Some other countries have a fair degree of cultural homogeneity but are divided over whether their society belongs to one civilization or another. Their leaders typically wish to pursue a bandwagoning strategy and to make their countries members of the West, but the history, culture and traditions of their countries are non-Western. The most obvious and prototypical torn country is Turkey. The late twentieth century leaders of Turkey have followed in the Ataturk tradition… At the same time, elements in Turkish society have supported an Islamic revival… Having rejected Mecca, and then being rejected by Brussels, where does Turkey look?  

- Samuel Huntington¹

The victory of the pro-Islamist Justice and Development party (AKP) in Turkey has generated a great deal of controversy in the Western media. The party won 34% of the vote, and hence was able to control 363 parliamentary seats (out of 550). The victory of the AKP was the first time in 15 years that any party has been in a position to govern alone in Turkey. Voters were fed up with splintered and ineffectual secular parties, a devastated economy, and a government that was largely perceived as corrupt and incompetent.² Consequently, incumbent Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit brought his political career to an end when he offered his resignation a day after his party won just 1% of the vote.

The AKP was founded by veterans of the religious movement, organized at first as the Welfare Party, and later the Virtue Party. Both of the earlier parties were eventually banned for violating Turkey’s secular constitution, and several of its leaders were jailed for “Islamic sedition.”³ The program of the AKP involves defending the right of religious women to wear a veil and headscarf, a practice currently banned in state schools and universities, government offices, parliament and state broadcasting.⁴ Their agenda also advocates the right of local Muslim congregations to appoint imams to mosques.

Although Erdogan leads the AKP, he was banned from standing as a candidate because of a jail sentence he served in 1999 for publicly reading a poem that a court deemed anti-secular. According to the Turkish constitution, Erdogan could not assume the position of prime minister due to that prior conviction.⁵ Another controversial issue that has been raised is whether a prime minister’s wife could appear in public dressed in a veil – a symbol of Islamic fundamentalism and disdain of the Turkish secular system, according to the influential Kemalist elites.⁶ It is known that Erdogan’s wife is veiled, and most of his party leaders are conservative Muslims with veiled wives.

The AKP’s victory is bound to worry Turkey’s powerful and staunchly secular military, which in the past was able to force the pro-Islamic government of Necmettin Erbakan from power. Erdogan stressed that his party did not seek confrontation: “At every opportunity, I have said that we are not a party based on religion… No one can call us a religious party or a party based on religion.”⁷ In addition, Erdogan vowed not to interfere with the “lifestyle” of Turks. However, as a mayor of Istanbul in the mid-1990s, he banned alcohol from municipal restaurants.⁸

The vote came at a critical time, as the United States sought to showcase Turkey as an example of a secular country that is overwhelmingly Muslim but has cast its future with the West. More important yet is the prospect of a US strike on Iraq, and the fact that Turkey hosts US warplanes at its southern Incirlik air base – a major staging point for attacks on Iraq during the Gulf War. Turkey’s support would thus be crucial for any US military strike.

Another important point is Turkey’s relations with both the EU and Israel. In addition, Turkey has been bolstering its presence as a major part of the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. This comes at a time when Pakistan - another pivotal Islamic state for current US strategy - has witnessed impressive gains made by the coalition of Pakistani Islamist groups, the Muttahida Majlis-I-Amal (MMA). There, despite strict government control of their activities, Islamists there won approximately one third of the seats in the Pakistani National Assembly, a definitive majority in Sarhad (Northwest Frontier Province – on the border of Afghanistan), and a majority of seats in the southwestern province of Baluchistan. In addition, Islamist parties made significant gains in Bahrain and Morocco. Those election results demonstrate that Islamism has, once again, become the language of opposition to the current order.

The Paradox of Elitist Kemalism

In many ways, the Islamic revival that Turkey has witnessed since the beginning of the 1990s is a replay of earlier confrontations that took place, in the formative period of Turkey’s history, on what kind of state Turkey should have. The founders of the state and the bureaucratic-military elite that succeeded them envisioned a controlled-linear course for Turkish development. Ataturk defined the course of this development “as a race to catch up with the West and become part of ‘contemporary civilization’.”⁹

Turkey embodies an irreconcilable paradox established during the foundation of the Republic in the 1920s. On one hand, the state used Islam to unify diverse ethno-linguistic groups; on the other, it defined its “progressive civilizing” ideology in opposition to Islam.¹⁰ For example, the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) stressed that Islam was the common religion of both Turks and Kurds, and referred to non-Muslims as a “minority.”¹¹ At the same time, Ataturk’s “reforms” established an authoritarian one-party state, abolished the caliphate, eliminated the constitutional designation of Islam as the state religion, changed the script for Turkish from Arabic to Latin, closed Islamic schools of learning, banned Sufi brotherhoods and Islamic headgear, and put Islamic clerics strictly under the control of the state, while ending their control of education and religious endowments, a major source of independent wealth.¹² Despite the West’s deafening calls for the respect of human rights and freedom of choice, the dictatorial practices of Ataturk and his followers were welcomed by most in the West, governments and academia alike. The brutality of Ataturk – the so-called “enlightened modernizer,” as many in the West referred to him – can be witnessed in this account:

Tailored to one-man rule, the resultant party-state had no place for a loyal opposition, for accountability, for free association, for civil rights, or indeed for any of the essentials of democracy. Whoever stood in Mustapha Kemal’s way was murdered, either secretly or through scandalous judicial fixes; the victims included several rivals, Communists, Kurds agitating for a state of their own, Greeks and Armenians, mullahs who persisted in old-style Islam, and even unfortunate wretches who had joined in riots against wearing those compulsory hats.¹³

The so-called Kemalist “modernization effort” was elitist, state driven, and alien to the general population, especially the rural one.¹⁴ Religion, a central element of the previous Ottoman legitimization process, was discarded by the new Kemalist elite. Islam had offered a shared means of communication between the upper and lower classes in Turkish society. However, given the Kemalist “reforms,” a break in communication occurred between the elite bureaucracy and military, on one hand, and the general population, on the other.¹⁵

Despite the fact that Turkey became a multi-party “democracy” after World War II, there are several aspects of its socio-political system that are a cause of constant tension. At the core of the contemporary crisis in Turkey lie three socio-political aspects of Kemalism: 1) Its uncritical modernization ideology prevents open discussion that would lead to a new and inclusive social contract that recognizes the cultural diversity of Turkey; 2) It does not tolerate the articulation of different identities and lifestyles in the public sphere, since they undermine the Kemalist vision of “ideal” society; 3) It treats politics as a process of guided development and engineering of a new society.¹⁶ As a result, Kemalists do not see political differences as integral to democracy, but rather treat them as sources of instability and threats to national unity.¹⁷

Before the emergence of the Ataturk revolution, the Ottoman Empire was the world’s leading Islamic state, and its ruler, the sultan, was widely recognized as Caliph of the Islamic world. Ataturk and his followers tried to forcibly disassociate Islam from the public sphere and to de-Islamize Turkish culture.¹⁸ In order to subordinate religion to the political establishment, as was done in the Communist Eastern bloc, the new Kemalist Republic created its own version of Islam by establishing the Directorate of Religious Affairs, with a budget exceeding that of five combined ministries.¹⁹ The state controlled all 80,000 mosques in Turkey and employed the imams as state functionaries. Any form of Islamic dissent was not tolerated.

However, by the end of the twentieth century, there has been a counterrevolution in Turkish politics as a result of increasing religious consciousness, bringing Islam back to the fore as a political movement.²⁰ Islamic activism in Turkey is becoming a voice for the powerless against a totalitarian Kemalist elite manifested in the military, business society, media, and bureaucracy.²¹

The Role of the Military

The military is considered the final arbiter when it comes to enforcing the Kemalist vision. Few major decisions are implemented in Turkish foreign or security policy without the military’s concurrence. Perhaps one of the lessons of the latest election’s results was that Turkish civil society has become increasingly strident in its demands for systemic change and a reduction of the military’s role in politics. Even Turkish President Ahmed Necdet Sezer acknowledged the need for constitutional reform and the need to transform Turkey’s concept of governance from one in which people serve the state to one in which the state serves the people.²²

The military sees itself as the guardian of the secular constitution and the republic’s Ataturkist pro-Western heritage.²³ In the formal sense, the military exercises its influence through a constitutionally mandated body called the National Security Council (NSC). It consists of the top five military and top five civilian leaders. Despite being merely an advisory body, all important security and foreign policy issues are discussed and decided upon, and its decisions are rarely overruled.²⁴ More importantly, the military intervened three times – in 1960, 1971, and 1980 – to bring down elected governments, due to what it saw as paralyzed parliamentary politics, fractionalization, and lack of order. In the most drastic action of all, following the 1960 coup, the prime minister, foreign minister, and finance minister were tried on dubious charges and executed.²⁵

Another significant military intervention occurred after Islamist Welfare Party leader Necmettin Erbakan became prime minister in 1996. The military engaged in a media campaign against Erbakan, flooding the Turkish public with declarations of its uncompromising commitment to secularism. In February 1997, the NSC, as a military initiative, demanded the implementation of 18 measures intended to minimize Islamist influence in politics, government, and society.²⁶ The centerpieces of these demands were a call to abolish increasingly popular religious junior high schools and halting the recruitment of Islamists into government jobs.²⁷

In terms of foreign and military policy, the military considers fundamental: the secular structure of the state, respect for Ataturk, and relationships with the United States, NATO, and Israel (from 1949 to 1979, Turkey was the only Muslim country to recognize Israel).²⁸ Contrary to the military’s wishes, Erbakan’s first visit was to Tehran, where he signed a long-term agreement worth $23 billion to buy natural gas from Iran – days after President Clinton had signed a law that penalizes non-US companies which invest in the oil and gas industries of Iran and Libya.²⁹

Nevertheless, due to military pressures, Erbakan was forced to sign agreements with Israel and renew Operation Provide Comfort, the military campaign against Iraq to prevent attacks against Kurds – two aspects which run counter to the party’s cherished principles.³⁰ Although Erbakan tried to hold out, his government finally collapsed under the pressure of the military’s campaign against the Islamists, and on 18 June 1997 the government was replaced by an all-new secular government. Moreover, in January 1998, the Constitutional Court bowed to the wishes of the military and shut down the Welfare Party. In its decision, the court argued that Ataturk’s legacy involved not only a separation between religion and politics, but also a necessary division between religion and society.³¹

The above instance illustrates the uncompromising efforts by the military and the Kemalists to use any means at their disposal at any cost to maintain their dominance. More importantly, it reflects increasing uneasiness in the ranks of the military at the Islamist rumblings of Turkish civil society. The military also worked to benefit the media and business cartels that benefited from the privatization of state-owned companies. The Islamist Welfare Party was the only popular force to resist the selling of state enterprises.³² It remains to be seen how the recently elected AKP will manage its relations with the ardent Kemalists and their military, business and media protégées.

Conclusions

It is observable that political Islam remains one of the most potent forces on the Middle Eastern scene. From Morocco to Pakistan, Islamist parties have done considerably well in rallying the public behind their cause, despite a domestic and international environment that is extremely hostile to their presence. Almost 20 years after the Islamic revolution in Iran, political Islam is a far from spent force in the internal politics of Muslim countries.³³ The victory of a party with Islamist roots for the second time in only a few years in Turkey – a country regarded as a bastion of secularism in the Middle East – is indicative of this.

It is, however, very premature and highly speculative to predict the exact course that Turkish domestic and foreign policy will take under the leadership of the AKP, and whether some change, if any, in Turkish behavior should be expected. Nevertheless, it is imperative that one understand the dilemmas and tensions of Turkey’s domestic politics, and how they might reflect upon its foreign policy. So far, Erdogan has tried to avoid confrontation, reassuring skeptical critics both at home and abroad that Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy will not be altered. For the time being, those assurances might be acceptable, but after all the initial diplomatic gestures are over, it remains to be seen which way the Turkish political pendulum will swing.

Kareem M. Kamel is an Egyptian freelance writer based in Cairo, Egypt. He has an MA in International Relations and is specialized in security studies, decision-making, nuclear politics, Middle East politics and the politics of Islam. He is currently assistant to the Political Science Department at the American University in Cairo.

1- Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations: The Next Pattern of Conflict,” Foreign Affairs 72 (Summer 1993).

2- Stephan Faris, “Decision Time in Turkey,” Time.com November 3^rd, 2002

3- Karl Vick, “Party Tied to Islam Wins Big In Turkey,” Washington Post November 4^th, 2002: A01.

4- Andrew West, “Islam Makes Political Push in Turkey,” Christian Science Monitor June 5^th, 2002

5- “The Veil of the Prime Minister’s Wife Causes Controversy in Turkey,”  (in Arabic) 8^th November, 2002, Al Jazeera

6- Ibid.

7- “Turkey Faces Tests After Election,” MSNBC.com November 4^th, 2002

8- Karl Vick, “Party Tied to Islam Wins Big In Turkey,” Washington Post November 4^th, 2002: A01.

9- Henry J. Barkey, “The Struggles of a ‘Strong’ State,” Journal of International Affairs 54 (Fall 2000)

10- M. Hakan Yavuz, “Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere,” Journal of International Affairs 54 (Fall 2000)

11- Ibid.

12- Alan O. Makovsky, “Turkey” in Paul Kennedy, et. al. Pivotal States and US Strategy (Washington D.C: Brookings Institute, 1999): 88-119

13- David Pryce-Jones, book review of Andrew Mango, The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey, July 2000

14- Henry J. Barkey, “The Struggles of a ‘Strong’ State,” Journal of International Affairs 54 (Fall 2000)

15- Ibid.

16- M. Hakan Yavuz, “Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere,” Journal of International Affairs 54 (Fall 2000)

17- Ibid.

18- Alan O. Makovsky, “Turkey” in Paul Kennedy, et. al. Pivotal States and US Strategy (Washington D.C: Brookings Institute, 1999): 88-119.

19- M. Hakan Yavuz, “Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere,” Journal of International Affairs 54 (Fall 2000)

20- Ibid.

21- Ibid.

22- Jon Gorvett, “The EU Watches as Turkey’s Military, Banned Islamists and Emerging Civil Society Vie For the Future,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs 19 (August 2000)

23- M. Hakan Yavuz, “Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere,” Journal of International Affairs 54 (Fall 2000)

24- Alan O. Makovsky, “Turkey” in Paul Kennedy, et. al. Pivotal States and US Strategy (Washington D.C: Brookings Institute, 1999): 88-119.

25- Ibid.

26- Ibid.

27- Ibid, & M. Hakan Yavuz, “Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere,” Journal of International Affairs 54 (Fall 2000)

28- Alan O. Makovsky, “Turkey” in Paul Kennedy, et. al. Pivotal States and US Strategy (Washington D.C: Brookings Institute, 1999): 88-119.

29- Tony Barber, “Turkey & Islam,” Foreign Wire.com August 16^th, 1996.

30- Alan O. Makovsky, “Turkey” in Paul Kennedy, et. al. Pivotal States and US Strategy (Washington D.C : Brookings Institute, 1999) : 88-119.

31- M. Hakan Yavuz, “Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere,” Journal of International Affairs 54 (Fall 2000).

32- Ibid.  

33- Ian O. Lesser, Bruce R. Nardulli, & Lory A. Arghavan, “Sources of Conflict in the Greater Middle East,” in Zalmay Khalilzad & Ian O. Lesser, eds. Sources of Conflict in the 21^st Century: Regional Futures & US Strategy (Washington D.C.: RAND, 1998): 188.

The articles posted on this page reflect solely the opinions of the authors. Views Archive Advanced Search Views & Analyses