A NEW LOBBYING STYLE
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Oct 1 2007
NEW YORK – Turkey has for decades had a serious image problem in the
world. The Armenian diaspora’s claims about the alleged genocide being
taken seriously in the international community and turning into an
all-out campaign, and the wounds that were opened by the portrayal of
Turks in films such as "Midnight Express" and "Lawrence of Arabia" and
which remain unhealed, have once again shown how vital lobbying is. By
spending myriad sums for years to meet this lobbying need, Turkey
sought to give its own theses to its counterparts with the support
of professional lobbyists and to respond to counter campaigns. It
is well known that some professional lobbying companies such as the
Livingston Group and DLA Piper have been serving Turkish aims in
Washington for years in return for very large sums of money.
At times, when it is forced through bottlenecks in the international
arena, Turkey obligatorily seeks the support of groups that it
sees as relatively friendly, such as the Jewish lobby. Of course,
both the service provided by professional lobbyists in return for a
payment and the support given by Jewish groups in return for support
of certain interests fall short of countering the Greek and Armenian
campaigns or the lobbying activities of the pro-Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK) Kurdish diaspora. For this reason both the American and
European publics always take contrary positions on the sensitive
issues of Turkey, in which case we are supposed to be dumbstruck.
In recent years, Turkey has not disregarded efforts to make Turkish
communities abroad take a more active role in lobbying activities.
However, it is still impossible to say that these efforts,
materially and spiritually supported by the state, are producing
any noticeable results as of yet. In fact experience shows that the
lobbying activities carried out by reliable independent civil society
organizations are more effective and fruitful than state-supported
lobbying activities.
Currently, the activities of a civil initiative, which have increased
substantially in recent years and can be considered a type of lobbying,
are drawing attention. A movement that has been developing relations
with active segments in all corners of the world by always starting
from the base has been trying to fulfill the mass lobbying mission
that Turkey has needed for decades. Associations and foundations from
the Gulen Movement, considered the smiling face of the Islamic world,
have been carrying out lobbying activities, which could never be
achieved otherwise, for hundreds of millions of dollars.
If we attempt to write just about the effective activities held during
Ramadan, we would far exceed the limits of this column. The dialogue
iftars given in Germany, Austria, Canada, Australia and many states
in America have managed to bring together the Turkish communities
with high-ranking officials of the respective countries or states.
Even enumerating the guests that attended the Second Friendship Dinner
(iftar) held in New York by the Turkish Cultural Center on Friday night
would be enough to show at what level such activities are held. Coming
across organizations similar to the one that brought together Senator
Hillary Clinton and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan has almost
become an ordinary thing.
During the years I worked in New York, I was surprised to find out
that the annual Turkish Day Parade, held for the last 25 years by the
Federation of Turkish-American Associations, had never been attended
by either a New York mayor or any senator. Later, I attended a dinner
organization by the Hudson Turkish-American Cultural Association
(HUTACA) which operates at the local level in New Jersey, and I was
surprised once again there — this time to see the New Jersey senators,
local administrators and police chiefs at the dinner. A young lawyer,
Guvenc Kulen, maybe still in his twenties then, was at the head of
HUTACA. However, Kulen, with his friends even younger than him,
managed to unite the Turks and bring them together with the top
administrative representatives of the region through various events.
Pondering the many associations in the United States similar to HUTACA,
and the hundreds of them in the world, which carry out very influential
lobbying activities and represent the real and lovely face of Turks,
the Turkish culture and Islam, I couldn’t help thinking to myself,
"This is the lobbying that should be done." The iftar dinner held
by the Rumi Forum in Washington in the US Congress attended by many
US deputies, the one attended by Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula
Plasnik in Vienna and all other events held, for instance, in Germay
and Canada, which local administrators, officials and ministers can
no longer approach indifferently, all point out that a new rising
Turkish lobby is progressively becoming more and more prominent.
I applaud the services done to Turkey, the Islamic world and world
peace by the Gulen Movement, which takes its power from its own values
and turns this into a "soft power" that serves world peace all around
the world on the grounds of dialogue, tolerance and mutual respect.
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