2003: a momentous year for Turkey

Turkey needed the change. The preceding decade (1991-2002) had been one of unstable coalition governments, whose political infighting and machinations were accompanied by waste and corruption on a grand scale that cost the country an estimated $200 billion. Turkey’s debts multiplied, the value of its national currency plummeted and ordinary people found themselves hard-up overnight. By February 2001, Turkey was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Change was also needed to preserve social peace. A severe heightening of societal, civilian-military and secular-religious tensions marked the period since February 1997. An entire segment of civil society was turned into an outcast (in economic, educational and social terms) and made to pay heavily for its Islamist convictions. The recent assumption of power by the Islamists can play a vital role in easing the political and social strains that resulted and which persist.
Today’s Islamists differ from those of yesteryear. The Islam of the Erdoganists is extremely moderate and barely retains any Islamist features. The creed of Necmettin Erbakan, the historic leader of Turkish political Islam, was realistic and pragmatic too, but it adhered more to Islamist norms, in terms of both ideology and general practice.
The rise to power of the Islamists even provides the hard-line Kemalist establishment with a valuable opportunity: a chance to shed its intolerantly secularist and anti-Muslim image.
The new reality mandated by the people’s will has been accepted by “the powers that be.” But it has yet to turn its acceptance into conviction and cooperation, and build bridges to Erdogan (who has done his utmost to build bridges to “the powers that be”).
The results of the encounter between secularists and Islamists have not been very encouraging so far, but it still needs time to bear fruit. Diehard Kemalist leaders ­ including the state prosecutor, the head of the Higher Education Council, and even the army chief of staff ­ appear determined to yield nothing and brook no compromise over what they term “republican and secularist principles.” Their feeling that an era is fizzling out has driven them to wage their last stand before Turkey has to comply with the requirements of European reform.
Their battle is really against the “Copenhagen criteria.” The biggest challenge facing Erdogan is how to make this republican “old guard” comply with the conditions for membership in the European Union. The task is by no means easy. But it is supremely ironic that it should be an Islamist who is leading the fight for accession to the EU, against fierce resistance from a secularist elite that for 80 years justified its hold on power in terms of the need to Westernize Turkey and ascertain its European identity.
Turkey also faces the challenge of producing a new political class that is in tune with both the domestic changes and the new international order.
The new “leaders” who have emerged to date inspire little confidence. The DYP, for example, which had been led by Ciller and was founded by the venerable Suleyman Demirel, has ended up being headed by Mehmet Agar, a character who spent his career in various security and police jobs. The politicians vying for leadership of ANAP, the late Turgut Ozal’s creation, are markedly lacking in political vision or appeal. The DSP, for its part, snoozes on in the sickbed of Ecevit and his equally elderly wife Rahsan.
The only other party that obtained seats in Parliament, the CHP, differs little from the rest of the now-extinct political class. Its leader, Deniz Baykal, has no specific political program, and his partner Kemal Dervis ­ who was brought in during the spring of 2001 as the country’s “economic savior” ­ has lost credibility because of his opportunism and his zigzagging between one party and another before he opted to join Baykal.
It will take time for a new political class to emerge. Such developments do not happen overnight. But unless major surprises occur, or the AKP commits major blunders in office, Erdogan and his colleagues appear to be in a position to establish their dominance of political life for a long while to come.
On the external front, 2002 presented Turkey with the challenge of setting a date for the start of EU accession talks. The end of 2004 was chosen, with the onus on Turkey to complete the remaining legislative steps required by the Copenhagen criteria, and to comply with them in actual practice. That raises the greatest single challenge facing Erdogan: how to strip the army of its political role. This is set to be the “mother of all battles” as far as domestic reform is concerned. Erdogan will have to lead it in person after he assumes the premiership, as he is expected to do in the next couple of months.
Turkey will also need to take a grip on the Cyprus question before the end of February. Ankara has been presented with a bona fide opportunity to extricate itself from this quagmire and turn the issue to its advantage in its quest for EU membership. But here again, much depends on being able to sway the military establishment and its ally, Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash. Many complicated factors come into play in this 30-year-old problem.
Which leaves Iraq ­ Ankara’s long-standing obsession. The status quo there suits it, but Turkey is under relentless pressure from Washington to take part in any war that is launched. Prime Minister Abdullah Gul may have toured Arab capitals to discuss “preventing war,” but that does not negate the fact that the Islamists in Ankara have been doing their best to win Washington’s favor. Gul’s unwarranted New Year diatribe against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein may have been part of that effort.