Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 205, October 24, 2006
MR. ERDOGAN'S TURKEY - THE THREAT OF ISLAMISM IN TURKEY
By Dr. Michael Rubin
THE THREAT OF ISLAMISM IN TURKEY: ISLAMIST INROADS INTO TURKISH
POLITICS, GOVERNMENT, & PUBLIC POLICY -- EROSION OF DEMOCRACY,
THE RULE OF LAW, CONSTITUTIONALISM & SEPARATION OF GOVERNMENT &
RELIGION IN TURKEY -- HOW INEPT & "POLITICALLY CORRECT" U.S.
DIPLOMACY IS PUTTING AT RISK TURKEY'S FUTURE AS A SECULAR,
WESTERN-ORIENTED NATION-STATE & ALLY OF THE U.S.A.
FULL STORY: Five years into the war on terror, inept U.S.
diplomacy risks undercutting a key ally that President Bush once
called a model for the Muslim world. The future of Turkey as a
secular, Western-oriented state is at risk. Just as in Gaza and
Lebanon, the threat comes from parties using the rhetoric of
democracy to advance distinctly undemocratic and
unconstitutional agendas. Turkey has overcome past challenges
from terrorism and radical Islam; always, its system has
persevered. But now, as Turkish politicians and officials work
to defend the Turkish Constitution, U.S. diplomats interfere to
dismiss Turkish concerns and downplay the Islamist threat.
A crisis has simmered for months, but, earlier this month,
Ankara erupted. On October 1, President Ahmet Necdet Sezer
warned Parliament, "The fundamentalist threat has not changed
its goal to change the basic characteristics of the state." The
next day, as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the
Oval Office, General Yasar Büyükanit, Chief of Turkey's Armed
Forces, warned cadets of growing Islamic fundamentalism and
promised "every measure will be taken against it." Usually such
warnings are enough to keep those transgressing on the
constitutional separation of mosque and state in check.
Enter U.S. Ambassador Ross Wilson. At an October 4 press
conference, he said: "There is nothing that worries me with
regards to Turkey's continuation as a strong, secure, stable,
and secular democracy." He dismissed opposition concern about
the Islamism of Mr. Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development
Party (known in Turkish as the AKP) as "political cacophony."
Wilson's remarks were consistent with those of his State
Department superiors. Last Autumn, Daniel Fried, Assistant
Secretary of State for European Affairs, said "The development
of the AKP into a democratic party . . . has mirrored and
supported the development of Turkish political society as a
whole in a liberal and democratic direction." He described the
AKP as "a kind of Muslim version of a Christian Democratic Party."
Why are so many Turks angry at Washington's dismissal of their
concerns? While Turkish constitutional democrats fight for
change within the Turkish system, Islamists seek to alter the
system itself. This has been the case with the AKP. Over the
party's four-year tenure, Mr. Erdogan has spoken of democracy,
tolerance and liberalism, but waged a slow and steady assault on
the system. He endorsed, for example, the dream of Turkey's
secular elite to enter the European Union, but only to embrace
reforms diluting the checks and balances of military
constitutional enforcement. After the European Court of Human
Rights upheld a ban on headscarves in public schools, he changed
course. "It is wrong that those who have no connection to this
field [of religion] make such a decision . . . without consulting
Islamic scholars," he declared. Then, in May, 2006,
his chief negotiator for accession talks ordered the removal,
from a negotiating paper, of reference to Turkey's educational
system as secular.
The assault on the secular education system has been subtle but
effective. Traditionally, students had three choices: enroll at
religious academies (socalled Imam Hatips) and enter the clergy;
learn a trade at vocational schools; or matriculate at secular
high schools, attend university, and pursue a career. Mr.
Erdogan changed the system: By equating Imam Hatip degrees with
high-school degrees, he enabled Islamist students to enter
university and qualify for government jobs without ever
mastering Western fundamentals. He also sought to bypass checks
and balances. After the Higher Education Board, composed of
university rectors, rejected his demands to make universities
more welcoming of political Islam, the AKP-dominated Parliament
proposed to establish 15 new universities. While Mr. Erdogan
told diplomats his goal was to promote education, Turkish
academics say the move would enable him to handpick rectors and
swamp the Higher Education Board with political henchmen.
Such tactics have become commonplace. At Mr. Erdogan's
insistence and over the objections of many secularists, the AKP
passed legislation to lower the mandatory retirement age of
technocrats. This could mean replacement of nearly 4,000 out of
9,000 judges. Turks are suspicious that the AKP seeks to curtail
judicial independence. In May, 2005, AKP Parliamentary Speaker
Bülent Arinç warned that the AKP might abolish the
Constitutional Court if its judges continued to hamper
parliamentary legislation. Mr. Erdogan's refusal to implement
Supreme Court decisions levied against his government underlines
his contempt for rule of law. Last May, in the heat of the AKP's
anti-judiciary rhetoric, an Islamist lawyer protesting the
headscarf ban shouted "Allahu Akbar," opened fire in the Supreme
Court and murdered a judge. Thousands attended his funeral,
chanting pro-secular slogans. Mr. Erdogan was absent from the
ceremony.
There have been other subtle changes. Mr. Erdogan has replaced
nearly every member of the banking regulatory board with
officials from the Islamic banking sector. Accusations of Saudi
capital subsidizing AKP are rampant. According to Turkish
Central Bank statistics, in the first six months of this year,
the net error -- money entering the Turkish economy for which
regulators cannot account -- has increased almost eightfold,
compared to 2002, the year the AKP came to power. According to
the opposition parliamentary bloc, debt amassed under Mr.
Erdogan's administration is equal to total debt accrued in
Turkey between 1970 and 2000. Erkan Mumcu, a former AKP minister
who now heads the center-right Motherland Party, accused the AKP
in June of interfering in Central Bank operations. Accordingly,
President Bush's Oval Office statement, based on State
Department talking points -- congratulating "the Prime Minister
and his government for the economic reforms that have enabled
the Turkish economy to be strong" -- may have hampered
transparency, if not reform.
In the past year, the AKP anti-secular agenda has grown bolder.
AKP-run municipalities now ban alcohol. Turkish Airlines
recently surveyed employees about their attitudes toward the
Quran. On July 11, Mr. Erdogan publicly vouched for the
sincerity of Yasin al-Qadi, a Saudi financier identified by both
the United Nations and the U.S. Treasury Department as an
al-Qa'ida financier.
When Mr. Erdogan began his political career, he did not hide his
agenda. In September, 1994, while Mayor of Istanbul, he
promised, "We will turn all our schools into Imam Hatips." Two
months later he said, "Thank God Almighty, I am a servant of the
Shariah." In May 1996, he called for a ban on alcohol. In the
months before his dismissal from the Mayoralty, his cynicism was
clear. "Democracy is like a streetcar," he quipped. "You ride it
until you arrive at your destination and then you step off."
Diplomacy should not just accentuate the positive and ignore the
negative. When a country faces an Islamist challenge,
"Politically Correct" platitudes do far more harm than good. At
the very least, U.S. diplomats should never intercede to
preserve the status quo at the expense of democracy,
constitutionalism, and the rule of law. Nor should they even
appear to endorse a political party as an established democracy
enters an election season. It is not good relations with Ankara
that should be the U.S. goal, but rather the triumph of the
democratic and constitutionalist ideas for which Turkey is said
to traditionally stand.
http://www.proconservative.net/PCVol8Is205RubinErdogansTurkey.shtml
..
|
