TURKEY SHINES AS A MODEL

The Straits Times (Singapore)
July 30, 2007 Monday

THE impressive gain in popular vote by the Justice and Development
Party (AKP) in Turkey’s parliamentary elections demonstrates
how a modern, secular and economically progressive country can
accommodate religion in politics. Its victory is a fitting riposte
to the question whether Islam and democracy can co-exist. Indeed
the question should not arise, for it is like asking if there is a
place for Christian democratic parties in European countries or for
Bible-quoting personalities in American politics. For all the worry
over its Islamic nuances, the AKP government has in its previous tenure
brought political and economic changes that bolstered human rights,
reformed penal law, increased parliamentary oversight, clipped the
military’s political wings and revitalised the economy.

It will return to power with 27 women parliamentarians, twice as many
as in any other party.

It may admittedly be too early to speak of a Turkish model of
modernisation. Countries with a big or predominant Muslim population do
not necessarily share Turkey’s tradition of secularism that its modern
founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk entrenched, to the virtual exclusion
of Islam in politics and even in wider society. For example, the
first-round electoral victory of the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria
in 1992 frightened the ruling party and the military into cancelling
the second round. It plunged the country into a decade-long civil war
that killed 200,000 people. More recently, Hamas’ electoral success
unfortunately led to Palestinian disunity and violence, making an
accommodation with Israel as unlikely as ever.

Political moderation and liberalism are crucial. In this regard,
the AKP can be seen as adapting to rather than renouncing Ataturk’s
legacy. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sounded the right
celebratory note: ‘Our joy cannot be, and should not be, the sorrow
for those who do not think like us.’ He has changed the national
outlook, which is beginning to reach out beyond narrow ‘Turkishness’
to broach if not acknowledge the 1915-17 Armenian genocide and to
embrace the minority Kurds. It is time for the European Union to rise
above its provincialism and consider positively Mr Erdogan’s strong
representations for Turkey’s membership. And the United States,
too, would do well to welcome the AKP’s victory and reaffirm its
partnership with Turkey in sorting out the Iraq imbroglio and other
issues in the region. As its new government finds a way to choose a
compromise president and forestall intervention by the military, Turkey
is offering realistic hope to some places fraught with divisiveness
and distrust.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress