Turkey: a reluctance to compromise

Turkey: a reluctance to compromise MEYSAM BADAMCHI

WHEN the so-called Arab Spring started five years back, many people felt they were witnessing a historic moment of democratic transition in the Arab world, one which would change the face of the Middle East. Just a few years later, however, the original optimism of the Arab revolts has faded away. The Middle East, a region traumatized by the experience of western colonialism in the recent past, seems fated to being ruled either by dictators or extremist Islamists. These days, more than ever, the region needs democratic models where a commitment to Islamic values is married to genuine faith in democracy and human rights by both politicians and different socio-political groups. Up till recently, Turkey had emerged as the favoured model of a Muslim democracy. That is in part

because following the establishment of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002 byAbdullah Gul, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other young leaders from Erbekan’s Islamist National View (milligorus) movement and the Welfare Party (RP) tradition, many observers pointed to Turkey as an example of the idea that Muslims could remain committed to sharia in their personal lives and still endorse the institutional separation of Islam and state. Given that Turkey, like mostArab societies, is Sunni majority, as also the historical ties between the Sunni Ottomans and Arab nations, the prospect of a AKP ruled Turkey serving as a role model for emerging democracies appeared even more promising. However, regardless of the initial enthusiasm it generated, the AKP failed to preserve its position. This SEMINAR 679 – March 2016

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essay highlights some ‘domestic’ reasons for its relative failure, while recognizing that the international dimensions following the Arab revolts have made the situation for Turkey even more difficult. In particular, I have in mind the military coup by General Sisi against the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Obama’s reluctance to engage more seriously in Syria and Iraq, the rise of ISIS terrorism as a key security priority of the West, the Iranian-Russian alliance in support of Assad’s authoritarian regime against the AKP’s pro-Muslim Brotherhood Syria policy and, finally, Saudi and Gulf backed Salafi extremism in the region. While these international factors have contributed to reducing the appeal of Turkey as an exemplar for Arab nations, I argue that domestic factors, in particular the absence of a culture of compromise among AKP leaders, most notably Erdogan, have also had a serious impact. I first analyze the AKP leaders’ uncompromising reactions to the Gezi protests, the AKP’s populist policies on the Kurdish question manifested clearly in its calling off the ceasefire between PKK and the Turkish government and, finally, the unwillingness of opposition political parties to compromise and form a coalition with rival parties, as reflected in their behaviour following the 7 June 2015 general elections.

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n Turkey, as in most Middle Eastern countries, compromising with the opposition is considered a vice, a sign of weakness in a leader’s character. This was clear in Erdogan’s reactions to Gezi protesters from the start. The Gezi protests started when a group of environmentalists blocked municipal bulldozers from moving into the Gezi Park of the historical Taksim Square on 27 May 2013 to cut down trees and clear space for a proposed shopping mall and luxury residences. Instead of SEMINAR 679 – March 2016

persuading the activists, Prime Minister Erdogan stated, ‘We have made up our minds; no what matter they do we will go on with the project.’1 This resulted in a police raid on the park on 31 May, in turn triggering off solidarity demonstrations in 77 Turkish cities. Faced with this situation, unlike what many observers believed, Erdogan, a politician credited with introducing important democratic reforms in Turkey during his rule, chose to blame the protesters as marauders (çopulcu) acting on behalf of the interest rate lobby (faizlobisi). Similarly, the AKP run media mostly ‘externalized’ the big challenge facing the government by invoking conspiracy theories and vilifying the protesters as lackeys of foreign countries. The AKP showed no signs of willingness to compromise with the protesters; rather, on 16 June, the government, in a show of force, gathered one million of its supporters in a rally in Istanbul.

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n this entire process, the police brutality against the opposition raised serious doubts in the minds of those observers who, during theArab Spring, had looked at Turkey as a worthwhile democratic model, impelling them to ask whether the Turkish model was really appropriate in a situation when the ruling party, the AKP, seemed mired in authoritarian policies. 2 Indeed, the AKP behaviour against Gezi protesters in part resembled that of Iran’s hardline Islamist supporters of its Supreme Leader towards the non-violent Green Movement, which 1. Quoted in Ihsan Dagi, What Went Wrong in Turkey? From Muslim Democracy to Illiberal Democracy. Phoenix, Ankara, 2015, p. 92, also see pp. 91-129. 2. Dagi analyzes AKP’s oppressive behaviour from the perspective of a problematic statesociety relationship in Turkey which was bequeathed to the AKP by its Kemalist predecessors. Before the AKP, Dagi argues, Turkish society was under the ‘tutelage’ of

had emerged in 2009 as a reaction to the highly controversial election results which people saw as fraudulent. In particular, securitizing the country through actions such as strengthening the police, and further restricting freedom of expression, resembled the highly intolerant attitude of Iran’s government and judiciary towards journalists and activists after the Green Movement (a phenomenon which has not ended even today).

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ot that the attitude and behaviour of a section of the Gezi protesters was any better; demanding nothing less than the dismissal of the Erdogan government. More importantly, the timing of the Gezi protests was singularly unfortunate, erupting as it did a mere three months after the commencement of the peace process between militants of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and the government, following three decades of a ‘pseudo’ civil war. In part, Erdogan’s reluctance to pursue a peace process with the PKK, as discussed later, was because he was unsure about the reactions of the opposition parties to the peace process, possibly assuming that such the Kemalists who controlled key state institutions like the military, judiciary and high bureaucracy. Although the Kemalist tutelage system was largely eliminated under the AKP rule, as a result of the state-centric culture that has been a tradition in Turkey for a long time, the new government preserved the notion of a state that has a constituting role over the society in Turkish politics, but this time transforming the content of this role from Kemalist to an Islamist one. Put another way, AKP political conservatives believed in the possibility of ‘creating a new society’ through the state apparatus. As a result of the marriage between conservatives and the state apparatus under the AKP, Turkish society has weakened again, this time at the expense of empowering a conservative state. Dagi labels AKP’s present manner as ‘post-modern authoritarianism’, which combines ‘electoral legitimacy, Islamic solidarity, the search for a strong man in Turkish political culture and populist redistributive policies.’ See Dagi, 2015, pp. 7-31, 30.

attempts by his government would lead to a decline in his popular appeal.

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istorically, a fear of disintegration has long been deep-rooted in Turkey. The Turkish Republic was established in 1923 on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire which was divided and carved up following the Allies’ victory after World War I. Not unlike many other nations attempting a process of nationbuilding, Turkey too found the issue of the rights of ethnic minorities’ as troubling, on various occasions even claiming that the Kurdish problem was the handiwork of foreign enemies keen to divide Turkey and create an autonomous state of Kurdistan. As a result, any fresh political initiative by the Turkish government to resolve the Kurdish question ‘must first persuade the people that the solution will not be the beginning of a disintegration process for Turkey.’3 By early 2013, following a detailed review, the AKP leaders came to the conclusion that it was only through a comprehensive settlement with Abdullah Ocalan, the charismatic PKK leader, that members of the militant group might be persuaded to lay down their weapons. On 21 March 2013, during the Nevruz celebrations, ironically less than three months before the Gezi uprisings, Ocalan sent a letter from prison to the MPs of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (BDP, a pioneer for the party which is now named HDP). In a public ceremony in Diyarbekir, Pervin Buldan and Sirri Sureyya Onder read out Ocalan’s letter in Kurdish and Turkish respectively, calling for peace and a historic ceasefire.4 This strategy proved to be helpful and resulted in a ceasefire between the Turkish government and PKK which lasted for more than two years, ending only in June 2015.

3. Ihsan Dagi, 2015, p. 136.

Through his prison messages, Ocalan always called for the transformation of republican Turkey as the state of a single ethnicity in favour of a more pluralistic one. According to the Selahettin Demirtas, former BDP MP and now the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) MP and leader, after a meeting with Ocalan, the PKK leader believed that the Ottoman Empire’s multiculturalist model could be a source of inspiration for peace. ‘Under the Ottoman Empire, different nations and people with different religions were able to live in the same country. Especially in the Kurdistan region, people with different belief systems and different ethnic identities enjoyed partial autonomy vis-à-vis the Ottoman palace. […] The model to replace the notion of singular nationhood cannot be a nation state but a middle eastern confederation where different identities and beliefs live in peace without necessarily changing official boundaries.’5

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ere the AKP leaders and their grassroots supporters ready for such a role? Subsequent events proved that the answer was no. Over many years the PKK has been demonized by the nationalists in Turkey, accusing it of terrorist acts. For some people Ocalan’s official name was ‘baby murderer’ (bebekkatili). Many Turks believe that the PKK was responsible for the deaths of thousands of soldiers and innocent civilians. In January 2013, a 4. See http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/isteocalanin-nevruz-mesaji-nevruz-kutlamalaricanli-izle-28513676 accessed December 2015). 5. Ocalan as reported by Selahettin Demirtas, quoted in Dagi 2015, pp. 137-138; Interestingly, this model is also supported by Will Kymlicka’s theory of minority rights and liberal multiculturalism. See Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford University Press, 1995.

scholar of International Relations at Middle Eastern Technical University predicted that, ‘It will not be easy to persuade the people of the Turkish public overnight of the wisdom of negotiating with Ocalan. […] Erdogan will not risk his political future to find a solution to the Kurdish question. So if he thinks talking to Ocalan threatens his political survival, he will not hesitate to make a turn.’6 This prediction came true when, in the aftermath of the 7 June 2015 general elections, the AKP reversed its position on the Kurdish peace process in order to bolster its electoral prospects in the fresh elections to be held on 1 November 2015.

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ut another way, apparently for Erdogan and his advisers, the decline in the AKP vote share in the 7 June election from 49.9% to 40.9% (in comparison with the 2011 general elections) was a consequence of the peace process with the PKK which had alienated the ultra-nationalists. Thus, in order to regain its numbers in Parliament, the AKP’s new strategy was to revert to the old ultra-nationalist rhetoric on the Kurdish question. Following the 7 June elections, the key AKP leaders, i.e. Erdogan and Davutoglu, decided to adopt a more nationalist tone, and as a consequence stopped negotiations with Ocalan who was in prison. Ironically, PKK guerrillas too welcomed the end of the ceasefire by resuming their attacks. One of the clearest indications of an absence of a compromise culture in Turkish politics was the AKP reaction to the 7 June general elections where, for the first time after three consecutive elections, the party lost ground to the opposition, winning only

6. Here I am referring to Ihsan Dagi’s essay in Today’s Zaman newspaper on 6 January 2013, available at: http://www.todayszaman. com/ columnist/i-hsan-dagi/is-a-kurdish-solutionin-sight_303300.html accessed December 2015. SEMINAR 679 – March 2016

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40.9% of the votes. This meant that for the first time the AKP had to form a coalition with one of the opposition parties in order to retain power. The other alternative was for three opposition parties to constitute a bloc – or to use the words of Kilictaroglu, leader of the biggest opposition party, Republican People’s Party (CHP), to create a coalition without the AKP. Eventually, neither alternative materialized, in part because soon after the results were announced, Erdogan, this time as president of the republic who in principle is expected to remain politically neutral, signalled a lack of interest in the coalition government, arguing that it would be bad for the economy, security, and so on.

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n the opposition parties’ side too, Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the ultranationalist National Movement Party (MHP), proved a stumbling block for any kind of three-party coalition bloc against AKP, because such an option demanded cooperation between his ultra-nationalist party and the Kurdish HDP. Therefore, given the deep antagonism of MHP leaders (who incidentally saw the HDP and PKK as the same)7 towards the pro-Kurdish HDP, which for the first time passed the 10% electoral threshold to enter Parliament as a party,8 any coalition between the three opposition parties (including CHP with 25%) became impossible, even though the AKP did not have the necessary votes to form a single party government.9

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7. MHP had 16.3% of the total vote. 8. HDP gained 13.1% of the total votes. Consider that in the past some of the BDP candidates, such as Dermirtas and Buldan, had been able to enter the Turkish Parliament, but only as independent MPs, not as a party members where their party had not been able to gain the 10% threshold. The 7 June general election was the first election in Turkish history that enabled the pro-Kurdish HDP to enter Parliament as a ‘party’. SEMINAR 679 – March 2016

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he impossibility of forming a coalition without the AKP helped Erdogan and Davutoglu to recover their confidence and start a campaign for a fresh elections to be held on 1 November. The pre-7 June and pre-1 November political atmosphere in the country was very different. The end of the ceasefire between the government and PKK (each side accusing the other for breaking the ceasefire first) had resulted in a resumption of fighting, specially in the Kurdish region. In a political environment influenced by the fear of terrorism (the suicide attack in Ankara which happened a mere fortnight before the 1 November election at a left wing organized meeting, with more than 100 people killed), and people disappointed with prospects of a coalition between the three party opposition bloc, 49.5% of the people voted for AKP in the election. This helped Erdogan and Davutoglu’s party win 317 out of the 550 seats in Parliament (an increase of 8.6% compared to the 7 June election, equal to 59 additional seats) to form a single party government, similar to what had happened in the 2002, 2007 and 2011 general elections.10 The lack of a culture of compromise in Turkish politics between rival parties becomes even more apparent if we compare AKP’s electoral behaviour with that of the Islamic Ennahdha Party in Tunisia. Such comparison indicates that Tunisia seems to be a better model for consolidating democracy in the Middle East, as its leader, Rached Ghannouchi, unlike Erdogan, proved more open to a compromise and tolerance based politics. In an interview, Ghannouchi said that in a 9. For the election results see http://secim. ntv.com.tr/#City=&County=&Party= &Tab=&TabGroup= 10. In the 1 November election, the CHP gained 25.3% (0.4% increase), MHP 11.9% (4.4% decrease), and HDP 10.8% (2.4% decrease). See, ibid.

divided and pluralist society such as Tunisia, where democracy is not yet fully established, even a 60% majority should not be taken as a mandate to monopolize political power.11

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he main thrust of this essay revolves around the need for Turkish democracy to learn the art of compromise, and for Turkish political culture to undergo a transformation. In other words, for democratic consolidation, Turkey needs to overcome a culture that does not encourage give and take by either leaders or political activists. The absence of a compromise culture is not exclusive to the Turkish political system, but afflicts domestic politics in many other Middle Eastern societies as the situation in Syria, Egypt and Iran demonstrates.12 However, given the tragic and inhuman civil war in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, it is all the more incumbent on Turkey to regain its role as a democratic model in a region which has suffered under the influence of dictators and extremists. I am not pessimistic about the future of Turkish democracy. It needs to be reiterated that Turkey is still more democratic in comparison to most other states in the Middle East, with the possible exception of Tunisia. The AKP stands for a model of ‘conservative democracy’, a mixture of traditional Islamic morality with an emphasis on family values, historical pride regarding the Ottoman past, capitalist economy, and EU accession.13 Alongside the project of conservative democracy, the AKP has also been 11. See Yüksel Sezgin, ‘Why is Tunisian Democracy Succeeding While the Turkish Model is Failing?’, in Tunisia’s Volatile Transition to Democracy. POMEPS Briefings 27, November 2015, pp. 36-37. 12. On the problem of compromise in Arabic culture see, Tarek Heggy, ‘Our Need for “A Culture of Compromise’’,’ inhttp://www. arabworldbooks.com/Articles/heggy/ compromise.htm accessed December 2015.

able, at least partially, to preserve Turkey’s secular system, but ‘transforming’ it from an assertive and interventionist model upheld by the old Kemalists into a more passive model of secularism closer to the AngloSaxon model and thus more accommodating of religion in the public sphere.14

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qually, during the past thirteen years of AKP rule, the Turkish economy has flourished, becoming highly integrated into global capitalism and emerging as a strong financial power. For example in 2002, when the AKP first came to power, Turkey’s total foreign trade stood at $87 billion. However, by 2011, this had increased to $375 billion, a fourfold increase. In 2002, the number of registered foreign companies in Turkey was 498; a figure rising to 25,927 by 2011. This was a result of the governments welcoming approach to foreign capital and easing restrictions on the activities of international companies.15 Thus, there are numerous lessons that countries in the region can learn from Turkey. Finally, a comment on the Kurdish question. In so far as the prospects for peace are concerned, the 13. For a good critical study of Turkish conservatism see, Cihan Tugal, ‘Islam and Retrenchment of Turkish Conservatism’, in Asef Bayat (ed.), Post-Islamism: The Changing Forces of Political Islam. Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 109-133. 14. On Turkish secularism and the AKP see, Ahmed T. Kuru, ‘Reinterpretation of Secularism in Turkey: the Case of the Justice and Development Party’, in H. Yavuz (ed.), The Emergence of a New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Party. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 2006, pp. 136-159; Abdullahi Ahmad An-Naim, ‘Turkey: Contradictions of Authoritarian Secularism’, in Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Sharia. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008, pp. 182-222. 15. See Ihsan Dagi, ‘Post-Islamism a la Turca’, in Asef Bayat (ed.), Post-Islamism: The Changing Forces of Political Islam. Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 96-97.

most feasible solution at the moment seems to be a ‘semantic’ coalition between the AKP and HDP. I say semantic because since following the November elections the AKP has a majority in Parliament and does not require a ‘formal’ coalition to rule the country. Earlier experiences show that prospects for the Kurdish peace process, without the cooperation of both the AKP and HDP, would be futile. In other words, both the AKP and HDP need each other to solve this problem. The AKP needs HDP because it is the party which can still negotiate and persuade PKK leaders, and HDP needs the AKP because AKP is the most powerful party in the country, controlling the state with all its institutions. Clearly, antagonisms between the AKP and HDP will only help in the continuation of a horrible war.

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owards this end, the AKP-run media needs to modulate its rhetoric concerning HDP and pro-Kurdish activists. Starting with AKP’s failure in the 7 June elections, AKP-run media has continuously highlighted the proximity between the HDP and PKK, holding the HDP responsible for PKK attacks resulting in the death of Turkish soldiers, and so on. Of course, terrorism must be condemned, but to treat ‘peaceful’ HDP and ‘armed’ PKK as no different, with the same goals, thereby developing common policies based on that understanding, a rhetoric still adopted by ultranationalists, will only deprive Turkey of having a civilian party playing a crucial role in peace making and negotiation based upon mutual respect. Equally, the HDP should also be willing to compromise and cooperate with AKP and other parties, as utopian policies not backed by democratic realism and an understanding of the balance of power in a deeply polarized Turkish society, can prove counter-productive.

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