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BEING ANGRY IS NOT A STRATEGY
JOOST LAGENDIJK
Today's Zaman
Dec 27 2011
Turkey
It seems as if the decision by the French parliament to criminalize
the denial of the Armenian genocide has had a liberating and at the
same time alarming effect on members of the Turkish government. It
has removed all constraints that are normally imposed on responsible
politicians by dignity, reason or coolheaded calculation.
Don't get me wrong. As I wrote last week, there are several good
reasons to be unhappy and frustrated about last week's decision:
Politicians acted like historians and put restrictions on freedom
of expression that every democrat should oppose. But the reactions
that came bursting out of Ankara immediately after the vote went far
beyond those appropriate points of criticism.
Let me give you three examples. In an effort to give France a taste
of its own medicine, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the
French state of being guilty of genocide on the Algerians during the
last decades of French colonial rule in North Africa. I could not
believe my eyes when I read about this allegation. Not because the
French are innocent. They are not. Horrible crimes were committed
by the French army in Algeria in the 1950s and early 1960s. But why
didn't any of Erdogan's advisers tell the prime minister that by
coming up with this charge, he was doing exactly the same thing that
the French parliament had just done: instrumentalizing the history
of another country for domestic political purposes.
A second example of the implausible reactions by the Turkish Cabinet
was given by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. He set his academic
professionalism and logic thinking aside when he tried to explain
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's support for the genocide denial
bill by saying that the French president is envious of the Turkish
successes in North Africa. According to the foreign minister, acting
as an amateur psychologist, Sarkozy is probably sorry for the support
he gave to the Tunisian and Egyptian autocratic leaders in the past,
and that is why he is so frustrated about Turkey's newfound appeal
in the region. I wish Davutoglu was right about the presumed French
remorse. But it does not convince anybody outside of Ankara if the
analysis comes from the representative of a government that, until very
recently, had no problem whatsoever in maintaining cordial relations
with Libyan dictator Col. Muammar Gaddafi and Syrian mass murderer
Bashar al-Assad. Of course, there may have been good reasons to do
so, for instance, to promote Turkish trade and investments, or to
gradually moderate the extremist policies of Turkey's counterparts.
But being so keen yourself on defending the interests of the Turkish
state abroad, it sounds slightly insincere to accuse your French
colleagues of having done the same somewhere else, doesn't it?
Finally, there was Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan, usually
an example of level-headedness and honest analysis. He linked the
decision of the French parliament to the further economic decline of
Europe. According to Turkey's economy supremo, the mentality behind
last week's vote was the same as the reasoning behind the recent
efforts to save the euro. According to Babacan, both are doomed to
fail. Excuse me? One can criticize the outcome of the last EU summit
in Brussels on many points, for instance, of being too little and too
late. But I fail to understand how the complicated process of trying
to assure skeptical financial markets and European citizens that
one European currency does make sense is in any way connected to the
petty provincial political games that were played out in the French
national assembly. Such a comparison simply does not make sense at all.
All three reactions are examples of lashing out based on sheer
frustration. Not a foreign policy that befits a country that aspires
to be a regional model and a global player. I am afraid Turkey is in
the process of burning bridges that it might need one day. To mention
only one: Does refusing French cooperation in solving the Syrian crisis
really benefit Turkey? Or does it make things even more complicated
than they already are? More than any other European country, France
still has a lot of contacts and interest in Syria and is willing to
cooperate with Turkey to get rid of Assad. Eliminating that option
because you are angry and because you think you can do it all by
yourself is not even a risky strategy. It is no strategy.
From: A. Papazian
JOOST LAGENDIJK
Today's Zaman
Dec 27 2011
Turkey
It seems as if the decision by the French parliament to criminalize
the denial of the Armenian genocide has had a liberating and at the
same time alarming effect on members of the Turkish government. It
has removed all constraints that are normally imposed on responsible
politicians by dignity, reason or coolheaded calculation.
Don't get me wrong. As I wrote last week, there are several good
reasons to be unhappy and frustrated about last week's decision:
Politicians acted like historians and put restrictions on freedom
of expression that every democrat should oppose. But the reactions
that came bursting out of Ankara immediately after the vote went far
beyond those appropriate points of criticism.
Let me give you three examples. In an effort to give France a taste
of its own medicine, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the
French state of being guilty of genocide on the Algerians during the
last decades of French colonial rule in North Africa. I could not
believe my eyes when I read about this allegation. Not because the
French are innocent. They are not. Horrible crimes were committed
by the French army in Algeria in the 1950s and early 1960s. But why
didn't any of Erdogan's advisers tell the prime minister that by
coming up with this charge, he was doing exactly the same thing that
the French parliament had just done: instrumentalizing the history
of another country for domestic political purposes.
A second example of the implausible reactions by the Turkish Cabinet
was given by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. He set his academic
professionalism and logic thinking aside when he tried to explain
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's support for the genocide denial
bill by saying that the French president is envious of the Turkish
successes in North Africa. According to the foreign minister, acting
as an amateur psychologist, Sarkozy is probably sorry for the support
he gave to the Tunisian and Egyptian autocratic leaders in the past,
and that is why he is so frustrated about Turkey's newfound appeal
in the region. I wish Davutoglu was right about the presumed French
remorse. But it does not convince anybody outside of Ankara if the
analysis comes from the representative of a government that, until very
recently, had no problem whatsoever in maintaining cordial relations
with Libyan dictator Col. Muammar Gaddafi and Syrian mass murderer
Bashar al-Assad. Of course, there may have been good reasons to do
so, for instance, to promote Turkish trade and investments, or to
gradually moderate the extremist policies of Turkey's counterparts.
But being so keen yourself on defending the interests of the Turkish
state abroad, it sounds slightly insincere to accuse your French
colleagues of having done the same somewhere else, doesn't it?
Finally, there was Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan, usually
an example of level-headedness and honest analysis. He linked the
decision of the French parliament to the further economic decline of
Europe. According to Turkey's economy supremo, the mentality behind
last week's vote was the same as the reasoning behind the recent
efforts to save the euro. According to Babacan, both are doomed to
fail. Excuse me? One can criticize the outcome of the last EU summit
in Brussels on many points, for instance, of being too little and too
late. But I fail to understand how the complicated process of trying
to assure skeptical financial markets and European citizens that
one European currency does make sense is in any way connected to the
petty provincial political games that were played out in the French
national assembly. Such a comparison simply does not make sense at all.
All three reactions are examples of lashing out based on sheer
frustration. Not a foreign policy that befits a country that aspires
to be a regional model and a global player. I am afraid Turkey is in
the process of burning bridges that it might need one day. To mention
only one: Does refusing French cooperation in solving the Syrian crisis
really benefit Turkey? Or does it make things even more complicated
than they already are? More than any other European country, France
still has a lot of contacts and interest in Syria and is willing to
cooperate with Turkey to get rid of Assad. Eliminating that option
because you are angry and because you think you can do it all by
yourself is not even a risky strategy. It is no strategy.
From: A. Papazian