TURKEY’S IDENTITY CRISIS KEEPING IT FROM WESTERN EUROPE’S EMBRACE
Politics Daily
eys-identity-crisis-keeping-it-from-western-europe s-embrac/
Oct 19 2009
This past week, I returned from a week-long trip to Istanbul, Turkey.
In between touring the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, shopping
in the crowded Grand Bazaar (which features more than 4,000 stores),
becoming addicted to their amazing chai tea, chowing down on Turkish
lasagna (don’t tell them, but it’s essentially Spaghetti-O’s), I was
given a tutorial on a fascinating nation that literally sits on the
cusp of dual — and dueling — worlds.
On one hand, Turkey is a thriving secular democracy with its most
important city, Istanbul, rivaling New York City in terms of culture
and energy. On the other hand, Turkey still struggles with fundamental
problems of identity that have been part of the psychic landscape
for as long as modern Turkey has been a nation. What’s more, these
problems continue to deprive Turkey from winning approval to join
the European Union The public relations campaign to win EU approval
actually illustrates the problem.
When Armenia’s soccer team came to town for a recent match, World Cup
fans were instructed by no less a personage than Turkey’s president
to display "Turkish hospitality" to the visitors. They’ve been doing
just that for visitors from many countries, but Armenia is most
significant. Despite the recent diplomatic normalization between the
nations, many Armenians still view "Turkish hospitality" through the
lens of the "Armenian genocide." And the Turks historic refusal to
squarely face up to that grim World War I-era ethnic slaughter has
been one of the reasons that western Europe has been wary of fully
embracing Turkey despite its membership in NATO.
This Turkish charm offensive has also extended to the United States,
where a group of American writers, artists and academics were
invited by the Turkish Cultural Foundation, a D.C.-based tax-exempt
foundation, to visit the secular democracy. I was among the guests on
this Anatolian trek — though I also confess to having gone "rogue" –
not in the Sarah Palin way, but merely by abandoning the tour early in
favor of spending more time in Istanbul proper, conducting interviews
with unexpurgated Turks.
In terms of the care and feeding of tourists, our tour guide subscribed
to the drill sergeant approach. What is more, despite having a fine
education, our tour guide — and I’m guessing she believes what she
was telling us — made several obviously false statements, including
saying that the Ottoman Empire entered World War I by accident,
and that Turkey was the first nation to recognize Israel. (Um, no,
that would be the U.S.)
What I observed once I’d cast off the shackles of a tour guide was
very much a tale of two cities. Istanbul is a seductively cosmopolitan
city filled with world-class attractions. They include trendy hot
spots that rival those in Paris or Prague and a vast and beautiful
array of awe-inspiring, historically significant sites.
Arguably, the greatest of these is the Hagia Sophia, which was the
world’s largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years. Other historical
sites worth seeing include the Blue Mosque and the Chara.
Any American tourist with a pulse would be captivated by the history
and aura of the city.
But a visit to these hallowed places, most of which are fraught with
religious significance, underscores the deep divisions within the very
character of this country. Since the time of Ataturk, the government
has aspired to join the world’s great powers. Yet even while looking
to the world’s great Western powers instead of the Arab capitals
for inspiration, the Turkish government has used authoritarianism,
instead of democracy, as a counterweight to the Turks’ tendency
toward theocracy.
I visited the ecumenical patriarchate, the historic home of the Greek
Orthodox Church. During the powerful Christian empire of Byzantium,
when Istanbul was called Constantinople, the Hagia Sophia was the
patriarch’s home. After the sacking of Constantinople by the Ottomans,
the Hagia Sophia was converted to a great mosque; it was turned into
a museum when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk became president after the fall
of the Ottoman Empire.
Today, the patriarchate finds itself on the verge of extinction.
Turkey requires that the patriarch (essentially, the senior bishop and
honored leader of the Eastern Orthodox religion) to be a natural-born
citizen of Turkey. The problem is there are only a few thousand Eastern
Orthodox Christians left in the nation, from which to choose a leader.
What is more, as the EU noted disapprovingly, the government of
Turkey closed the church’s Theological Seminary of Halki – the only
Turkish-based seminary that could train a future patriarch. In essence,
Turkey has made it likely that — unless reform comes soon – that
Orthodox Christianity will die out in the nation. The once powerful
Christian empire of Byzantium now consists of about 4,000 believers
in the nation that was once its capital.
This infringement on religious freedom is not a simple matter of
re-creating a seminary here or there to finesse European democrats.
Secularization was a key part of the approach used by Ataturk to
forge a modern nation out of Turkey.
Turkey’s horrific battlefield losses in World War I left Turks
receptive to such a restructuring and they were hardly alone:
The upheaval of that war sparked the Russian Revolution and the
march of communism. Acting on his belief that religiosity hindered
Turkish nationalism, Ataturk also did away with the Caliphate, a
core institution in Sunni Islam, setting himself, and his nation,
apart from the Arab world.
To this day, Turkish law is ruthlessly secular. In defending
their laws, Turks stress that they must be guard against Islamic
"fundamentalism," knowing that this will strike a chord in European
capitals — and, even more so, in the United States. To be sure,
Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise in Turkey, although it’s still
difficult to understand why in this day and age it should still be
illegal for a Christian priest (who is a citizen) to display a collar.
Similarly, a Turk may not wear a cross necklace — or any religious
jewelry — in public. While I visited Turkey, I also had cause to
ruminate on the fact that in America the right to worship freely is
codified in the same amendment — and it’s the First Amendment —
as the one promising freedom of expression.
And so, as the EU has taken note, religious liberty is not the only
issue in Turkey — so is the lack of a free press. Turkey recently
fined Dogan Media Group, Turkey’s largest media company, 5.7 billion
Turkish liras ($3.9 billion). The EU was not happy with what looked
to be a retaliatory act. "If a tax fine is worth the annual turnover
of the company, it is quite a strong sanction and it may not only
be a fiscal sanction but also it feels like a political sanction,"
EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told reporters in Brussels. "We
have serious concerns."
The government claims the media giant was dodging taxes, but feuding
between media mogul Aydin Dogan and Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan is decidedly not about money. The latter remains
insistent that the tax fine is part of a routine investigation, but
Dogan is a wealthy secularist who represents the old order. Erdogan,
the former mayor of Istanbul, is an Islamicist who was once jailed
by the regime for his political activities and who is so devout a
follower of Islam that he was hospitalized three years ago after
fasting so intently during Ramadan.
He feuded constantly with Dogan since coming to power in 2002, and is
believed to have been behind the forced resignation of star secular
columnist Emin Colasan in 2007. Nonetheless, when the Dogan media
began covering German criminal investigation into a Turkish Islamic
charity linked to the government, Erdogan called on his followers to
boycott Dogan’s newspapers.
We have these kinds of spats in America, too, but to draw the
analogy out: The Obama administration could not level a nearly $4
billion fine against Fox News. In any event, the EU has watched these
developments in Turkey with alarm, knowing that even if the fine does
not bankrupt the nation’s largest media company, the government’s war
of nerves against the firm will certainly have a chilling effect on
other outlets.
But traditional media is not the only target. Turkey has also banned
YouTube and MySpace. Apparently, the YouTube blackout was prompted by
videos posted by Greek soccer fans, which included lines that Turks
find appalling and blasphemous, such as: "Today’s news: Kemal Ataturk
was gay!"
If one believes democracy is an evolutionary process, then one should
also understand that Turkey is just 90 years removed from the Ottoman
Empire. The world should appreciate Turkey for the strides it has made
but also hold it accountable for respecting religious minorities and
the freedom of the press. Aside from the traffic, the chai and the
Hagia Sophia, Istanbul is also famous for the hamam, or Turkish bath.
This essentially involves a masseuse using a rough cloth and soap to
exfoliate the dirt out of the pores. Turkey, it seems, could use a
similar treatment.