GORDON TAYLOR: HOW OBAMA DID IN TURKEY
Jan Morris
History News Network
April 9 2009
One treads carefully in the Turkish presence. Turkey is no joke.
It’s a tough audience, the Turkish parliament. Say the wrong thing and
you’ll quickly discover the disadvantages of growing a mustache. The
above photograph was taken 21 December 2008 after a Kurdish deputy
of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) got up and told his fellow MPs
that it was high time for Turkey to face up to the Armenian Genocide
of 1915. As a Kurd, of course, he had his motives for this deliberate
provocation: he knew that until the Turks confronted the truth about
1915, they would never recognize reality about the Kurds. It was
a gutsy move. He, his DTP party colleagues, and millions of other
people are still waiting for something other than a fist in the face.
On April 6, in Ankara, Barack Obama faced the same uncertainties. You
could see it on the videos: the tiniest dent in that iron assurance
we have come to expect of him. Perhaps it was because Michelle, his
partner in world conquest, had left him to be with their daughters
back home. In any case, he seemed slightly hesitant as he spoke
to the Turkish parliament. "Who are these people?" one can almost
hear him thinking; or, perhaps he was mesmerized by the sight of
all those mustaches. This was not an easy crowd, nothing like those
cheerful Europeans in Prague and London, delirious at having found a
U.S. President who actually seemed to have a brain in his head. Most
of Obama’s Ankara speech, said reports, was greeted with silence.
But, to begin with a generalization, it was as good a speech as one
could expect, given the occasion. In it nuance, nonsense, diplomacy,
and willful disregard of reality found equal expression. Someone from
the military-industrial-diplomatic complex worked hard on this text,
and it showed.
First, the nonsense. Those who take a jaundiced view of Turkish
nationalism can find plenty of it in Obama’s words. He began his
speech with the usual–a homage to Ataturk, the Republic’s founder–by
referring to the morning’s signal event, the requisite wreath-laying
at Fred’s tomb. Here his restraint was admirable. At no point did
Obama point out the absurdity of a free and quasi-democratic people,
a NATO member and EU-aspirant, bowing and scraping before a personality
cult that rivals that of Kim il-Sung.
Obama then moved on to the main event: friendly persuasion and
flattery. There were references to Turkey’s democracy, a dubious
concept, as well as to the friendship between our two peoples–which
really is a lie, since I doubt that more than five Americans out of
a hundred could find Turkey on a map. (Hell, they can’t even find
their own country!) Here the message was, Let’s Cooperate. The two
nations, he said, were working together for peace and prosperity,
as was appropriate. Obama affirmed U.S. support for Turkey’s EU
candidacy. (Which he can do because he knows that France and Germany
will have the guts to tell them No.) Cliches like Resolute Ally,
Responsible Partner, and Bridges Over the Bosphorus were given the
requisite airing. Two Turkish basketball players were duly noted. Obama
praised the Turks for their progress (non-existent) on penal code
reform, as well as for their establishment (scorned by most Kurds)
of a TV station broadcasting in Kurdish. This is where it began to
get interesting:
These achievements have created new laws that must be implemented,
and a momentum that should be sustained. For democracies cannot be
static: they must move forward.
In other words, We know that you’ve passed a few laws. But you have
to make them work; otherwise it’s just an empty form. (Which is the
game, Turkey-watchers know, that the Turks have always played.)
Freedom of religion and expression lead to a strong and vibrant
civil society that only strengthens the state, which is why steps
like reopening the Halki Seminary will send such an important signal
inside Turkey and beyond. An enduring commitment to the rule of law
is the only way to achieve the security that comes from justice for
all people. Robust minority rights let societies benefit from the
full measure of contributions from all citizens.
Note: "a strong and vibrant civil society that only strengthens
the state." This is the toughest sell of all, the idea that the
freedoms Turkish officials fear so greatly could actually strengthen
their beloved, all-important Turkish State. This is the heart of
the matter. And the Halki Seminary? It’s an interesting gambit, a
reference to a long-closed seminary near Istanbul which the Greek
Orthodox Patriarchate desperately needs to have reopened if it is
going to sustain itself in its ancient home. If you really become
a democracy, Obama is arguing, you become stronger. And upholding
minority rights is the key.
I say this as the President of a country that not too long ago made it
hard for someone who looks like me to vote. But it is precisely that
capacity to change that enriches our countries. Every challenge that
we face is more easily met if we tend to our own democratic foundation.
Note: "that enriches our countries"; using the language of inclusion to
cajole the listeners into going along. Obama then moved on to admission
of past American sins, like slavery, in order to slide into that most
treacherous of quicksands, the Turkish treatment of Armenians.
Human endeavor is by its nature imperfect. History, unresolved,
can be a heavy weight. Each country must work through its past. And
reckoning with the past can help us seize a better future. I know
there are strong views in this chamber about the terrible events of
1915. While there has been a good deal of commentary about my views,
this is really about how the Turkish and Armenian people deal with the
past. And the best way forward for the Turkish and Armenian people
is a process that works through the past in a way that is honest,
open and constructive.
No one, I submit, is ever going to make a more diplomatic, nuanced
statement about this subject. With this Obama and his speechwriters
have slipped through a narrow opening indeed. If the "full and frank
exchange of views" of diplomatic doublespeak were taken literally, a
visitor might have said, "Grow up, people, and stop being afraid. Yes,
the murderers of a million Armenians were your ancestors, but the
ordinary Turks who worked to save their Armenian neighbors were also
your ancestors, as were the army units which refused to participate,
and the Ottoman generals and officials who refused to go along. Ataturk
himself called it a ‘shameful act.’ So what is your problem?" Obama
would never have said such a thing, but for what he did say he
deserves credit.
So for the Greek patriarchate and the Armenian Genocide, two touchy
subjects, we can give Obama decent marks. He went on to make a
statement which was, for America’s tone-deaf news media, a big
deal: "[T]he United States is not at war with Islam." And he made
a pitch for Turkey’s cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan. But for
Turkey’s biggest problem, the Kurds, Obama was as silent as a Turk at
Easter. True, he had declared himself in favor of "robust minority
rights." But in a Turkey defined by the Lausanne Treaty of 1923,
"minority" does not apply to the Kurds. Unlike Jews, Greeks, and
Armenians, 15 million Kurds do not have official "minority" status
in Turkey. They are full-fledged citizens, indigenous residents of
Anatolia for thousands of years, who have a culture and language that
has never been recognized by the Turkish Republic.
In a short meeting with Ahmet Turk, vice-chairman of the DTP
and the "grand old man" of Kurdish politics in Turkey, Obama
expressed "sympathy" for the Kurds but said what he had to say,
that violence was not a solution for the Kurdish problem. As he said
this, Turkey’s Kurdish provinces were still reeling from the latest
outbreaks of police violence, which left two Kurds dead and a Kurdish
female deputy of the DTP injured after being beaten by the state’s
"security forces." Despite these almost daily reports, it is still
official U.S. policy that the PKK, which has made repeated offers
of negotiation, is a "terrorist group"; and the Turkish government,
which rarely sees a head that doesn’t deserve beating or an F-16 that
isn’t worth buying, is a beacon for democracy in the Middle East.
So nothing really has changed. Obama’s speech made some intriguing
gambits, and the symbolism of meeting with Kurdish MPs, a group
that has been shunned up to now, will no doubt resonate; but without
straight talk and an abandonment of the lavish armaments contracts
that are the true core of Turkish-American relations, nothing ever will
change. Like a baby in an iron womb, Turkish democracy has gestated for
decades without hope of accouchement. Turkey’s governance has always
had one goal: to maintain the state and its power. And the pattern
continues. For the sake of the all-important State, political parties
have been closed, papers shut down, reporters imprisoned, YouTube
prohibited, websites darkened, letters of the alphabet proscribed,
and thought crimes punished. While murderers of liberals and ethnic
minorities, caught red-handed, go unpunished, people who speak the
simplest truths are arraigned and convicted within weeks. Inquiries
into the most blatant thuggery drag on, without resolution, for
years. Judges render verdicts that defy common sense, then retire to
drink tea out of tulip-shaped glasses.
And so it goes.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
