EducationGuardian.co.uk, UK
Oct 8 2005
Turkish delight?
Chris Morris’s The New Turkey is a brave attempt to chart the
challenges facing the EU’s new applicant, says Andrew Finkel
Saturday October 8, 2005
The Guardian
The New Turkey: The Quiet Revolution on the Edge of Europe?
by Chris Morris
288pp, Granta, £17.99
“Happy is the one who says ‘I am a Turk’,” is the much quoted maxim
of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. What sweet agony, by contrast, for the rest
of us trying to follow the corkscrew path to modernity taken by the
republic he founded. Ask the Pentagon, which confidently expected the
cash-strapped Turkish government to accept the multi-billion dollar
inducement to support the war in Iraq; or the Turco-sceptics in
Europe who never believed the ultra-nationalists would reprieve the
convicted leader of the PKK by voting to abolish the death penalty;
or Turkish liberals who still support a prime minister who, as a
youthful radical, sat at the feet of the proto al-Qaida warlord
Gulbeddin Hekmatyar, as the best way of safeguarding the country’s
secular democracy. Getting at the heart of contemporary Turkey is a
bit like peeling an onion modified by Escher.
Happy we all are, therefore, to have a new Turkish primer by Chris
Morris which cuts a brisk and lucid way through the great themes of
Turkish life today, from the army’s shrinking role in public life to
the dynamism of a business community that works hard and avoids
paying taxes. The eponymous New Turkey might even be able to come to
terms with its past. Morris is full of affection for his former beat
as BBC correspondent, but he enjoys poking the scars left by the
ancien régime. Why does Turkey find it hard to look at the Ottoman
empire’s treatment of its Armenian population in 1915 and treat even
the cultural expression of Kurdishness as subversive? “You never ask
the questions we want to answer,” one officer tells him, providing
him with an epiphany on a plate.
Morris has served in Brussels and is therefore better placed than
most to answer the most complicated question of all: can a
fast-evolving Turkey soft-land in 10 or 15 years’ time inside a
European Union whose institutions are also in a state of flux? This
really is rocket science and, not surprisingly, Morris hedges a few
bets.
He is unequivocal, however, in believing that the prospect of EU
membership has already prompted a “quiet revolution on the edge of
Europe”. Like other nations that stood in the enlargement queue,
Turkey is undergoing regime change by consent. The other factor in
this revolution is that the old system quite literally collapsed. The
1999 earthquake, not unlike the natural disaster in New Orleans,
sought out not just the fault lines in the Earth but in society as
well. Ordinary people, already impatient with a self-seeking
political class, discovered that the bureaucracy and military too
were late in helping them in their hour of need. The government kept
sawing away at reforms, never believing the branch on which it sat
would finally collapse. The twin financial crises of 2000 and 2001
sealed the politicians’ fate. The post-war political machine they
created had simply run out of fuel.
Morris describes the slow transfer of power from a democratically
elected but Soviet-style state to the institutions of civil society.
We are reminded of an attempt by military intelligence in January
2004 to collect information on “divisive” trouble makers, including
Satanists, ethnic minorities and “individuals known to support the
United States and the European Union” (ie the armed forces
themselves). It doesn’t pay to underestimate the professionalism of
the Turkish army – a mainstay of Nato which has polished its
peacekeeping skills in Somalia, Bosnia and Afghanistan, but every now
and then it shoots itself in the foot.
Yet another lesson of the earthquake was that Turkey needed not just
a less heavy-handed government but a more efficient and transparent
one. It was civil society itself that defied planning procedures and
building codes and nurtured corrupt politicians. It will come as a
rude shock to those who rant against the tyranny of Brussels that to
many Turks, EU membership holds out the promise of being better
ruled.
Europe is more inclined to see Turkey as a challenge to its entire
civilisation – one which many conservative parties in Europe balk at
but which the left is more eager to accept. Morris quotes Joschka
Fischer: “To modernise an Islamic country based on the shared values
of Europe would be almost a D-Day for Europe in the war against
terror.” This is not an argument that appeals to Turks, who feel
patronised by attempts to depict them as the well-behaved Muslim
nation. They already see themselves as an important part of the
European economic zone. Many, frankly, are less bothered about being
a full member than with the immediate rewards that simply being a
candidate can bring. Europe means stability and as the Turkish
economy grows so too will the demand for European goods and services.
At present Turkey consumes at the level of Belgium; in 15 years the
population will exceed that of Germany. Think about it, Turks tell
their European friends. It’s win-win.
And if it goes wrong? Morris recognises that Turks would be more
likely to react to a European rebuff with an excess of nationalism
rather than a retreat into religious fundamentalism. A Turkey in
isolationist mood would be more dangerous to regional stability than
a nation absorbed in its own piety.
In some ways Turks now have the advantage. They have long realised
there is no alternative to change. For those who still think Europe
should define itself by whom it can exclude, not whom it can embrace,
The New Turkey is an eloquent nudge in the ribs.
· Andrew Finkel was a correspondent in Istanbul for many years and
has just completed a fellowship at the National Endowment for
Democracy in Washington DC. To order The New Turkey for £16.99 with
free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop.
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress