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November 15, 2002
Turkish Elections in Historical Perspective
Turkish elections held on November 3, 2002, have given 363 of the 550 seats, more than a comfortable majority, to the Islamic, right-wing Justice and Development Party - known by the Turkish initials AKP. This will be the first single party to form government in 15 years.
This choice of the electorate marked the decisive rejection of the old Turkish political elite generally regarded as corrupt, self-serving and, above all, responsible for dragging the country into its worst economic crisis since World War II. Hence, all the three parties in the outgoing coalition have been clearly consigned to oblivion, as none of them could get a seat in the Parliament.
Turkey, which straddles Europe and Asia, has looked to the West since it was founded in 1923 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. AKP’s charismatic leader, Tayyip Erdogan, assured his people that the top priority of the new government would be to persuade the European Union to accept Turkey as a member. He is sending envoys to European capitals to deal with the EU reservations on Turkey’s human rights record, as also the concerns about admitting a Muslim nation to what some call a “Christian Club”. Ironically, the EU has asked several East European countries to apply for membership, but has remained unsympathetic to the long pending request of Turkey.
To have a clearer comprehension of the predicament of Turkey, one has to take into account the tussle between the secular forces led by the army goading it towards the West and the conservative, religious factions looking to their glorious past and underlining the need for closer ties with the neighboring Muslim countries and for the retention of the nation’s Islamic complexion.
Women, the custodians of a society’s cultural traditions as well as the trendsetters for the future, portray this conflict through the way they dress. In the urban centers, one finds most women in tight, form-fitting, figure-revealing, dresses. But, even in these centers, one notices a liberal sprinkling of women who cover their heads and shoulders with scarves (hijab) and don up-to-the ankle loose attires.
The new government is likely to lift early the current restrictions on the use of ‘hijab’ in educational institutions, offices, and Parliament.
Thirty-seven years back when I lived in Turkey on an assignment, I had not seen so many women wearing ‘hijab’. The current phase is perhaps a silent protest, an expression of distaste, against the immodesty in recent times of the ultra-modern breed and official interference in a person’s choice of attire.
This split between the conservatives and the liberals is nothing new in modern democratic societies. Most of them are divided on those very lines. But, in the case of Turkey, the rift is more fundamental and is so embedded in the country’s geography and history that it clogs the operation of Hegelian dialectics of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis.
The Turks of even the Ottoman period had always their sights towards Europe and their Western border extended up to Vienna in the sixteenth century during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent. Modern day Turkey has only a 3 per cent of its territory in Europe. Yet, geography has placed it crucially as the bridge between the East and West. Geography has also put it next door to Iran that went through an Islamic revolution only two decades back. The anti-Islamic utterances of Christian priests on the pretext of promoting anti-terrorism sentiments, have had their adverse effects.
Turkey is in the vicinity of the Central Asian Islamic republics which gained their independence, not long ago, from Russian domination. These erstwhile Turkish territories, where Turkish or its dialects are still spoken, have become partners of Turkey in ECO - the Economic Cooperation Organization, which was founded a few years back by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey to replace RCD.
Turkey already has over 400 agreements with these Central Asian republics. Turkish private firms have invested in the region over $6.5 billion. Geography is thus exercising a strong pull towards the country’s Asian neighbors - all of them Muslim.
As for history, the Turks can undoubtedly be proud of it. The Ottoman Empire (1299-1923) held sway over the present-day Turkey and vast areas in Asia, Africa and Europe, for 624 years. At its apex during the rule of Suleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566) its borders extended from the Crimea in the North to Yemen and Sudan in the South, and from Iran and the Caspian Sea in the East to Vienna in the Northwest and Spain in the Southwest.
The masterly monuments left behind by the Turks in Anatolia, South Asia, North Africa and in Spain pay abiding tributes to their building genius. The institutions set up by the Turks for the maintenance of law and order in such a vast empire, for the collection of revenues, administration of justice and for the defense of the country have been underlined by historians. The Ottomans created the first standing army in Europe, the janissaries, in the middle of the 14th century.
The institution of the Slave Dynasty in India that enabled slave after slave to become the king, in preference to inheritance by birth, has perhaps no parallel in history in merit prevailing over pedigree.
The pull of such a rich and exemplary history is bound to be felt by the present-day Turks.
Muslim intellectual stagnation began in the 18th century largely because of the obscurantism of the mullahs who opposed every new idea even if it had little to do with religion. Europe, on the other hand, was undergoing an intellectual revolution. The concept of nation-state and the process of decision making through debate and discussion had replaced monarchies. Successive Sultans, seeing the writing on the wall, tried to introduce reforms in their system, but the orthodox and reactionary elements sabotaged all such moves. They opposed the codification of laws, use of printing presses, study of natural sciences and even the construction of an observatory.
The downward slide continued till the Sultan was made to sign the humiliating Treaty of Sevres in May 1920 after the WWI defeat. That was unacceptable to the Turkish troops who kept fighting the European powers as they could easily foresee the intentions of the Europeans to divide among themselves all Turkish territories and put an end to the Turkish state. It was at this point that the Indian Muslims launched the Khilafat movement to pressure the British to abandon their nefarious design. It did have its effect.
More important were the legendary victories against all odds of the Turkish forces led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He was the only Muslim hero of that time who refused to accept the subservience of the West. The ensuing Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 acknowledged Turkey as a fully sovereign, independent state in the territory that constitutes till now as modern Turkey.
Ataturk abolished Khilafat, got rid of the mullahs being fed up of their obduracy, the Sufi orders, Islamic courts, religious schools, fez (symbolic headgear of Muslims), women’s veil, polygamy, and the treatment of women as inferiors. He had a Western-style constitution and secular law codes adopted. By 1928, Islam was no longer the state religion. Turkey has continued since then as a secular state. The people, 99% Muslim, are deeply religious. Mosques overflow with worshippers particularly during Friday congregations.
No doubt, Ataturk and his followers tried to affect a complete break with the Ottoman past and to bring Turkey within the cultural orbit of Europe. Almost 80 years have passed since the advent of Kemalist Turkey. The Republic is a member of NATO, has been accepted into the European Customs Union and is a candidate for the membership of the European Union.
Historically, they have had an adversary relationship with Europe for centuries. Turkey’s rise or fall has been in an inverse proportion to that of Europe. Both sides are now fortunately committed to a policy of cooperation rather than that of confrontation.
Nevertheless, the current divergent internal pressures on Turkey are likely to keep it, at least in the foreseeable future, in the cleft of a cultural conflict. The outcome of the November 3 elections does not constitute a synthesis and a resolution of the basic dichotomy but just its current phase.
(The writer may be reached by e-mail at: arifhussaini@hotmail.com or by phone at 714-921-9634)
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