ALLURE OF ISLAM SIGNALS A SHIFT WITHIN TURKEY
By Sabrina Tavernise
The New York Times
November 28, 2006 Tuesday
Late Edition – Final
Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Ankara, and Ian Fisher from
Rome. Sabrina Pacifici contributed research.
A short 24 hours before a visit by Pope Benedict XVI to this Muslim
country, its prime minister finally agreed to meet him publicly. The
venue: the airport, on the Turkish leader’s way out of town.
The elaborate, last-minute choreography pointed to the deep divide
that has festered within Turkish society since the foundation of the
modern state. Should Turkey face eastward, toward its Muslim neighbors,
or westward, toward Europe?
In the past five years, Muslims here have repeatedly felt betrayed
by the West. The United States began holding Muslims without charge
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; it invaded Iraq and abused prisoners at Abu
Ghraib. Turkey’s hopes of entering the European Union have dimmed.
The pope made a speech citing criticism of Islam.
Turkey — a democratic Muslim country with a rigidly secular state —
is at a pivot point. It is trying to navigate between the forces that
want to pull it closer to Islam and the institutions that safeguard
its secularism. Turkey’s pro-Islamic government is constrained by
rules dictating secularism established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
Turkey’s revered founder.
The extremes jostle on Istanbul’s streets, where miniskirts mix with
tightly tied head scarves and lingerie boutiques stand unapologetically
next to mosques.
"There are two Turkeys within Turkey right now," said Binnaz Toprak,
a professor of political science at Bogazici University.
The pope’s visit, which begins Tuesday, falls squarely on that fault
line, and highlights a slow but steady shift: Turkey is feeling its
Muslim identity more and more. The trend worries secular Turkish
politicians, who believe the state’s central tenet is under threat.
In late October, a senior officer of Turkey’s army — which ousted a
government it saw as overly Islamic in 1997 — issued a rare warning
to that effect.
Others say the threat is overstated, but acknowledge that Turks do
feel pushed eastward by pressures on their country from America and
Europe. A poll by the Pew Foundation in June found that 53 percent
of Turks have positive views of Iran, while public opinion of Europe
and the United States has slipped sharply.
"Many people in Turkey have lost hopes in joining Europe and they are
looking for other horizons," said Onur Oymen, an opposition politician
whose party is staunchly secular.
It has been more than 80 years since religion was ripped out of
the heart of the new Turkish state, which was assembled from the
remains of the Ottoman Empire, the political and economic center of
the Muslim world for centuries. But the portion of Turks who identify
themselves by their religion has increased to 46 percent this year,
from 36 percent seven years ago, according to a survey of 1,500
people in 23 cities conducted by the Turkish Economic and Social
Studies Foundation, an independent research organization based in
Istanbul. That is a trend that has emerged in countries throughout
the Muslim world since Sept. 11, 2001.
"I’m here as a Muslim," said Fatma Eksioglu, who was sitting on
the grass next to her sister in downtown Istanbul on Sunday at a
demonstration of about 20,000 people opposing the pope’s visit. She
did not belong to the Islamic party that organized the gathering,
she said, adding, "When it comes to Islam, we are one."
But in a paradox that goes to the heart of modern Turkey, a stronger
Muslim identity does not mean that, as in Iraq, fundamentalism is
on the rise, or even that more Turks want more religion in their
government. Indeed, the number of Turks in favor of imposing Shariah
law declined to 9 percent from 21 percent, according to the survey,
which was released last week.
Perhaps the most powerful factor pushing Turks toward the east has
been a series of bitter setbacks in talks on admission to the European
Union. To try to win membership, the Turkish government enacted a
series of rigorous reforms to bring the country in line with European
standards, including some unprecedented in the Muslim world, like a
law against marital rape.
But the admission talks have stalled. And while the official reason
involves the longstanding Greek-Turkish dispute over Cyprus, most
Turks say they believe the real reason is a deep suspicion of their
country’s religion.
Indeed, in 2002, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the former French
president, said Turkey’s admission to the union would mean "the end
of Europe." Nicholas Sarkozy, the French presidential hopeful, has
made his opposition to Turkish membership a campaign issue. Even the
pope, when he was still a cardinal in Germany, said publicly that he
did not think Turkey fit into Europe because it was Muslim. That talk
has begun to grate on Turks.
"It hurts me that the E.U. expects Turkey to be something it’s not,"
said Nilgun Yun, a stylish 26-year-old eating a chocolate muffin in
a downtown Istanbul cafe on Sunday.
Her position, shared by many of her friends, was simple: "Accept me
as I am. We are Muslim, and we will remain Muslim. That’s not going
to change."
Mr. Oyman, the Turkish opposition politician, said criticism of
his country was tougher than ever. "You cannot believe how they
accuse Turkey on Cyprus and other issues," he said in a telephone
interview from Brussels, where he was attending a meeting of European
parliamentarians. "Our European friends are playing a very shortsighted
game."
The shift has begun to affect trade. While Europe is still Turkey’s
largest trading partner, business with other neighbors, including
Syria, Iraq and Iran, has picked up substantially in recent years,
said Omer Bolat, the head of one of the country’s largest business
associations, whose members are mostly pro-Islamic. He put the growth
at about 30 percent from just 3 percent in 2000.
"It is risky for a country with respect to foreign policy to have
dependence on one partner and market," he said in English, sitting in a
sleek conference room overlooking a bustling trade fair that showcased
Turkish goods. "Now Turkey is opening its muscles, its horizons."
The policies of the Bush administration have deeply worried Muslims,
he said, before rushing off to speak to the Pakistani ambassador,
who had arrived at the fair.
"The United States used to be paradigm of freedom and rights," he
said. "But since the Republican period, the U.S. policies have been
so detrimental in Muslim eyes."
In just four years, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has managed
to get inflation down to historical lows and growth rates to all-time
highs. The growing prosperity has eased the integration of religious
Turks into the country’s secular society, which is still suspicious
of advocates of Islam, as well as of Mr. Erdogan.
"This group of people that was more religious has relaxed,"
said Ms. Toprak, the professor. "They are now visible. They go to
restaurants they would never have gone; they go to posh shopping
malls."
"It was a struggle to get a piece of the pie," she said. "Now they
have one."
Even so, the increased religiosity, or at least identification with
religion, could eventually present a serious problem for Turkish
society. There are already rumblings. A killing of a judge whose court
had ruled that a nursery school teacher could not wear a head scarf,
even away from school, alarmed Turkey’s secularists. Gen.
Yasar Buyukanit, head of the Turkish Army, has referred to a rising
threat of fundamentalism on at least four occasions since he took up
his position in late August.
Mr. Erdogan’s closely watched government had attempted to limit liquor
consumption in public places, but later backed down. It also tried
to make adultery a crime, but relented.
Some Turkish officials play down the possibility of real damage to
secularism, but say that European suspicion does Turkey no good.
The delay with Europe, for instance, "fans up the disappointment,
the disillusionment," said Namik Tan, the spokesman for Turkey’s
Foreign Ministry. "People say, ‘Why are they doing this?’ "
That is why public officials, including Mr. Erdogan, have shrunk from
the visit by the pope, who symbolizes, in the eyes of Turks, a disdain
for Islam and the unfair exclusivity of the Western club. A cartoon
in a Turkish newspaper last weekend showed two public officials belly
laughing at the bad luck of those Turkish officials obliged to meet
him. (The senior official appointed to be his formal guide has the
portfolio of youth and sport.)
But the pope is coming, and the meetings are happening. Despite growing
pains, a neglected Kurdish minority in the south, a thin skin for
any reference to the Armenian genocide, and failure to scrap a law
that makes insulting Turkishness a crime, Turkey stands out as lively
democracy in a larger Middle East riddled with restrictions, and its
acceptance by the West is a test case for others, officials said.
Muslim countries, Mr. Tan points out, are watching.
"Turkey is a beacon for those countries," he said. "Don’t forget,
if we fail, then the whole dream will fail."