Turkey: A beginning or an end?

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Before JapanÕs East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, before Òthe winds that swept AfricaÓ, before ÒBandoengÓ, before ÒneocolonialismÓ, before ÒThe Japanese MiracleÓ, before ÒThe Asian TigersÓ, there was ÒTurkeyÓ. For decades the Asian elite looked sympathetically westward to the end of the Continent [ÔAsia MinorÓ to generations of geography students when we were still taught geography].

Because there after 1920 was a great experiment: could the decaying center of the last great Moslem religious empire, rulers of much of Asia and Africa for centuries before European colonialism, turn itself into a modern, secular state?

Abdullah Gul, probably TurkeyÕs next prime minister, has a point when he claims that experiment was fundamentally flawed because of its top-down, authoritarian ethos. Modern TurkeyÕs sainted secularist founder Kemal Attaturk was an ideological Leninist: he knew what was good for his countrymen whether they liked it or not. Thus the Kemalists sought a state capitalist economy replete with government ownership and ÒplanningÓ. Turkey, despite its long Ottoman history of multiethnicity was to be monocultural ø or else. The military, and not Òthe peopleÓ, were the final arbiter of true Kemalism.

Now an era appears to have ended. Not only has a landslide wiped out most traditional Turkish political parties [all but the fossilized Kemalist party itself], but also a party has a majority ø unknown in recent Turkish coalitions ø whose roots lie in Islamism. Its professed reformist goals would transform political wheeling and dealing among increasingly corrupt, mostly secular politicians professing beliefs across the whole political spectrum.

Gull says his AK party is going to prove that a modern Turkish state can be preserved on other than secularist anti-religious dogma. He says a modern state will be maintained with a democratically elected Islamicist government that maintains ÒmodernismÓ. His colleagues have said that an Islamicist party is not more a threat to modernity than the Western European Christian Democratic parties. So often rebuffed, Gull says entering the European Union is a still a goal. He has said highest priority is cooperation with the IMF to bailout the worst economic situation in the postwar period. And concerns like whether Moslem women can wear headscarfs in the state universities [a ghost of the KemalistsÕ war against the veil] are not a priority.

All of this was on the eve of elections, of course, elections that delivered GullÕs AK party a massive victory that no observers predicted and which they did not anticipate. Nor is it yet clear, nor likely to be for some time, what part of the AK victory is the Turkish electorateÕs disgust with the last decadeÕs bankrupt politicians and what are Islamicist leanings. Where is the center of gravity in the new bloated AK? Gull says there is no intention to move to the sharia [Moslem law], the aim of radical Islamicists in Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Algeria, and Egypt. But AKÕs former head, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, charismatic former mayor of Istambul, banned by the military for what they saw as his radical Islamiscism, may very well be the authentic voice of the AK. How far will AK go before/until the secular guardians in the military intervene?

The new Turkish experiment ø for that is now what we have ø is going to be watched with fascination in the West and the East with the possibility of decisive fallout throughout the Umma [the Moslem world]. Europeans never admit that underlying all their public rhetoric about human rights and economic impediments to Turkish entry into the EU is the gut issue of a non øChristian country in the European ÒfamilyÓ [no matter how ironic in a Western European civilization that often considers itself post-Christian]. Nor could Asia and North AfricaÕs 1.5 billion Moslems be oblivious to a successful moderate Islamic political movement ø if that is what the AK turns out to be in the fast-developing Turkish situation. Can AKÕs inexperienced legislators maintain a balance in what has been a [policed and enforced] secular society? Will the hubris of its massive victory not overcome the good sense of its more careful leaders? And, perhaps more important, can AK negotiate its way out of the present economic disaster with its European and American trading partners?

It is axiomatic that TurkeyÕs enthusiastic cooperation ø in order for Washington to use its NATO bases ø is indispensable in any strike against Iraq. And Turkish generals have already publicly expressed reservations. That, apparently, would only be reinforced by a new Turkish government that as Gull has said, "Éwill look for ways to improve relations with Islamic countries.Ó For Washington with current headaches from Pyongyang to Baghdad to Israel to the UN with a volatile post-election Congress, the new Turkish ÒmodelÓ becomes a new and difficult problem demanding subtle strategy and tactics by the Bush Administration.