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As Ankara begins entry
negotiations, attempts are being made to sabotage
its chances
Monday June 12, 2006
When it comes to negotiating the treacherous
faultlines of Turkey's fast road to modernity,
chewing gum and garlic can make a dangerous
cocktail. As Veysel Dalci, a leader of the governing
party of pragmatic Islamists in Ordu on the Black
Sea, stepped up to place a wreath at a monument to
Ataturk - Father of the Turks - on Sovereignty Day,
he was seen chewing gum.
The Turkish prosecution service went into action and
Mr Dalci was charged with the crime of insulting
Mustafa Kemal, better known as Ataturk, a national
hero. Mr Dalci, who was held for 48 hours before
being bailed, is awaiting trial and could face three
years in prison.
A victim of the power struggle between defenders of
the secularist state and the ruling AKP party of
religious conservatives, Mr Dalci initially blamed
his Sovereignty Day ordeal on an excess of grilled
garlic the night before. He needed the gum to clear
his breath. But then he denied chewing gum at all.
An AKP deputy leader, Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat, said:
"How can you arrest someone for this? Let's assume
he was chewing. It's not a crime, though it might be
bad behaviour."
It is a small example of the political turmoil and
violence in Turkey as officials from Ankara are due
to sit down in Luxembourg today with EU foreign
ministers to formally open the negotiations that
Turkey hopes will end in the largely Muslim country
joining Europe.
The run-up to the momentous day has been anything
but smooth. Political violence, assassinations,
ethnic conflict, political trials, and human rights
violations in recent weeks are generating fear and
instability in the country. "There is a fierce and
potentially very bloody struggle going on," said
Soli Ozel, an Istanbul political scientist.
Diplomats, politicians, and analysts believe the
upheaval is being staged by hardline nationalists
aimed at destabilising Turkey, discrediting the AKP
government of the prime minister, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, and shattering its hopes of integration
with Europe.
"The EU reform process has not only been halted,"
said Cengiz Aktar, director of the EU research
centre at Istanbul's Bahcesehir University. "We're
currently going through a counter-reformation."
"The main problem right now in Turkey is the power
struggle between political Islam and the status
quo," said a veteran leftwinger jailed for seven
years in the 1970s and still wary of speaking
publicly.
"Turkey is divided in two and has been ever since
Erdogan came to power. On the one side you have the
forces of political Islam and on the other those of
militant secularism."
The colossal changes driven by Turkey's European
ambitions are, in broad terms, being effected by the
forces of political Islam in the form of the Erdogan
government and his AKP (Justice and Development)
movement.
While the AKP has been the motor of modernisation
since coming to power in 2003, the opposition
secularist elite - strong in the judiciary, the
military, and the bureaucracy - is more reactionary,
nationalist, and "anti-European".
In the battle for the direction of the country, the
nationalists seem to be setting the agenda. "There
appears to be a creeping transfer of power from the
democratically elected government back to the
military and security establishments and their
formal, semi-formal and extra-legal extremities,"
the Oxford academic Kerem Oktem, a Turk, wrote this
month. In recent months maverick security forces
have bombed a Kurdish bookshop, and the country's
best-known writer, Orhan Pamuk, has been put on
trial for talking about the Kurdish conflict and
first world war massacres; the case was later
dismissed.
Last week a prominent columnist appeared in court
for stating that conscientious objection to military
service is a human right. A radical lawyer entered
one of the highest courts in Ankara last month and
shot five senior judges, killing one. In March,
there were large Kurdish riots in the south-east,
which met with killings and tough reprisals from the
security forces. Bombs explode several times a
month.
All of these events may not be directly linked.
Their provenance often remains murky in a country
where rumour and conspiracy theory take precedence
over facts and sober investigation. But they are
fuelling tension and insecurity.
Kemal Kirisci, a Bosphorus University historian,
describes the tension as a contest between the
winners and losers from the process of "Europeanisation".
Whether Kurdish separatist guerrillas, Turkish
nationalist hardliners - or even mainstream European
Christian democrats opposed to Turkey's EU
membership - "they all have a vested interest in
keeping Turkey out [of Europe]. It hurts their own
positions in society".
Mr Kirisci points out that there are plenty of
pro-European reformists in powerful positions in the
military and security services as well as
anti-Europeans within the government ranks. But even
Mr Erdogan's natural opponents credit him with the
strongest track record on liberalisation for
decades.
"I don't vote for him, but I praise him," Mr Kirisci
said.
The former detainee said: "I'm a leftist atheist,
he's a rightwing Islamist. Yet I still say he's the
best prime minister for the country."
General elections are due by the end of next year
and a new head of state, chosen by parliament, is to
be elected a year from now. The presidential
election, in particular, is hugely divisive and said
to be the main reason for the turbulence. Mr Erdogan
enjoys a huge majority, almost two-thirds, in the
550-seat parliament.
The presidency is his for the taking, should he so
choose. It is also a secularist bastion and its
defenders are determined it remain so.
"All these troubles, it is all about the
presidency," Mr Ozel said. "The presidency is the
last castle that could fall from the established
elite to the AKP."
An AKP baron and parliamentary speaker, Bulent Arinc,
is calling for Turkey's constitutionally enshrined
secularism to be redefined. Mr Erdogan's
establishment opponents are appalled. They also
suspect the prime minister's pro-Europe reforms are
double-edged, that he is using Europe to undermine
the traditional pillars of the Turkish state, for
example the military, while stealthily leading
Turkey on a long trek to being an Islamic state.
Mr Erdogan has been backing down in the face of the
warnings, while also increasingly resorting to
conservative religious populism to shore up his
power base.
In advance of today's negotiations in Luxembourg,
Brussels has warned that the early reformist
dynamism of the Erdogan government is going into
reverse. Last week, Turkey's powerful business lobby
told the prime minister that he was too concerned
with religion and no longer interested in urgently
needed reforms.
"Stability in this country is directly linked to the
anchor of the EU perspective," Mr Aktar said. "But
things may yet get worse before they get better."
Footnotes
Ataturk
Mustafa Kemal, known as Ataturk, was a junior army
officer who became the founder and first president
of the Turkish republic after the collapse of the
Ottoman empire. He transformed Turkey into a modern
secular state.
Sovereignty Day
Celebrated on April 23, Sovereignty Day commemorates
the opening of the first Turkish national assembly
in 1920.
AKP
The AKP (Justice and Development) movement was
formed in 2001 from ruins of previously banned
Islamist parties, but leaders describe themselves as
moderates and "conservative democrats". Opponents
have accused it of hiding an Islamist agenda and
plotting to undermine Turkey's secular democracy.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
A former mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan led the AKP to
victory in 2002 elections, but was barred from
becoming prime minister because of a conviction for
inciting religious hatred. After his party forced
through a constitutional amendment allowing him to
stand for parliament, Mr Erdogan became PM in March
2003.
Kurdish conflict
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Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
Turkey's war with its repressed minority of Kurds
has lasted for decades. The current conflict erupted
in 1984, when Abdullah Ocalan, guerrilla leader of
the Kurdistan Workers' party, led the rebellion. It
has claimed 40,000 lives.
First world war massacres |
Related issue:
Armenian Genocide by Turkish Muslims against
Christians
Turkey faces international pressure to recognise
that more than 1 million Armenians were massacred
during a 1915 campaign of ethnic cleansing by
Ottoman Turks. Turkish officials claim that most
deaths were caused by hunger and disease.
guardian co.uk
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