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The Struggle For Turkey's Soul

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  • The Struggle For Turkey's Soul

    THE STRUGGLE FOR TURKEY'S SOUL
    by Austin Bay

    Strategy Page
    http://www.strategypage.com/on_point/20100302 22414.aspx
    March 3 2010

    Over the last two weeks, the Turkish police have detained and
    interrogated several dozen retired military officers allegedly involved
    in plotting an intricate coup d'etat.

    The government, led by the "moderate Islamist" Justice and Development
    Party (AKP), has cause for concern. The Turkish military has toppled
    elected governments four times since 1960. The European Union has made
    continued civilian rule a key requirement for Turkey's admission to
    the EU.

    Though the alleged coup was planned in 2003, the current situation is
    quite serious. The Turkish press reports that Turkish Prime Minister
    Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug
    have held intense discussions where they have addressed the arrests
    and the evidence.

    This domestic Turkish confrontation involves much more than a classic
    "military junta versus civilian rule" media template, however. Turkish
    law tasks the Turkish military with defending Turkey's secular state
    and the secular reforms of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic
    of Turkey. The spring 2010 crisis in Ankara reflects what historians
    have dubbed "the struggle for Turkey's soul" and a long-term battle
    for the terms of modernity.

    Turkey's journey since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 has
    been remarkable. By the mid&S209;1920s, after a bloody war with Greece
    (in Anatolia, Thrace and Ionia) and an extended military and political
    confrontation with French, British and Italian occupiers, nationalist
    forces led by Ataturk regained control of the Turkish heartland. The
    "Kemalist" Republic, using the armed forces as a source of stability,
    focused on internal Turkish development -- and the once "Sick Man of
    Europe" became the Quiet Man of Europe.

    Under Ataturk, the Ottoman's Islamic superpower of four and a
    half centuries embarked on a mission into "modernity" -- a secular
    government, Latin written script, women's rights, public education
    and a careful program of industrial modernization. A cornerstone of
    the Turkish Republic was "non-recidivism": Turkey made no claims on
    lost territory.

    As the 21st century begins, Turkey has emerged as a regional
    super-power of military, social, political and economic import. It
    maintains the second-largest army directly committed to NATO.

    Turkey, however, remains in the middle of a hot political crucible.

    Iran is a neighbor and a major competitor. Turkey also faces
    other troubles: a bleeding Kurdish insurgency in its southeastern
    provinces that extends into Iraqi Kurdistan; conflict with Greece,
    over Cyprus and the Aegean; resentment in the Balkans; lingering
    claims of Ottoman-directed genocide by Armenians; and hard-left
    radical terrorists (a Cold War hangover).

    Turkey's membership negotiations with the EU often sound more like
    divorce proceedings than marriage arrangements, but today's tough
    rhetoric bests the war-littered past. For eight centuries, Turks and
    Europeans battled in the Balkans and Mediterranean.

    Yet Turkey has spent the last eight decades edging toward Europe,
    politically, economically and culturally. Kemalists (Turks who favor
    strong secular, nationalist institutions) believe Turkey is the
    "bridge nation" demonstrating the path to genuine modernization for
    other predominantly Muslim nations.

    Then in 2002 the AKP, a party with Islamist roots, came to power.

    There were reasons. Corruption and cronyism ripped the secular
    parties. Some secularist politicians had played their own versions
    of "the Muslim card" (appeals to conservative Muslim sectarian
    sympathies).

    The AKP challenges the Kemalist model. The Kemalists reject the
    "re-Islamization" of Turkey and see the AKP-led governments as the
    slippery slope to Muslim fundamentalist control (referred to as
    "religious reaction").

    In his book "The Kemalists," Turkish journalist Muammer Kaylan (former
    editor of the influential newspaper Hurriyet and a Reuters reporter)
    illustrates how the AKP uses EU membership requirements to strengthen
    its position. Reforms required for EU membership are "the Islamists
    dream ... come true to expand their powerbase. The generals, however,
    regarded some of the (EU) reforms ... as potential weapons to subvert
    the state. They feared that these reforms could change the state's
    ideology based on the Kemalist reforms and weaken their role as the
    guardians against separatist and fundamentalist movements."

    Over the next two decades, the struggle for Turkey's soul will continue
    to be Turkey's most important domestic political clash. It may also
    be the region's most important strategic battle.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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