Last Day June 15, 2007
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This will be my last post from Turkey. I will leave Ankara on this evening for Amsterdam, where I will spend a week with my friend Mike before returning home. It is hard to believe that after ten months in this country, I am now on my way home. While I am looking forward to going home to Canada, it is difficult to say goodbye to the place that has been my home for so long.
I am going to miss this country. Even though there are things about Turkey that irritate me, it is still a home for me. You learn to live with the annoyances and to see past them. After a while those annoyances just become part of the overall experience, neither positive nor negative. It is a complicated feeling that I do not rightly know how to explain.
Yet more than the country, I will miss the friends I have made here. Over the months we had a lot of really good times together. My experience in Turkey will be forever linked with those people, and so returning here surely won’t have the same feeling without those people.
Since this began as a travel blog, I do not intend on updating it while I am at home. However, I will begin updating it again when I return to Cyprus later in the year (September) for my internship. There ought to be plenty of stories to come out of that adventure as well.
Turkish Incursion in Northern Iraq June 9, 2007
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A couple days ago, the Turkish military launch an incursion into northern Iraq, ostensibly to counter increased PKK activity after the bombing in Ankara, and the killing of several Turkish soldiers in Tunceli.
Information about this incident is conspicuously difficult to attain. In the relations between the media and military, it is almost a “don’t ask, don’t tell” relationship. The first I heard of the incursion came from Canada’s Globe and Mail, which reported the effect of the incursion of “several thousand” Turkish troops on the price of oil.
Today’s Zaman reports that military officials first admitted Turkish troops were conducting “limited operations” in northern Iraq, but speculation was immediately turned down by officials who later denied any incursion at all.
It is frustratingly difficult to find information on this, but that is the nature of the military in this country. Information is tightly controlled, and there is no civilian discussion on such issues.
There is criticism of the military’s adventure in northern Iraq, from both inside and out. An editorial in the New York Times argues that, “Turkey’s government needs to know that it will reap nothing but disaster if [an incursion] happens.”
Columnist Abdulhamit Bilici posits a controversial suggestion:
Strangely enough Turkey does not need a foreign enemy or an imperialist power to harm itself. It does so through the hands of its own elite, who are responsible for the economic crises in every five years, the military interventions that destabilize democratic order and the meaningless tension between the state and the people.
At times, I am inclined to agree. Granted the Turkish state faces a real threat from PKK terrorists, this incursion into northern Iraq may cause more harm than good.
Some Reflections June 6, 2007
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Not much time left in Turkey. I leave in less than two weeks. I sit down now trying to recount the last nine months. It feels like just yesterday that I met my host student, Yiğit, in the old terminal of Esenboğa Airport, which has since been replaced by an expanded modern terminal. Construction seems to have been the common theme of my stay in Ankara.
After so long, it is difficult to look back at what I’ve learned since arriving. There have been good times and bad, and while at times I found myself wondering why I came to this country, the totality of my experience has been a good one.
This has no doubt been an interesting year to study in Turkey. Coup revelations, a presidential crisis and military intervention, a terrorist bombing, and so on, have been events I couldn’t possibly experience in Edmonton.
I came to Turkey with a very neutral impression and was ready for the unexpected, lest I suffer some degree of culture shock. Before coming I knew about Atatürk, Islam and Turkey’s troubled relations with the EU, but little beyond that.
Because I am interested in history and politics and follow political developments closely, much of what I saw in Turkey disappointed me. The political developments in this country are often depressing if you believe in the values of human rights and democracy. Before coming I did not fully appreciate the degree to which the military controlled the government and state, nor did I appreciate the degree to which the people acquiesce to a serious democratic and human rights deficit in this country.
So many topics are taboo – sex, the Armenian genocide, Kurdish separatism, and so on. This is changing, thanks in part to the democratizing and liberalizing pressures exerted by the EU accession process. However, there is still hesitation to critically discuss these issues, and there has been an ultranationalist backlash to the EU.
It is useful to recall that Thomas Jefferson once said, “The highest form of patriotism is dissent.” While this means something in the West, it means little here. While I believe that it is possible to love one’s own country while being critical of one’s own government, those in Turkey who believe the same appear to be a minority. To criticize the military is to criticize the state, government, country, and therefore ‘Turkishness’.
I do not propose an orientalist view of Turks as being ‘stupid’ by any means. I do argue, however, that the hegemonic ideas of Kemalism and secularism have framed discourse in this country by defining what is undeniably ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Almost 84 years of state-driven indoctrination and dogma has a tendency of influencing what people think, and it is difficult to think outside those parameters. Seeing this so blatantly in Turkey has made me reconsider what I previously considered to be ‘true’.
Cyprus May 31, 2007
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I returned to Ankara from a weekend trip to Cyprus yesterday afternoon. I did not want to return, but I have exams to write. However with such good food, nice people and beautiful weather there is no doubt that I will return. I don’t have any pictures, unfortunately, because a certain friend of mine ruined my memory card trying to shove it into his computer. All the pictures were lost.
It was good to at last see one of the conflicts that I have been studying for the last couple months. It wasn’t difficult to pass from the Turkish to Greek side thanks to a Canadian passport, but it is still a hassle to get across the Green Line that separates the two sides.
I met some very insightful and intelligent people while there who made me question the skepticism I had about the problem. Personally, I do not believe that the Cyprus problem can be solved with the creation of a single state. However, there are many people there who, understandably, want an inclusive peace and a single state solution. There are many who genuinely believe a unitary state that respects minority rights will one day emerge in Cyprus.
I don’t know if that will happen, or if the conditions even exist for that eventuality. One thing about studying conflict resolution and the ideological foundations behind it is that you become critical to the point of cynicism.
However, I don’t believe one can give up hope for a genuinely peaceful resolution. It may seem naive, but I’m not old enough to lose faith in humanity yet.
Bombing in Ankara May 22, 2007
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A bomb went off in Ankara (Ulus to be exact) this evening. Ulus is a pretty shady neighborhood even during the day, so I was well away from the excitement. NTVMSNBC reports that the type of bomb used was that most commonly used by the PKK. As of this moment, five have died and more than 60 are wounded, though that number is likely to rise as information is released. To the best of my knowledge, no one I know was hurt, thank goodness.
Prayers to the families of the dead. I don’t care what your political position is, but I have nothing but contempt for those who believe they are fit to decide an innocent person’s life is forfeit in pursuit of some cause. There is a level of civility and empathy towards your fellow man that must transcend political cause. I know the Turkish government and military has treated the Kurds rottenly in the past, but is the killing of innocents, on both sides, justified? Apparently there are different interpretations.
Democratic Reforms May 12, 2007
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A few days ago the Turkish parliament passed a constitutional amendment package that would see the president to be directly elected by the people, allow the president to serve two five-year terms rather than one seven-year term, limit MP terms in office from five years to four, and lower the MP age of eligibility to 25 years. After passing through parliament with a two-thirds majority, the question now is whether staunchly secularist President Ahmet Necdet Sezer will veto the amendments.
The package was first proposed by AKP after the Constitutional Court annulled the presidential elections as a way of bypassing opposition. In my opinion, it is a smart move as it undermines the CHP and the secularist elite by going straight to the people for a decision. I stated earlier the mistrust the CHP, bureaucracy, judiciary, and military have for democracy, and their response is rather predictable.
CHP Leader Deniz Baykal said yesterday:
There is no side to this [proposal] that can be taken seriously. This is irresponsibility at its peak. Turkey has 84 years of a republican pillar: Sovereignty belongs to the nation. And that sovereignty is represented in Parliament. Now we will have the nation vote in deputies and the president. This way, two bodies would be representing sovereignty, and the sovereignty of the nation would start to collapse. This will have significant consequences that will have to be accepted. This would create major problems for Turkey.
So…democracy is irresponsible. Very well. I don’t think Baykal had Huntington’s Political Order in Changing Societies in mind when he made that comment. He is probably more concerned that direct democratic elections can’t be manipulated by the favored “dynamic forces” (i.e., the military, judiciary, universitites).
In any event, Sezer has fifteen days to examine the package. We will see what happens in the meantime.
Misconceptions in Turkish Politics May 7, 2007
Posted by cpapuschak in Politics.1 comment so far
I just got back from a weekend trip to Selçuk yesterday. I was able to see my aunt one last time before she made her way to Greece, so that was nice.
A lot has happened since my last post – the Constitutional Court annulled the first presidential election, forcing an early general election, and a second attempt at getting Gül failed, leading to the withdrawal of his presidential candidacy. The AKP also suggested constitutional amendments that would see the president popularly elected and eligible for two five-year terms, rather than one seven-year term. Most of the mainstream media – BBC and Al-Jazeera for example – portrays this row as one between secularists and Islamists for the direction of the Turkish state.
This is a common misconception, even within Turkey. This secularist-Islamist discourse has manipulated the field of debate to the extent that the secularist-Islamist tension serves to cover the deeper tension between two power centers in the country. The Kemalist/secularist elite – the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the military and judiciary – has for years used the discourse as a way of excluding a conservative periphery from political and economic power. The EU accession process and democratization has made it increasingly difficult for the bureaucratic elite at the center to hold onto their power by liberating and emancipating the conservative periphery. While this periphery supports democracy as a means of escaping the hegemony of the authoritarian state, the center worries that democratization would put an end to its power within the system.
Instead of placing faith in democratic institutions, the centrist elite has instead invited “dynamic forces” (the military, judiciary, and universities) to maintain its status within the state apparatus. The common characteristics among these forces are their anti-Western, anti-EU and anti-democracy beliefs. As İhsan Dağı explains,
“They fear the West, Westernization and globalization. They also fear those people in Turkey who do not fear the West, Westernization and globalization.”
It is not simply the “Islamists” who view Westernization with suspicion. Because the Islamists are among the periphery seeking greater democratization, they provide a readily identifiable enemy against which the secularist discourse can be utilized to maintain the power of the central bureaucratic elite. This is done without actually bringing into public debate the real questions and real tensions, and it largely misleads external observers. An article on Today’s Zaman’s website opened by stating that,
“The US failure to criticize the Turkish military’s strongly worded April 27 statement [threatening military intervention]… is widely linked to an accumulated image of Muslim Turkey since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks…which Islamic fundamentalist terrorists assumed responsibility for.”
Crisis Time? April 28, 2007
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Not yet, but the last several days in Turkey have been interesting. The governing AK Party have nominated Foreign Afairs Minister Abdullah Gül to be Turkey’s next president, and the first round of elections occurred yesterday. The other major parties – CHP, ANAVATAN, DYP – all boycotted the election, so there was not the two-thirds majority necessary for Gül to win on the first round. He needs only a simple majority – 276 votes – in the third round to be elected, which is possible because AKP has enough seats.
CHP has insisted, even before Gül was nominated, it will create a constitutional crisis over the matter by questioning the number of MPs necessary for a vote to occur. If the Constitutional Court upholds their claim, it will force an early parliamentary election.
The military, last night, issued a stern warning, stating that:
The Turkish armed forces are against those debates [questioning secularism]… and will display its position and attitudes when it becomes necessary. No one should doubt that.
The military’s warning might aimed at pressuring the Constitutional Court to annul the election results. The EU, today, warned the Turkish armed forces to stay out of democratic politics. The EU Enlargement Commissioner, Olli Rehn, stated that:
It is important that the military leaves the remit of democracy to the democratically elected government and this is a test case if the Turkish armed forces respect democratic secularism and the democratic arrangement of civil-military relations.
To be honest, one gets the impression that it is a test the armed forces are perfectly comfortable failing. Amidst a growing wave of ultranationalism are many military leaders who care more for upholding their precious secularism than the implications of their actions.
Personally, I cannot believe Turkey’s EU accession negotiations are still on track. Ironically, after this debacle, it may be only Gül’s foreign policy skills and contacts that can repair Turkey’s ailing international image.
Crazy Pills April 22, 2007
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It is unfortunate that I can’t report more happy events about puppies and kittens and rainbows in Turkey, but such heartwarming stories are in short supply it seems.
The story of the religiously-motivated murder of three Christians in a publishing house in Malatya last Wednesday – I’m not even going to touch that. That story can be found here.
The center of this story is Nokta, the magazine that last month published a story revealing a confidential military plan for blacklisting journalists, followed by a story with excerpts of the diary of a former admiral detailing two separate coup plans to overthrow the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2004.
After uncovering the alleged coup plans, police raided Nokta’s Istanbul office in a three-day operation last week, and it has been reported that the magazine may be closing under political pressure. As Today’s Zaman reports:
Instead of looking into the alleged coup’s plotters, all retired generals, a prosecutor had chosen to investigate the newsweekly on charges of provoking the people against “military conscription service.”
Currently, the only investigation into the case is based on a complaint launched by the very admiral in question, Adm. Örnek, on charges of “inciting the community to make light of military recruitment”. (Sidenote: I do not mean to offend sensitivities of any Turkish readers, but are you kidding me? That’s a law?)
Commenting on this, Turkish Daily News notes that something is “certainly twisted about the judicial process regarding the Nokta story”. There is also something disconcerting with the silence from the military on this issue. To the best of my knowledge, no one has yet denied the authenticity of the diaries, or the existence of the coup plans.
Granted, while my meager command of the Turkish language limits me more or less to the English newspapers, those papers are liberal-leaning and often critical of the military. And yet, very few columnists are asking these questions (İhsan Dağı may be one).
Attention is being directed away from the more pressing questions of the military’s intentions, especially in light of the upcoming elections. But few people seem to notice. Am I taking crazy pills?
Coup Claim Aftermath April 17, 2007
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All the talk of coups, demonstrations, and elections in the Turkish newspapers lately has me wondering if I’m going to experience my very first coup in May. Unlikely, but it certainly would be interesting. İhsan Dağı, columnist for the English newspaper Today’s Zaman (and coincidentally the instructor of my human rights course at ODTÜ) has been actively engaged in the question lately.
There are a lot of questions that emerge from the alleged coup attempts in 2004, one of them being why the military has been so conspicuously silent on the matter. One possible reason, Dağı suggests, is that:
there is an implicit message that such a line of action is possible, and is even being contemplated nowadays. The silence therefore is designed as a strategy to put pressure on the presidential election process, implying that the military keeps all options, including a coup, open.
It is troubling though, how the investigation into these claims is proceeding. The issue is being investigated by the chief public prosecutor in Ankara, who will then send the file to the chief of general staff and ask for his approval to open the case. That is like asking the wolf to protect the hen-house. The outcome is predictable: nothing.
These alleged coup attempts also call into question Turkey’s European Union accession bid. Accession negotiations are based on the Copenhagen political criteria, setting out conditions including, inter alia, “stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy”. As Dağı asked in class, and in his column:
Can we claim that we have “stability of institutions,” guaranteeing democracy as long as we think, talk and fear a military coup?
The question is if the EU will suspend Turkey’s bid for its obvious inability to adhere to the accession criteria. The EU can be a powerful mechanism for the consolidation of democracy, but only if membership remains available. If the Europeans lose patience and Turkey is shut out, the threat from anti-globalization, anti-Western, ultranationalist, and xenophobic elements becomes very real.
