The New Anatolian, Turkey
March 10 2007

Turkish ultranationalism on rise, claims Economist

The New Anatolian / Ankara
10 March 2007

News weekly The Economist on Thursday claimed that there has been a
dangerous upsurge in ultranationalist feeling in Turkey in recent
months.

"The upsurge threatens to undo the good of four years of reforms by
the mildly Islamist government led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan," said the
article entitled "Waving Ataturk’s flag." "Indeed, it is partly in
response to these reforms — more freedom for the Kurds, a trimming
of the army’s powers, concessions on Cyprus — that nationalist
passions have been roused. The knowledge that many members of the
European Union do not want Turkey to join has inflamed them further."

The analysis claimed that another factor is America’s refusal to move
against separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) guerrillas based in
northern Iraq.

Quoting Murat Belge, a leftist intellectual as saying, "This social
Darwinist mindset that implies it’s OK to kill your enemies in order
to survive has been perpetuated through an education system that
tells young Turks that they have no other friend than the Turks," the
analysis argued, "It has been cynically exploited by politicians and
generals alike."

"Mr. Erdogan and Deniz Baykal, the leader of the opposition
Republican People’s Party (CHP), have proved no exception. When more
than 100,000 Turks gathered at Mr. Dink’s funeral chanting ‘We are
all Armenians,’ Mr. Erdogan opined that they had gone ‘too far.’ Both
he and Mr. Baykal have resisted calls to scrap Article 301 (a
controversial law Dink was convicted under), though there have been
hints that it will be amended," The Economist explained.

"The politicians are keen to court nationalist votes in the runup to
November’s parliamentary election," the analysis said. "Mr. Erdogan
also hopes that burnishing his nationalist credentials will help him
to coax a blessing from Turkey’s hawkish generals for his hopes of
succeeding the fiercely secular Ahmet Necdet Sezer as president in
May."

"Yet a recent outburst by the chief of the general staff, Yasar
Buyukanit, suggests otherwise … These words, uttered during an
official trip to America, were widely seen as a direct warning to Mr.
Erdogan to shelve his presidential ambitions," The Economist argued.

The Economist claimed that prominent writers and academics are still
receiving death threats, underlining that some are under police
protection.

"Where will matters go from here? This week one court banned access
to YouTube after clips calling Ataturk gay appeared on it; and
another sentenced a Kurdish politician to six months’ jail for giving
the PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, an honorific Mr. But a private TV
station also withdrew a popular series, ‘The Valley of the Wolves,’
that glorifies gun-toting nationalists who mow down their mainly
Kurdish enemies, after the channel was inundated with calls for the
show’s axing. The battle for Turkey’s soul is not over yet," the
article concluded.