was open to the world, an
excellent economist, loving New York, as an American and also global city,
loving the United Nations where she still works in a more senior position,
hoping that Turkey could join the European Union, but also very interested
in helping the poorest countries of the world, eager to know Africa, Asia
and Latin America. She was also a woman.
Millions of Turkish women, in particular, carry deep in their hearts a
lasting gratitude for the revolutionary changes Atatürk introduced to
make it possible for them to become equal citizens, equal human beings.
Millions of Turkish women, in particular, carry deep in their hearts a
lasting gratitude for the revolutionary changes Atatürk introduced to
make it possible for them to become equal citizens, equal human
beings. Putting Atatürk on the wall as the first thing she did was
symbolic of how his name and the history of the struggle to establish
the Turkish Republic remains part of the identity of so many of Turkey’s
citizens. While in the 1930s, and later, there have been strong attempts
to fabricate an ethnic basis for Turkish identity, the association
between Atatürk and identity is far from one based on ethnicity. On the
contrary, it is based on two other dominant dimensions. I will try to
explain what I mean.
One of the Turkish novels that impressed me the most as a young man was
Kemal Tahir’s novel entitled `Yorgun SavaÅçı’, in English, the `Tired
Warrior’. It is a novel about the catastrophic defeat of the Ottoman
Empire, it’s tearing apart by the Western powers after World War I, the
terrible feeling of loss in the hearts of an officer of the Ottoman army,
and despite all this, the will to survive, the will to resist, the will to
rise again. It is this will that Mustafa Kemal catalyzed, harnessed, and
led to victory. At stake was survival and self determination, including the
future of millions of Moslem refugees from the Balkans, the Aegean islands,
Crimea and the Caucasus. Many spoke the Turkish of those times, but many
others spoke Bosnian, Greek, Kurdish, Albanian, Arabic or Bulgarian, or the
languages of Circassians, Georgians or Tatars as their mother tongues.
Despite the ethnic ideology that some later tried to impose, Atatürk’s
Republic was founded on a multi-ethnic basis – indeed there is his
famous answer to the question of who is a Turk: A Turk is a citizen of
the Turkish Republic. Just like an American is a citizen of the United
States, whatever her or his origin.
Despite the ethnic ideology that some later tried to impose, Atatürk’s
Republic was founded on a multi-ethnic basis – indeed there is his famous
answer to the question of who is a Turk: A Turk is a citizen of the Turkish
Republic. Just like an American is a citizen of the United States, whatever
her or his origin. But, to be honest, while definitely multi-ethnic, this
`founding identity’ was not really multi-religious. The western powers and
Russia had encouraged the Christian minorities to side with them against
the Ottomans. There had been terrible ethnic cleansing and massacres on a
grand scale by all sides throughout the Balkan Wars and World War I. The
refugees from Crimea, from the Caucasus, from the Balkans were Moslem
refugees, who had fled ethnic cleansing campaigns against Moslems in their
homelands. During the sad population exchange agreed between Turkey and
Greece after the independence war, Greek speaking Moslems from Greece had
to come to Turkey, and Turkish speaking Orthodox Christians, had to
resettle in Greece. The Republic became a secular Republic, and all
citizens had indeed the same legal rights, but there were to be officially
recognized non-Moslem minorities, but no Moslem minorities, since the very
construction of the Republic was based on the assembly of various largely
Moslem groups into Turkey and `Turkishness’. So at the very root of Turkish
republican identity there was the memory of the heroic resistance against
huge odds by the `tired warriors’, the construction of a new homeland for
Moslem populations from all over the larger region and their merging into a
new `Turkishness’. The misguided attempts to translate this identity into
some ethnic-racial concept later on in the 1930s, became a source of
confusion and problems. But I think one should not forget that Atatürk’s
Republic was a direct successor of a multi-ethnic Ottoman empire, and
provided safe haven to millions of people fleeing persecution from various
ethnic origins, refugees who were, however, all Moslems. It is this
collective memory of survival in the face of a threat of annihilation that
is the *first strong* *dimension of identity* that leads to the
extraordinary longevity of Atatürk’s memory. It also explains the strange
co-existence in the Republican tradition, between assertive secularism and,
yet, a `de facto’ state religion. Note that this is in the end not that
different from what was the situation in the United States for a long time:
a definitely multi-ethnic nation, although it took a long time for
African-Americans to become full citizens, but also a nation both secular
and with a `Christian’ identity, despite the many non-Christians who lived
in it. Even today in some circles there remains the perception of a link
between being an American and a having a Christian faith.
The second dimension of this feeling of identity linked to Atatürk is
rooted in the impressive *modernization* that he led from above and that
was, despite its critics, amazingly successful. Anatolia had been one of
the poorest and least developed parts of the late Ottoman Empire. Places
like Egypt, Syria, Bosnia or Macedonia, were much richer than the Anatolian
heartland. The economic measures and reforms of the 1920s and 1930s,
including the mixed economy, public *and* private sector economic strategy
followed, allowed Turkey to emerge into the second half of the 20th century
as an increasingly dynamic country, still with low incomes, but doing much
better than most other parts of the ex-Ottoman Empire.
Even before the Second World War, Turkey became a respected, modern and
independent nation, no longer the `sick man of Europe’, able to give its
educated elites at least, a feeling of `equality’ with the citizens of the
most advanced parts of the world. Turkey was not a colony. Turkey was not
dominated by others. Turkey was respected and controlled its own destiny.
Even before the Second World War, Turkey became a respected, modern and
independent nation, no longer the `sick man of Europe’, able to give its
educated elites at least, a feeling of `equality’ with the citizens of the
most advanced parts of the world. Turkey was not a colony. Turkey was not
dominated by others. Turkey was respected and controlled its own destiny.
Turkey participated in a `world civilization’ which had succeeded in
producing scientific, technological and economic progress, but it was not
dominated by the countries who had been leading technological progress.
That gave our parents and ourselves, a pride that carries Atatürk’s memory
through the generations.
Of course these two dimensions were strongly linked in the minds of the
`tired warriors’ who found the strength to rise again and create the
Republic. Professor Å=9Eükrü HanioÄlu, in his book on Atatürk, tells us that
after attending a western opera in Sofia as a young military attaché, an
impressed Mustafa Kemal is said to have remarked that he now understood how
the Bulgarians had defeated the Ottomans the previous year. Turkey had to
modernize, western style, so it would never be defeated again!
I think it is these two dimensions, the memory of sheer survival, and the
feeling of participating as an equal in global progress, that explains why
the young woman in New York wanted Atatürk on her office’s wall, before
anything else. Nobody was forcing her, nobody was telling her to do it, she
*wanted* to do it because it was part of the perception she has of her
identity.
Before turning to today and the future, let me touch on another important
point. There is little doubt that the early Republican period was
accompanied by sometimes bloody repression of rebellion and dissent, in
very authoritarian ways, and by what quickly became a one party state led
by a single man. One should not forget, however, that these were terrible
times in Europe, with Stalin in Russia, Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in
Italy and the fascists taking over in Spain. Taha Akyol, in his
impressively researched latest book entitled `Atatürk’s Revolutionary
Justice’, documents how arbitrary and politically motivated the judiciary
operated in the 1920 and 1930s. But as Taha Akyol writes, there is no
comparison between the extent of the totalitarian violence of other
revolutions, starting with the French revolution, and the authoritarianism
of Atatürk’s Turkey. This is not to excuse or belittle the violence and
arbitrariness there was, but it is to remember that, while very radical,
the Turkish revolution was not very violent by comparison to others.
Moreover, Atatürk never looked to communist Russia or fascist Germany or
Italy as long-term potential allies, but he looked to France and Great
Britain instead, despite the rise of fascist ideology in the Europe of the
1930s, and despite the fact that the western democracies had been
adversaries in World War I and had tried to essentially obliterate Turkey
from the map of the world, with only US President Woodrow Wilson at the
time trying to argue for less harsh a settlement.
Atatürk and his companions saw the one party state as a tool for the
revolutionary period, not an end in itself. The long term objective,
already at that time, was for Turkey to become a democracy like France,
Britain or the United States. It should not be surprising, therefore, that
the minute the Second World War ended, Atatürk’s closest friend and
companion who had succeeded him in 1938, Ä°smet Ä°nönü, moved Turkey to
multi-party democracy, instead of trying to hang on to power, as Franco in
Spain, or Salazar in Portugal did for many decades. Atatürk’s Republican
Peoples Party led by Ä°nönü, lost the 1950 election. Power, peacefully and
democratically, passed to the opposition. Ä°nönü had been Atatürk’s closest
associate for two decades. Does this not show that Atatürk’s revolution was
not totalitarian in its long-term goals, and that the founders of the
Republic perceived the link between modernity, to which they were aspiring,
and democracy? Later on, there were several military coups trying to
legitimize themselves with reference to Kemalism, and the understanding of
what it means to practice democracy remained weak and patchy in Turkey. But
even the military, contrary to what we saw for decades in Latin America,
Asia, and the Middle East, never tried to establish a full military
dictatorship, although they wanted and managed to keep a lot of influence.
A civilian government was restored each time in less than 3 years. Some
officers had wanted to stay in power; they were quickly marginalized.
Deeply influenced by the underlying ideology of the Republic, the military
as *an institution* believed that modernity was linked to democracy, as it
was practiced by all the truly advanced countries after the defeat of
fascism. They would never try to put Turkey into the group of third world
dictatorships away from `contemporary civilization’ of which a Kemalist
Turkey had to be a part. They viewed themselves as guardians of secularism
and territorial integrity, they were suspicious of decisions civilian
politicians might take and were able to constrain civilian power, and they
made devastating and hurtful mistakes, but, as an institution, they did not
betray Atatürk by aiming to establish a lasting military regime.
Let me now go fast forward and look at where Turkey is today, and how it is
heading to 2023, on a journey that started almost a century ago.
Let me begin by *the economy.* Economic success is crucial on the road to
2023. For many decades Turkey has been one of the more dynamic economies of
the world, starting form a very low income base. The average GDP growth
rate from 1946 to 2002 was about 5 percent, on the middle to high end of
international experience. But while there were years of very rapid growth,
there were also years of crisis and negative growth, such as for example in
1980, in 1994, in 1999, in 2001 and then again in 2009. These bad years
lowered the average performance. Without them Turkey would have been one of
the fastest growing economies in the world. In the last decade,
(2003-2012), average growth was again about 5 percent ( 3.7 percent per
capita: with population growth much lower now, a 5 percent growth rate is a
better per capita achievement than it was 20 or 30 years ago). If we take
out 2008 and 2009, the years of the world crisis associated with the US
sub-prime mortgage disaster, GDP growth in Turkey would have averaged a
spectacular 7 percent. But the high current account deficit reflecting too
low a private domestic savings rate, still makes the Turkish economy
vulnerable to outside shocks. Turkey has been able to reduce very
substantially the public debt-to-GDP ratio thanks to the reforms of
2001-2002 and the strict fiscal policy also pursued by the Justice and
Development Party governments.
Turkey’s public debt now stands at about 38 percent of GDP. Compare that to
the more than 80 percent public debt ratios in the United States and in
most European countries, with some, such as Italy, reaching 120 percent.
Turkey’s public debt now stands at about 38 percent of GDP. Compare that to
the more than 80 percent public debt ratios in the United States and in
most European countries, with some, such as Italy, reaching 120 percent.
The Turkish household and private sector, however, have very low savings
rates by international standards. The economy has therefore been very
dependent on foreign capital inflows. When these inflows take the form of
long-term investments in productive capacity, there is not much of a
problem. But about two thirds of the inflows are much more speculative and
short term, leading to an uncomfortable degree of potential volatility. To
become one of the 10 largest economies in the world by 2023, Turkey needs
to grow at an average of about 7 percent a year, with this growth
complemented by some further appreciation of the Turkish Lira, reflecting
not speculative capital inflows, but superior long term productivity
performance. Moreover growth alone cannot be the sole objective. Equitable
distribution of the fruits of growth should be more explicitly a part of
the 2023 vision.
For the 2023 objective to be met, or for Turkey to come very close to it,
there are several key conditions that must be fulfilled. The investment
rate has to average not less than 23-24 percent, with domestic savings at
about 18-19 percent, so that the current account deficit can stay below the
5 percent mark, which I consider the prudent upper limit for rapidly
growing emerging market economies in general. This implies a 5 to 6
percentage point increase in Turkey’s savings rate, compared to its current
level, a feasible, but difficult to attain objective. There is no magic
recipe for increasing a country’s savings rate. A stable macro-economy, a
strong and well regulated financial sector, a good return on investment,
including a system of taxation that rewards long term savings and
investment, are all desirable features. Other important conditions, for
good resource allocation and a high investment rate, are clear rules of the
game so that the economy can function without arbitrary and partisan
political interventions. Establishing Independent and professional
regulatory institutions, including an independent and strong Central Bank,
ensuring transparent and competitive public procurement, and insisting on
an arms- length distance between day to day politics and the workings of
the marketplace, were key reforms we undertook in 2001 and 2002. This is
not at all to say that regulatory institutions should function without
reference to and supervision by the democratic process. But the democratic
process and the governments of the day have to show the maturity of
encouraging real competition in the economy, chose the regulators for their
competence and independent judgment, and allow the best entrepreneurs and
firms to invest and to succeed, whatever their political views. Progressive
taxation and an increasingly strong social solidarity system can then aim
at an equitable distribution of the gains from growth.
Beyond these factors having to do with economic management as such, the
overall *confidence* citizens have in the future is of course also a key
factor for economic success.
This brings me to the second precondition for reaching the goals set for
2023. There has to be true *internal peace* and social cohesion. The fact
that a party with strong references to religion is now in government for a
decade, and is making plans for the hundredth anniversary in 2023, shows
how Turkish democracy has evolved and developed since the early years. A
whole conservative and religious current in society, that had been legally
and politically constrained until the early part of our 21st century, has
been able to organize itself politically, broaden its base by reaching out
to the moderate center-right, and get elected with increasing majorities.
Until a very few years ago, the army still constituted a politically
influential counterweight to this powerful current. That is no longer the
case. For the first time since the Republic’s creation, civilian power is
fully established and essentially unconstrained. In that sense Turkey is no
longer different from the United States or the United Kingdom, to give just
two examples. Successful democracy, however, is not just a `winner take
all’ system, where those who win elections, can do as they please. It has
to include a system of checks and balances in a way that protects
individual citizens, opposition groups, and whoever is in the minority. On
the road to the hundredth anniversary of the Republic, Turkey now has the
chance to show its citizens and the world that it has achieved what the
founding fathers ultimately wanted, even though they did not practice it,
namely that the country has become a full, normally functioning democracy.
We have a chance to become just that, but we are unfortunately not there
yet. It is not just that there is need for a new constitution and new laws
offering much stronger protection to dissent and individual rights, it is
also a question of behavior and socio-political norms.
Two more underlying structural challenges still stand in the way of a fully
developed democracy. First, Turkey has to not only *remain*, but also to *
redefine* secularism. I referred at the beginning of my lecture to the
reason why, despite Atatürk’s secularism, Islam, and in fact Sunni Islam,
was treated as a `de facto’ if not `de jure’ state religion. That was
probably unavoidable given the circumstances at the time the Republic was
founded. Survival required cohesion in a society where the State was
closely identified with religious authority for centuries. Times have
fortunately changed and Turkey’s survival is no longer at stake. Turkey,
now, can re-define secularism, as a much more total separation of religion
and state. Individuals are and can be religious as they please, the State
should not be. It should also not interfere with, or try to constrain the
forms in which religion is practiced, or not, as long as they are peaceful.
If the governing party and the main opposition, which is the party founded
by Mustafa Kemal, can truly agree on this kind of secularism, Turkey will
have solved a huge social problem that was lingering under the surface
throughout the last decades.
The second, equally important challenge, is related to the Kurdish issue.
The Republic was founded as a multi-ethnic nation-sate, like the United
States. But it was at a time when nationalism was reaching its peak in
Europe. The founders of the Republic understandably thought they had to,
and they largely succeeded in, creating a cohesive Turkish nation form its
various diverse parts. The Bosnians, Tatars, Circassians, Albanians, Laz
and other groups merged with the Turks of Anatolia into a new
`Turkishness’, quite easily. Since writing these lines I discovered that
Strobe Talbott, then Deputy Secretary of State, now President of the
Brookings Institution, had made the same point 14 years ago, in his Turgut
Ã-zal Memorial lecture. The Republic had saved all these groups, and each
was relatively small, although not at all insignificant in number. While
there are probably close to 4 million citizens of Bosnian origin in Turkey
today, they do not feel the need for Bosnian being taught in schools, or
being taught in Bosnian. The situation is different for Turkey’s Kurdish
citizens. From the beginning they were large in numbers and they grew even
larger. The majority of them, lived in a less accessible part of the
country, and those regions remained the poorest and were neglected by the
central administration. There is today a Kurdish identity that has
developed besides the Turkish identity, and there is not much point in
debating why *this* happened, while something analogous did not happen for
any of the other groups. It is there, it is growing and it must be
accepted. There are, however, no clear-cut geographical boundaries between
Kurds and other citizens in Turkey. Citizens of Kurdish origin live side by
side with citizens of different ancestries. Migration and a dynamic economy
have created a society where Turkey’s Kurds live and work all over Turkey,
many of them participating in the rapid economic growth of the country. In
the cities there is widespread marriage across all groups.
There is therefore only one solution. Turkey’s Kurds must not engage in
violence and must seek their goals within Turkey’s democracy, while Turkey
must become a country where Kurds can fully live their culture and identity
as they perceive it and want to live it, as citizens of Turkey.
There is therefore *only one solution*. Turkey’s Kurds must not engage in
violence and must seek their goals within Turkey’s democracy, while Turkey
must become a country where Kurds can fully live their culture and identity
as they perceive it and want to live it, as citizens of Turkey. As long as
they respect democratic procedures and do not engage in violence, it is up
to them to decide how they want to live their identity, not up to others. I
am truly optimistic that this can happen over the next ten years. Despite a
sad and unacceptable degree of recent violence and terror, there is
actually a feeling of belonging together, dating all the way back to the
great Saladin, and rooted in centuries of living together. The Kurds played
a critical role in Turkey’s war of independence. All citizens have a stake
in the economy, and all know that violence is the biggest obstacle to
investment and development. National cohesion will increase, not decrease,
if full cultural rights and strengthened local government allow our Kurdish
citizens to thrive, prosper and be free to speak and learn their language
in a self-confident, democratic, and undivided Turkey, where public
discourse relates national belonging to *citizenship* and not to ethnicity.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄan’s government has made genuine efforts
in that direction over the past several years. I think much more is needed,
but a positive mature response is also needed from the Kurdish side.
President Abdullah Gül, in two very important recent speeches, on the
occasion of the opening of Parliament and on the occasion of Republic Day
on October 29th, forcefully stressed the need for a new constitution that
much more effectively than today, protects freedom of speech and freedom of
opinion, an area where very unfortunately, on some metrics at least, Turkey
has moved backwards in the last two years. Three weeks ago, the new leader
of Atatürk’s party, Kemal KılıçdaroÄlu, visited the Kurdish mayor of
Diyarbakır, Osman Baydemir, a strong and controversial proponent of Kurdish
interests and issues, on the occasion of the religious holiday, the Kurban
Bayram. I believe that this was an appropriate and courageous signal that
those who cherish the memory of Mustafa Kemal as perhaps the most
successful modernizer of the 20th century, realize that modernization and
progress is a *dynamic process* that changes form and priorities, as
history advances. I do believe that Mustafa Kemal, the visionary and at the
same time very pragmatic leader, would have visited the mayor of
Diyarbakır, just as today’s CHPs leader did, if he had lived in 2012. By
this effort for internal peace, as well as many other efforts to modernize
and strengthen the main opposition party, Kemal KılıçdaroÄlu is
contributing to democracy, which has to be a system where a credible
opposition has to be an alternative to whoever has won the last elections.
Finally let me conclude with a few words on a third element the successful
journey to 2023 must encompass, that has to do with Turkey’s place
in the
world, foreign policy and Turkish-American relations. Again these are not
my areas of professional specialization, but it is not possible to separate
economic, democratic and foreign policy success. A joyful celebration of
the 100th anniversary of the Republic will have to be built on success in
all three areas. The economic goal of becoming, or getting close to
becoming, one of the 10 largest economies in the world, needs `peace at
home and peace in the world’, as Atatürk had stressed. It is interesting,
for example, that in the memoirs of Ali Fuat Cebesoy, one of Atatürk’s
close early companions, as quoted by Taha Akyol, Mustafa Kemal, defending
peace negotiator Ä°smet Ä°nönü, who had asked for `accelerating the pace
of the negotiations’, tells Ali Fuat PaÅa, that he also regrets that the new
Turkey could not achieve all its territorial claims at the Lausanne peace
negotiations after the war of independence, but that peace required
compromise and that ` the important things we have to do at home …could not
be achieved without peace’. Atatürk could not have succeeded at home if he
had not been at crucial times a pragmatist and realist, and very much
committed to peace. Revenge for past wars, territorial expansion, ill
feelings towards other nations because of past events, were far from his
forward looking mind. Despite the Greek invasion of Anatolia after the
Great War, and the thousands of lives lost, Turkey signed a peace and
friendship treaty with Greece quickly after the Republic was established.
Indeed, the friendship with Greece progressed so much, that the great Greek
statesman Venizelos, formally nominated Ataturk for the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1934!
As time is short I just want to make three points on these issues, which
are crucial, however. They reflect in many ways, views you can also find in
President Abdullah Gül’s two impressive speeches referred to already above,
although I cannot of course pretend to speak for him. I recommend to all
who are interested in Turkish affairs to read these two Presidential
speeches and see and judge by yourselves.
The first and most important point relates to Turkish `soft power’,
particularly in the Middle East and the Moslem world. It is already very
effective, but it could grow even more, by an order of magnitude. Our
historical, cultural and emotional links with the Arab countries in
particular, are deep and strong. I had the privilege of being World Bank
Vice-President for the Middle East and North Africa in the late 1990s.
Nobody from Turkey can feel a stranger in these lands, marked by common
architecture, familiar sounds of music, similar food and the celebration of
common religious holidays. The same holds of course for Arab visitors to
Turkey. Atatürk left a legacy of good neighborly relations, but also a
strict legacy of *peace and non-interference in other countries internal
political affairs*. Turkey’s influence in the region, greatly strengthened
over the past ten years, should remain based on the power of our successful
economic, cultural and democratic example, not on attempts to direct others
in any way or to interfere beyond our borders. The Arab countries future is
and should be in their hands. Neither Turkey nor the Unites States can
shape that future. Particularly in the Middle East, which has suffered from
colonial and imperial power coming from outside the region in the past,
foreign interference will always end up being resented, even if it comes
with the best of intentions. No people or country in the long run likes
interference coming from outside, even if, in the short term, various
factions may appeal for it to further their cause. This is not to say that
any of us can remain unaffected by people dying and suffering. Help in the
form of attempts at impartial mediation as well as humanitarian aid, may
often be necessary and highly desirable. Turkey can and is already playing
an important humanitarian role, as far as Somalia. There is also the
responsibility to protect all human beings under severe threat, within the
framework of the United Nations. But Turkey should not appear to want to
become a kind of neo-imperial power in the Middle East. This would badly
misfire and undermine the real and positive soft power Turkey can deploy in
the service of peace, economic development, human rights and democracy. It
is on this that the United States and Turkey can work together. If Turkey
can provide a shining example of economic success and internal peace and
freedom, this will have a much greater impact on the region, then any
foreign policy that borders on direct interventionism.
The second dimension here relates to Europe. The whole European project and
its institutional architecture is going through a severe crisis these days,
triggered initially by the Greek crisis, and then by the more general
problems of the Euro-zone. Europe remains, however, taken as a whole, an
economy roughly as large as the United States, with the euro-zone actually
running a significant current account surplus, and an area of impressive
social achievements, peace and cooperation. I do believe the current
problems will eventually be overcome, but that there will be a Europe with
concentric circles of cooperation. There is likely to be a politically much
more integrated core with the euro as common currency, pursuing coordinated
fiscal policies and a banking union complementing the monetary union. There
will also be other countries, most notably the United Kingdom, countries
that will not be part of the more tightly integrated Monetary Union, but
that will be part of the European Union and of the single economic market.
The European Union and the United Kingdom continue to need each other and I
believe it is likely and desirable that the United Kingdom stay in the
Union. There could also be much more advanced cooperation among the members
of this larger European Union on matters of defense, foreign policy,
science, the environment and education.
Turkey can and should join this re-structured European Union and be a
member more like the United Kingdom or perhaps also Sweden, outside the
Monetary Union, but a full member otherwise, with elected
euro-parliamentarians, a Turkish member of the Commission and participation
in the European Council, the same way the United Kingdom is likely to
participate in the future.
Turkey can and should join this re-structured European Union and be a
member more like the United Kingdom or perhaps also Sweden, outside the
Monetary Union, but a full member otherwise, with elected
euro-parliamentarians, a Turkish member of the Commission and participation
in the European Council, the same way the United Kingdom is likely to
participate in the future. This is what we should aim for. Such a
redefinition of the objective could infuse both new *dynamism* and new *
credibility* into the vital project of making Turkey a member of the
European Union – a European Union that in any case, has to re-invent
itself. In no way will this diminish Turkey’s influence in the Middle East.
On the contrary, a recent poll found that more than 60 percent of Arab
citizens want Turkey to be a member of the EU. Being part of Europe can
only increase Turkey’s soft power in the world. On Turkey’s Republic Day,
the President again forcefully re-affirmed what can rightly be seen as a
continuity coming from Atatürk’s vision, and linked this objective to the
challenges facing Turkey today. By 2023, I do believe Turkey can and should
have become a full member of the new European Union, a Union that the whole
world much needs in the 21st century.
Finally, let me share my perspective on the relations between Turkey and
the United States, a topic on which many have spoken with great eloquence,
including President Clinton when he visited Turkey, as well as president
Obama soon after he was elected in 2008. Don’t worry, I am not going to
start a whole new lecture at this late hour. I do want to stress, however
that that the United States and Turkey share many characteristics, more
than perhaps most people realize. There are now also several hundred
thousand Turkish origin residents or citizens in the United States, feeling
happy, productive and welcome. Of course the comparison must keep in mind
that the United States is a much larger country, much richer, with an
economic, political and military power equal to none other in the world.
Turkey is a medium size, emerging economic power. So the comparison must
keep that in mind.
The United States and Turkey are both countries and societies with a strong
global dimension. The United States in its very social fabric, is linked to
all parts of the world, with strong ties of course to Europe, but also to
South and Central America, to Asia, with sizeable and growing Hispanic and
Asian-American components of the American population, to Africa, with
African Americans very much part of America’s past, present and future, to
the Middle East, with strong ties to Israel, but also to the Arab world.
Despite ever present isolationist feelings and the two large oceans that
separate the US geographically from most of the world, economics,
demography and technology mean that America will become ever more global,
while all Americans, even when more and more of them will speak Spanish as
their mother tongue, will retain a strong sense of American identity. The
same can be said for Turkey, in a somewhat more regional sense. It has
been, for centuries, part of Europe, particularly of the Balkans, what we
still call Rumeli. It is a largely Moslem country with deep cultural and
religious ties to the Arab world. It is the successor of the Ottoman
Empire, a state that gave refuge and warmly welcomed the Jewish community
that had to leave Spain many centuries ago. It is a country with linguistic
and now strong economic ties to Central Asia. It is a country that is
reaching out to, and investing in Africa. And it has been a strong ally and
friend of the Unites States, at least since the Korean War in the early
1950s, when the Turkish contingent in Korea was second in number only to
the American one. As of 2012, Turkish Airlines flies to more countries in
the world than any other airline. Travelling way too much in my life, I can
highly recommend it.
The world faces new, tremendous, global challenges. From climate change, to
restoring solid and sustainable economic growth, from world trade and
finance, to safety from terrorism or nuclear proliferation or to the
control of infectious disease, many of the most difficult problems require
strong global cooperation. In this day and age, nothing can be achieved any
more by sheer force or be imposed from outside on other societies. Young
people everywhere, however, are looking across borders, for examples of
what works, what can bring happiness, freedom and prosperity. I do believe
that for both the United States and Turkey there is a huge opportunity to
set such examples, and to support each other in setting them. If we, both,
succeed internally, we will succeed internationally. If on the other hand,
we cannot solve our own internal problems, it is hard to see how we can
help solve the problems of the world. Moreover, if Turkey and the Unites
States strongly cooperate in the many venues and organizations that exist,
in NATO, at the United Nations, at the G-20, the `soft power’ of both
countries can be leveraged in multiple ways for the benefit of citizens
from both countries, and indeed for the benefit of the world as a whole.
The next decade will not be an easy one, for Turkey, for the United States
or for the World. We will have to work hard, whether our activities are
primarily economic, political, civil society oriented or academic. I do
hope and trust however, that many of us, in 2023, will be able to
celebrate, wherever we may be at the time, as citizens of, or friends of
Turkey, a 21st century republic and democracy, that looks forward, while
cherishing the best features of its past.
Thank you all for your patience and for giving me the privilege of sharing
my perspectives with you this evening.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/speeches/2012/11/13-turkey-anniversary-dervis