The beylik of the Ottomans
was established in 1299 AD. After a glorious three centuries of conquests, the
Gazis (warriors of faith) formed a huge Empire over three continents.
Subsequently the Sultanate was abolished in 1924 and so was the Caliphate of
Constantinople. Kemal Atatourk, changed Turkey to a secular state which strictly
controlled religion through a Directorate of Religious Affairs and used Islam
as an internal policy tool but not as an object of foreign policy keeping
Turkey’s foreign policy clear of the pitfalls of the Arab world. Turkey after
WWII became a member of NATO and a model of a Moslem state with democratic
institutions which aspired and still aspires (?) to become a member of the EU.
However, since the rise of
the AKP party in power in 2002, Islam slowly became not only a central
political power but also a central social issue. Secularists, progressivists
and conservatives as well as religious conservatives started to inconspicuously
confront each other with suspicion over legislation about education, free
speech, social and individual behavior and morals. The prominence of Islam as a
historical paradigm through the Ottoman Imperial past and its relation with the
MENA area plus the fact of a break out of Islam as part of a legitimate social
discourse engaged with modernity for the layout of Turkey’s future brought up a
host of slowly emerging existential questions about its identity.
Islam is neither monolithic,
nor unitary in dogma and more accurately in interpretation. What Islam actually
is as a way of life and how it comports with the post-modern world of science,
skepticism and individuality, is an ongoing debate among Muslims and
non-Muslims as well as among Muslims themselves. Turkey has a Sunni majority
but also an Alevite minority, various Sufi religious mystic orders, a small
number of Christians and also agnostics and atheists. This medley of Muslim
sects, in particular, lives in relative stability and security, but in the
recent months this status have changed due to radical transformations of the
surrounding areas and the foreign policy pursued by the PM Erdogan’s party, the
AKP. Erdogan embarked in an active
foreign policy seeking political influence and clout in the Arab and Moslem
world as a rising economic and political regional power. This was pursued in a
relative stable environment till the tempest of the Arab Spring brought the
house down.
The Arab Spring has brought
forth the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) as a dominant political force in Egypt and Tunisia.
At the same time the MB is active in Jordan demanding the change of the regime,
in Kuwait, in Syria, and elsewhere. The Tunisian President recently predicted: “The
Arab world is going through a transition phase which needs coalitions to
govern, which brings together Islamist and secular trends,…These coalitions
will lead to eventual rapprochement between the Islamists and the secularists. However,
he added: “Islamists would have the upper hand. There’s a true way that Islam
represents the common ground for everyone … Eventually Islam becomes a
reference point for everyone,”[1]
Turkey through its
involvement in the area as an important commercial and military power has
supported and sought closer ties with these new political forces. The question
rising out of these developments is: “Which will be the repercussions of these
events on Turkey and its political and social structure?” The answer cannot be
anything else but a probable one due to a number or unknown variables which may
be added to the equation. Nevertheless,
the trend becomes more obvious by the day.
The MB in Egypt is trying to
mix Islam with a political agenda as viable new political ruling elite, but there
are other forces also expressing Muslim orthodoxy, or variations or it, as the
Salafists, and the Jihadists. These groups expressing a more “pure” Islam
closer to the first Caliphs offer a political narrative which is far removed
both from the MB and the Turkish AKP. Turkey under a Kemalist narrative would
have been relatively safe from these tremors. Now, the picture is blurred by at
least four factors.
Turkey’s foreign policy aspired
to turn the country to an arbiter and a dominant player in the region. The last
instance of this was the mediation of President Mursi of Egypt for the cease
fire between Hamas and the Israelis in the very recent clash in Gaza. Erdogan
tried desperately to be the mediator but his ambitions were thwarted by the new
ruler of Egypt whose interests are profoundly intertwined with Hamas which is
an off-shoot of the MB itself. Each incident like this will add or subtract
political capital to Turkey and a proportionate effect on Turkish public
opinion.
The second front that Turkey
is finding itself thrown in the fray among Moslems is in Iraq. Turkey has vital
economic and ethnic interests in Iraq, due to Iraq’s immense oil reserves and
the autonomous Kurdistan’s fate contested by a Shiite controlled central
government. The stability of Iraq lies between Sunnis and Shiites, between
Arabs and Kurds, between riches and distribution of these among the have and have-nots.
The factions, alliances and conflicting interests in Iraq cut across all the
categories of groups posing for power and influence in this state. A Shiite
Iraq is an anathema for Saudi Arabia as well as for Erdogan but of vital
importance for Iran.
The third front which is
going to determine the fate of Turkey is Syria. Besides all the brotherly love
between the Assads and Erdogan, Syria is posing the worst possible threat for
Turkey. What is now called a civil war in Syria, which may end at some point
sooner or later with the ousting of Assad[2],
will bring about a second round of conflict which will adhere to the exact definition
of civil war. Who will get the prize of Syria? Will it be the MB, the
secularists backed by France, the USA and Britain? Is Turkey backing all
contestants or just some, and who are these? Only a few days ago the Syrian
National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, a Syrian opposition
group, has accused Turkey of allowing Saudi militants into Syria who then
"harm the country,”[3] Speaking to the Voice of Russia Radio, the
representative for the block claimed that "political powers like Turkey
allowed [Saudi militants] to sneak in”. “These militants harm Syria," Heytem
Menna said. The jihadists are slogging it out with the Kurds in eastern Syria
and they are the most active insurgents of all. Are they going to relinquish
their part of the booty, power, after the war plays out? There are also Sunnis
and Shiites fighting against and for the government from the neighboring
countries which strongly indicates the sectarian nature of the conflict.
What will be the blowback of
a Syrian civil war among secularist, the MB, the jihadists, Christians and
Alewites of Syria, who are closely related to the Alevis in Turkey? How is an
Islamist party, the AKP with an agenda of enforcing Islamist rules of social
conduct and morals going to manage such a conflict just across its borders?
The fourth factor is
Turkey’s relations with NATO, the EU, USA and Israel. Turkey is the only Muslim
state securely moored in a Western harbor. It is so most importantly because it
is perceived as a “model democratic Muslim state” which can be a factor of
stability in the area. Turkey has pushed for Western intervention in the Syrian
conflict. It has accused the UN of impotency to solve crises by having a
structure stemming from WWII (which is true). It has requested NATO to furnish
Patriot missiles for its defense from Syrian attacks. In short, Turkey is using
all of its links and ties with the West to promote a Turkish agenda in the
Muslim world in the area.
The Mavi Marmara incident
had alienated Turkey from its longtime ally, Israel. In the last few days
though, is has become known that Turkey and Israel are pursuing talks to
normalize their relations[4].
It is quite clear that Turkey cannot ask favors from the West without mending
its ties with Israel. But this is anathema for too many of the factions vying
for power in the surrounding area, especially the Palestinians, the Shiites,
and the Jihadists. Just recently a
Bahraini parliamentarian burned an Israeli flag in Bahrain’s Parliament. The
cohabitation of an Islamic agenda with a Western cape for protection and clout plus
an accommodation with Israel, which according to Erdogan has committed
“genocide” in Gaza, is not a viable project. It was, as long as Turkey was not
involved in Muslim and sectarian politics.
Turkey cannot sail this
tempest safely as a state with a stable and secure political and social
environment. It is impossible to keep steering between the Scylla of Muslim
politics of the MB, the jihadists, the Salafists, and the Wahhabis of Saudi-Arabia
plus the Shiites of Iran and the Charybdis of Israel and the Western infidels,
enemies of Islam and its Prophet. The aforementioned epithets are given to the
West by prominent Imams of Islam as well as by the Taliban of the various traditionalist
sects, and are not our own.
Egypt is
going to play a pivotal ideological role in this historical drama. A turn to a
theocratic short of regime in Egypt after the December 15th
referendum in defiance of the secularist’s rejection of President’s Mursi
recent decisions will force Turkey adjust its own perception of its new
constitution. Egypt may become the next Syria. On the other hand the ongoing
Syrian war of sects and minorities pitted against a majority of triumphant
Sunnis against Assad will have a confrontational spillover effect upon Turkey
itself. This will incite clashes amongst Alevis, Sufis and minority Christian
sects who will perceive themselves as threatened by Muslim Sunni orthodoxy. A
stable economy, the main cause of Erdogan’s success can go up in smoke the
moment the first signs of internal turmoil show up.
There is no easy way out for
Turkey if there is a way out at all.
The fact that a prominent
musician is brought to justice for atheistic remarks and a philosophy professor
is under investigation for the same reason is not very reassuring for Turkey’s
future as a model of democracy. Perhaps Erdogan is trying to preempt any moves
by the hard line Islamists of his own party who see across the borders the rise
of their ideological brothers. Even if the motive is benign the result is
pernicious. Turkey is reverberating with the outcome of a resurgent Islam. Yusuf
Kanli, a Turkish analyst wrote: “I asked some friends [How can the Turkish
aspiration to somehow, and in some form, rehash the Ottoman Empire be
explained?] who are respectable
sociologists and they proved to be cowardly enough to swiftly silence me out of
an effort to avoid a possible confrontation with the tall, bold, bald and every
angry man aspiring to become the first-ever elected sultan of this fast socio-political
regression. Can anyone blame them? No, definitely not. In a country where
political opponents and critics are packed in boxes labeled “terrorist, handle
roughly” and confined to a high security concentration camp in the Thracian
Turkey, it requires more than courage to come up and say something that might
enrage the sultan or his clan of political Islam.”[5]
Turkey was defined by the
late S. Huntington, as a torn state between two cultures. FM Davutoglu as a
Muslim scholar embarked upon a voyage to devise a new Islamic foreign policy
paradigm to supplant a failing Western one. The stark reality of the Arab and
Muslim world has upset his project. The West, however, is a willing accomplice
to this impeding catastrophe by the fact that it permitted and still permits
Turkey to use Western backing for a dubious and highly speculative foreign
policy and internal agenda that is heading to the rocks of Islam’s past as a
perceived glorious present.
[1]Al Arabiya (Reuter’s ) 30/11/2012
[2] We all wonder how this drama
shall play out. Has Assad an ace in his sleeve? Are the Russian still keeping
him in power? Will his exit be with a whimper or with a bang?
[3] Hurriyet, The National
Coordination Committee for Democratic Change is an umbrella organization of 13
opposition groups
[4] Haaretz, 29/11/2012
[5] Hurriyet 30/11/2012
