TURKEY’S MILITANT MUSLIMS SHOULD WORRY WEST
By Con Coughlin
The Daily Telegraph/UK
04/05/2007
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey, was no friend
of Islam.
Late at night, and in his cups, Turkey’s iconic leader would often
refer to the nation’s Islamic past as "a necklace of corpses" that
defiled the new state he was trying to create from the ruins of the
Ottoman empire.
The 15 years he governed the country is most remembered for the almost
obsessive purge he undertook of the country’s Muslim identity as he
sought to create a society more attuned to the ways of modern Europe.
The Caliphate, the body that had governed the Muslim world for four
centuries under the Ottomans, was unceremoniously abolished within
months of the creation of the modern Turkish state.
The minarets of the country’s mosques were silenced by a ban on
the muezzin broadcasting their daily prayers, and the more radical
madrassas were closed.
Anyone who turned up at Ankara’s city walls in dress deemed to
be too Islamic in nature was unceremoniously sent back to the
provinces. Sharia law was replaced by a penal code modelled on that
of Switzerland and the emancipation of women was encouraged by laws
that banned the wearing of veils. Arabic script was replaced by the
Latin alphabet, and the centuries-old ban on alcohol was lifted.
It is hardly surprising, then, that the crowds of demonstrators who
have been protesting at the country’s creeping Islamisation should
carry banners bearing Ataturk’s intimidating features.
The crude attempt by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s crypto-Islamic
prime minister, to secure the presidency for a practising Muslim,
Abdullah Gul, the current foreign minister, has provoked such
outrage that the nation’s military elite, who regard themselves as
standard-bearers of Ataturk’s legacy, threatened to stage yet another
military coup.
That deeply disturbing prospect has – for the moment, at least –
been averted by Erdogan’s decision to call an early election this
summer to decide the issue by democratic means. But with Erdogan’s
Justice and Development party, which is deeply rooted in the country’s
burgeoning Islamic constituency, riding high in the polls, a return
to the kind of military dictatorship that plagued Turkey’s political
development throughout the 20th century cannot be ruled out.
Turkey’s military establishment is Kemalist to the core, and the mere
suggestion that the country might appoint a president whose wife
insists on covering herself with a veil for public functions would
be enough to have them taking to their tanks.
Despite Erdogan’s insistence that he has no desire to dilute the
country’s distinctive secular character, the hawkish generals have
viewed him as an Islamist in disguise in the three years since he
came to power. They, together with the millions of Turks who are at
ease with the country’s secular outlook, are concerned at the growing
influence Islam is having on Turkish society.
Ten years ago it was normal to see groups of young girls in school
uniforms on the streets of Istanbul. Today they have virtually
disappeared, to be replaced by women wearing headscarves. During the
holy Islamic month of Ramadan it is not uncommon for street fights
to break out between religious Muslims objecting to their secular
compatriots lighting a cigarette during the daytime fast.
Turn on any television or radio debate in Turkey these days and the
main subject of discussion most likely concerns the threat Islam poses
to the country’s future. "Do you want us to become another Iran or
another Afghanistan?"
one frustrated secularist demanded of an Islamic supporter during a
Turkish radio station phone-in earlier this week.
Given Turkey’s geographical location, it is hardly surprising that it
is susceptible to the threat of radical Islam being imported across
its south-eastern borders. And even though Justice and Development’s
Islamic agenda is mild compared with that on offer in neighbouring
Iran, Erdogan’s failed attempt to criminalise adultery – it was vetoed
by the current president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer – has done nothing to
allay the suspicions of those determined to maintain the Kemalist
settlement.
The mounting polarisation between Turkey’s devout Muslims and its
secular, mainly urban, elite should be a matter of grave concern for
the West, which has often sent Ankara conflicting signals about its
value as an ally.
In military and strategic terms, Turkey has long been regarded as
a key asset, particularly after the September 11 attacks put it on
the front line of Washington’s various campaigns to root out Islamic
terrorists and confront rogue states.
Yet Turkey’s enthusiastic attempt to join the European Union has
received a decidedly lukewarm response, with many member states
expressing strong reservations about welcoming 70 million Muslims
into an alliance whose population is more familiar with the tenets
and traditions of Christianity.
The various delaying tactics Brussels has employed to postpone
Turkey’s entry, from doubts over its economic viability to Ankara’s
obstinacy about opening its ports to Greek Cypriot vessels, has not
only succeeded in dampening the Turks’ excitement about the whole
venture, but has encouraged an upsurge in nationalistic fervour that
underlies the country’s current travails.
Accusations that the West’s Islamophobia is responsible for blocking
Turkey’s entry to the EU have, perversely, increased support for
Islamic groups that seek to accentuate the country’s historic Muslim
character.
Brussels’ procrastination has also seen a revival of the
ultra-nationalist groups that regard Cyprus as their cause celèbre,
and are not afraid to use violence against anyone accused of "insulting
Turkishness".
January’s murder of Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian journalist who
accused the Turks of committing genocide against the Armenians during
the First World War, is symptomatic of the paranoia and isolationism
that is sweeping the country, and now threatens the long-term stability
of a key Nato ally.
The EU’s patronising treatment of Turkey’s membership application has
certainly not helped to placate this siege mentality, and explains
why so many Turks now seek to invoke the spirit of Turkish nationalism
espoused by Ataturk.
But these are dangerous currents.
The generals, not the politicians, are the true keepers of the Ataturk
flame and, like the country’s founding father, they will not stand
idly by if the Turks attempt a return to their old Islamic ways.
–Boundary_(ID_qA2j1bECOJQpOQyeQnuv+w)–