Military, mosques battle for Turkey

Jul 14, 2007 04:30 AM
Mitch Potter
Europe Bureau

ISTANBUL–These are topsy-turvy days for the unfinished business that is Turkish democracy, where the struggle for crucial parliamentary elections in eight days boils down to a contest of mosque versus military.

On one side is Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is widely expected to earn a fresh mandate after a dichotomous four years in power.

Lining up in opposition are parties loyal to Turkey's omnipresent military establishment, which hovers in the background as the self-appointed guarantor of the secular system of governance founded from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire 84 years ago. Make no mistake that, in this election, size very much matters.

A dramatic AKP landslide will be difficult for traditionally pro-Western army brass and senior judiciary, which has a long and undemocratic history of dismissing governments it deems a threat to the strictly secular principles set down by the beloved founder of the republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Going into these elections, however, Erdogan's AKP has turned that political equation upside down, coming off a four-year run of impressive reforms and fiscal belt-tightening that have earned the blessings of the business community, triggering an unprecedented surge of foreign investment. No one doubts the party's Islamist roots, or its social conservatism, but in opening Turkey to the global economy the AKP has won friends in unlikely places.

Between the two poles of Turkish power are the people themselves, who teeter with uncertainty between East and West, modern and traditional, secular and religious, uncertain who best deserves their trust.

"It is worrying because the situation today is not a political crisis, it is an historical crisis," said Mehmet Altan, a professor of economics at the University of Istanbul.

"We live in a military republic and it needs to become a democratic republic. This is an obligation. The struggle between military and mosque is the defining characteristic of power in Turkey. And we need to get over it, get past it somehow.

"But in making this transition, Turkey is vulnerable to threat and that's why I am concerned. For me, the soldiers are dangerous and an Islamic state is dangerous. Both extremes make me uncomfortable."

External factors, most analysts agree, loom large in the Turkish political equation, not least the actions of the United States and Europe, both of which appear to have succeeded in alienating large swaths of the Turkish public in recent years.

A new poll of global attitudes by the Washington-based Pew Research Center found that favourable views of the United States have fallen to single digits in Turkey, where just 9 per cent express trust in Washington.

Likewise, the Pew poll found a collapse in Turkish support for the European Union, with 27 per cent expressing a favourable opinion, compared to 58 per cent in 2004.

Turkish antipathy toward the U.S. stems not only from its ringside seat in witnessing the Bush administrations extraordinary policy struggles in the Middle East, where de facto Kurdish autonomy in Northern Iraq is of paramount concern to a country that fears further unrest among its own sizable Kurdish minority. What Turks dislike most, according to the Pew poll, are American ideas about democracy, with 81 per cent soured on the notion.

Erdogan Aktas, news director of Turkey's Star TV network, said with numbers like these, the best thing America could do to help Turkey now would be "simply to leave us alone.

"America has big expectations of us. But one of our biggest problems is that our democracy was built upon the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.

"We had the shell of an empire, the mentality of empire, even, and the democratic framework that was set inside it never grew naturally. It was never really embraced by society," Aktas said in an interview.

"The result is a very fragile system. It's like having a car without a steering wheel."

Turkish antipathy toward Europe is in some ways more palpable than attitudes toward Washington, driven by widespread disillusionment over Turkey's decades-long, and now largely stalled, efforts to join the EU.

"The EU issue has fed the extremes in Turkish politics. Each time Europe sends a negative message to Turkey, it reinforces the perception that the EU is a Christian club, which leads the average person to think, `Okay, than maybe we should be joining a Muslim club instead,'" said Fikrit Ilkez, a prominent Istanbul lawyer and free-speech advocate.

European rejection has also driven a resurgent Turkish nationalism.

The evidence hangs in the form of national flags flying from apartment windows throughout the country. Many political watchers see the manipulative hand of the military here, working to revive its nationalist base as a bulwark against the Islamists.

"The sad reality in Turkish politics is most people have been persuaded there are only two sides – the Islamic camp and the pro-military camp," said Fehmi Hasanoglu, a social activist based in Istanbul.

"Both of these camps are highly conservative, and it serves their purposes to present themselves as the lone alternative to the other.

"One side points to the Islamic movement and says, 'That is the monster.' And they conclude the only other choice is an administration based on anti-democratic, military principles," said Hasanoglu.

"And beyond that you have a very small minority fighting for truly democratic space. These are people who are trying to say, 'No, there is a third way.' "

The path of the "third way" – Turkey's smattering of fledgling and fragmented left-wing parties – stands little hope because of the 10-per-cent threshold required to win even a single seat in the 550-seat parliament.

Beneath the struggle for political power, the continuing inflow of foreign capital suggests that Turkey remains a destination of confidence for investors. Or at the very least, the potential rewards of the modernizing Turkish economy outweigh the risks of political uncertainty.

"I don't see this election as a confrontation of two sides so much as politicians playing politics to get the most votes," said Fatih Akol, an Istanbul entrepreneur and the Turkish manager of a network of four radio stations purchased recently by the Canadian media giant CanWest.

"If you break it down, the fundamentalist Islamic movement has maybe 6 to 7 per cent support in Turkey, the same as ever. And yes, so an Islamic-rooted government has been in power for four years. But the fact is they did a fantastic job because they had to represent everyone and not just that tiny percentage," said Akol.

"I think that eventually the political world will see what the entrepreneurial community is seeing. With or without the EU, with or without an Islamic government, Turkey is moving ahead, modernizing, opening its doors and joining the world economy.

"That points to a stable and prosperous future in the long term, no matter what."