Seeking to understand what is happening in Turkey is to enter a seemingly impenetrable labyrinth. You must seek to see the wood for the trees in an environment of smoke and mirrors. Take recent events: A raid on a café in the eastern province of Erzincan in the seemingly neverending search for conspirators associated with the ruling Justice and Development Party, the AKP, or with the army as part of the Engenekon Case; the announcement that women who have fertility treatment abroad, which is illegal in Turkey, face a three year prison sentence; the statement by a leading minister that homosexuals suffer from an illness and should be treated for a medical condition. What exactly was behind the seizure of an army lorry containing grenades by the police being taken to the capital Ankara? Prime minister Erdogan’s proposal that the thousands of Armenians working in Turkey without permits should be deported back to Armenia announced after the American House of Representatives vote appears to escalate the whole Armenian situation. These are just some of the panorama of events that must be interpreted in order to comprehend what is happening in Turkey.
Some sort of understanding might be achieved by establishing who and what the central figure in all of this, prime minister Erdogan, actually is. Is he seeking to achieve some form of Islamacist dictatorship or is he a concerned democrat? I suspect the answer lies somewhere in the murky middle between the two seemingly competing ideologies. His roots were in the vast suburbs of Istanbul and the macho politics associated with these districts. This produces a politician who is pragmatic but also confrontational. He can be seen to have an emotional affinity to leaders of other Muslim countries that runs contrary to an acceptable foreign policy. An example of this is a white washing of the Sudanese Government over Darfur. He has not been immune from the old fashioned Turkish attitudes to the operation of power structures within the Turkish state which still traps Turkey into authoritarian illiberal behaviour and prevents it becoming open minded about its very real shortcomings. With all this there is now within the AKP itself a movement to question the traditional Turkish nationalist attitudes to issues such as what happened to the Armenians in 1915. Are there are indications that the Erdogan and the AKP are evolving into a liberal Muslim conservative party committed to EU entry?
In the middle of this political turmoil Europe’s new enlargement commissioner has arrived to be greeted with the headline “New Man In EU, Same Old Message.” He welcomes Turkey’s policy of “zero problems with neighbours” and Erdogan’s pivotal role in the affairs of the region. Turkey has just shown the door to the IMF, a reflection of how well it has weathered the current economic storm in comparison with other major economies. The AKP are about to privatise the country’s energy companies, indicating a movement along the road towards Islamic capitalism.
However, his government’s major challenge is to loosen the hand of the military not only on the judiciary but the whole cultural and social life of the country. The criticism of Erdogan is not that he is seeking to make constitutional changes in order to achieve this, but that he has waited so long to present measures preventing the army from interfering in Turkey’s fragile democracy. The opposition CHP are concerned that some aspects of the constitutional changes now being proposed have elements of the authoritarian structures they seek to replace. Significantly, Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s president, is discussing with the opposition a compromise on crucial changes to Turkey’s judicial structure that do not include the army. As Gul talks to CHP leader Baykal am I being optimistic in saying that a military coup is unlikely?