[A-List] Turkey: Erdogan's true colors

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I messed up and clicked the paste button a few times in my
previous post. Sending it again. As I said, I don't like this
Pamuk at all. He doesn't have a clue about what globalization is
nor does he understand what the heck is going on around the
globe. Once a very smart mathematician friend of mine wrote a
computer code using a third order Markov chain to rewrite one of
Pamuk's novels, basically he was shuffling the words according to
some rule if you don't know what a Markov chain is, and my
friend's third order Markov chain replication sounded better than
Pamuk's original. My friend claims that his sixth order Markov
chain reshuffling sounds even better.

Sabri

+++++++++++++

'I feel despair'

Turkey's MPs surprised the world by voting 'no' to US troops
being based in the country. Now it seems their new prime minister
will overturn this - with the army's help. Acclaimed Turkish
novelist Orhan Pamuk fears that once again his country will
become a military dictatorship

Friday March 14, 2003
The Guardian

Before Turkey's new prime minister Tayyip Erdogan won a landslide
victory in the elections last November, he was constantly
maligned and abused by most of the Turkish media. They said that
the naive Turkish people should be aware of Erdogan's
pro-Islamist past before voting for him. Nevertheless, those like
me, who were afraid Erdogan's election would pave the way for a
military coup, said that his new pro-western and pro-European
Union "liberal" stance should be taken at its face value. But the
establishment press accused Erdogan of being a fundamentalist in
disguise who would strike a blow at secularism in Turkey once in
power.

In Istanbul now, the joke is that we were mistaken and Erdogan
was indeed hiding his true colours. What he was hiding, however,
was not Islamic fundamentalism but commitment to American
military interests. First, he made it clear that he was
displeased with parliament's rejection of US demands for a
northern front against Iraq. This "no" to war reflected the fury
of the Turkish people, 90 per cent of whom are opposed to the
war. I was amazed and delighted by this decision, which should
make the Turkish parliament proud. Even the pro-state and
pro-army Turkish press briefly paid it lip service, since
everyone's national sensibilities were hurt by the coverage of
Turkey in the western media as a country that would engage in a
war it did not believe in for the sake of American dollars. In
particular, a cartoon in which Turkey was depicted as a belly
dancer writhing in front of Uncle Sam in order to get more money
broke many hearts in the country.

The reaction to the cartoon was so exaggerated in the Turkish
press, which is as highly sensitive to any coverage in the
western media as the Turkish public, that I expected the Turkish
Society of Belly Dancers to protest that belly dancing was not as
dishonourable as portrayed.

Since the image of the nation as a carpet- dealer upset everyone,
Erdogan produced a new trump card that would force Turkey into
cooperation with Bush and convince the public: Kurdish autonomy
in northern Iraq and, God forbid, demands for an independent
state. Since some nationalist male Turkish politicians consider
bombing poor Kurds far more honourable than belly dancing, it may
be that this new argument will carry more weight. Already many
columnists are hinting at the possibility of "undesirable
developments" in northern Iraq in an attempt to influence the
public and bewildered members of parliament. The idea of a
Kurdish state is such a fearsome prospect in Turkey, such an
unmentionable taboo, that it can only be spoken of as
"undesirable developments".

Erdogan's party asked the army to make an announcement in favour
of war to influence the parliamentary decision before the
rejection of the proposal, but the army did not wish to grasp
this thorny issue before parliament. When parliament, too, evaded
the thorny issue, the job fell on Erdogan and the Turkish press,
which had called on the army for help. The majority of the
Turkish press have no qualms about carrying on war propaganda,
despite the anti-war fury of the people, because most of their
financial clout comes not from newspaper sales but from bribes
received from the state by various subterfuges. Many nationalist
Turkish columnists, whose heart was broken by the representation
in the west of Turkey as a nation fighting for money, are now
busily engaged in war propaganda for their own bread and butter.

The truth that emerges from all this irony and comedy is this:
the Bush government's relentless desire to launch a war against
Saddam has nothing to do with establishing democracy in the
Middle East. On the contrary, American military ambitions are
curtailing democracy in Turkey and leading to more army
intervention in politics. After the government and the press, the
task now is to intimidate members of parliament to obtain a
reversal of its decision.

The world should know about the damage that has been done to
Turkish democracy by the Bush government, which, has bypassed the
sentiments of the Turkish people, preferring to cooperate with
the army. Already, parliament's "no" to war has been dismissed
and the massing of American troops in Turkish harbours is
continuing as if nothing had happened. In response to this
scandalous disrespect for the parliament, its president bravely
declared that it made his hair stand on end, while his fellow
party member, prime minister Erdogan, seemed quite undisturbed.
The justified complaint that there is not enough democracy in
Turkey, which we have become accustomed to hearing from the US
for years has, thanks to the Bush government, been transformed
into a grumble that there is too much democracy in Turkey.

Unlike some, I am not opposed to this war because I am opposed to
globalisation. I believe that globalisation can be beneficial,
opening the way for the free circulation of capital, goods,
ideas, and even people, and weaken local nationalistic states and
dictatorships. But the Bush government's idea of globalisation is
not freedom of goods and thoughts but the unconditional freedom
of the American army to bomb what it likes, when it likes. For
this purpose, it has shown itself prepared to undermine local
democracies and spurn parliamentary decisions.

This approach, which attaches little importance to the UN, makes
no attempt to understand the reluctance and indecision of its
allies, and is intent on having the cooperation of local national
armies at any cost for the sake of its own military victory, is
not much different from that of Saddam, who recognises nothing
but his own will.

Like the leaders of many other countries, the Turkish prime
minister is trapped between the pressures of the Bush government
and the indignation of the people. What distinguishes Erdogan
from Tony Blair is not only that he has spent and enjoyed most of
his political life in an anti-western and anti-American culture
and discourse. With a debt burden of $80bn to international
western lenders, Turkey could be plunged overnight into an
economic crisis similar to that of Argentina if deprived of IMF
support. Unfortunately, Germany and France, who took a stand
against Bush's policies, did not come out in support of the
Turkish parliament's "no" vote. More importantly, in the years
when Blair was making the most of the joys of being prime
minister, Erdogan was counting the days in prison, where he had
been thrown under pressure from the state and army, for reciting
an Islamist poem. Now his cooperation with the same state and
army for a war that people hate and are protesting against may
have tragic consequences for him.

Another consequence of the aggressive policies of the Bush
government is, sadly, to see that in many countries like Turkey
now the art of politics, whether leftwing or political Islamist,
has been reduced to the skill of winning the popular vote and
combining it with American military interests. Finding himself in
such a predicament, Erdogan is telling courageous journalists,
who remind him of his former words, that he "was not then in
power". If we are to believe this pretext, which pro-state
columnists find convincing, we must draw the pitiable conclusion
that the words of a Turkish politician are not to be trusted if
he is not in power. If he is in power, America can trust him.

If Erdogan compels the Turkish parliament to change its decision
to say no to the war and enter it with the US, he will lose the
trust of the people which he earned so patiently over the years
by his diligence, talent, outspoken honesty and time spent in
prison.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,913792,00.html