Wrong prioritizing

The joke says that when three Turks get together, two of them divide at once along some kind of ideological line and try to make the third an ally. Hence, Turkey is like a Windows program: Small windows of national divisions come and go, but all applications are working somewhere in the background.

The battle between the Democrats and the Republicans in the 1950s led to a military coup in 1960 and sent Adnan Menderes, prime minister, to the execution bench, with a court warrant ordering capital punishment hanging from his neck. The violent division between leftists and rightists in the 1970s led to another coup, in 1980, but this time, luckily, no politician was hanged. The more trendy division, these days, is between Islamists and secularists.

Last week, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was enjoying sunshine in Greece, physically and politically. But his thoughts were back in a politically gloomy Ankara where his usual opponents, the generals, had made their strongest warning to the AKP over secularism since Mr. Erdogan took office 14 months earlier. With the row over the headscarf now running in the "background window," the front window application shows a potential battle over Muslim clerical schools.

Mr. Erdogan, himself a graduate of a clerical school, wants to make it easier for his younger schoolmates to enter universities — as well as for the graduates of other state-funded vocational schools. But the military, surprisingly quiet over a raft of political reforms and Mr. Erdogan’s deviation from the national policy over Cyprus, this time stood up to say that the law undermined the division of state and religion.

Clerical schools are vocational schools — like media studies, mechanics, nursing, et cetera. When parents enroll their children in vocational schools, they hope their children will continue their university education on the same subject (e.g., graduates of media schools often study journalism at university). But the situation is different for clerical schools.

Conservative/Islamist Turkish families tend to send their children to clerical schools (there are presently around 90,000 of them) not in the hope that they should become clerics but because they simply want to raise religious children. They want a solid Muslim education for their children in their younger years, and medical, legal and other education in their university years.

Although it is almost possible for a clerical student to enroll at any faculty, the central university examination discriminates against vocational school students. Mr. Erdogan thinks the situation is unfair and that it must change.

The secularists, on the other hand, fear that Mr. Erdogan’s move, disputably dubbed "education reform," may create hundreds of thousands more clerical students. That means, according to Mr. Erdogan’s critics, a flow of clerical graduates into non-clerical universities and a systematic Islamist infiltration into state jobs — judges, governors, doctors, police chiefs and others. That will, according to secularists, complete Mr. Erdogan’s secret plans for an Islamist invasion of the secular state.

No doubt, Gen. Hilmi Ozkok, the chief of general staff, is a man fully devoted to Turkey’s European Union bid. He has been unusually compromising with Mr. Erdogan’s government in order not to distort the reform process — even at the expense of grudging colleagues. What would have been unthinkable a few years ago actually happened when Mr. Erdogan ignored advice from the National Security Council (MGK) on Cyprus. For many reasons, Gen. Ozkok is the only genuinely reformist military leader since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

In return, Mr. Erdogan has avoided friction with the military. He backed down when the military signaled its displeasure. Mr. Erdogan and Gen. Ozkok quickly found a common ground that glued them into a bizarre but working co-habit: a date from the EU. But the carefully worded statement from Gen. Ozkok’s headquarters shows that there may be limits as to how far the military will compromise.

Mr. Erdogan is more a pragmatist than an Islamist. Therefore the education reform does not fit into the present political picture for a number of reasons.

The controversial bill on clerical (and other vocational) schools will bring no political benefit for Mr. Erdogan, but it has the risk of collective damage. There are no elections in sight. So Mr. Erdogan does not have to look pretty to his grassroots supporters. Moreover, his slow shift in the past year from an Islamist to a center-right identity has rewarded his party with increased popularity (his party increased its votes by eight percentage points in local polls in March, while the main opposition suffered a loss). With only half a year to go for the historic EU decision on whether to give Turkey a date, fresh tension with the military is the last thing Mr. Erdogan (and Turkey) needs. Louder voices from the top brass, replies from government benches and a battle will only give extra ammunition to Turkey-skeptics in the EU and minimize the chances for a date. With no date in hand, Mr. Erdogan will have to face an entirely different military establishment. Gen. Ozkok’s behavior of compromise may have December as the expiry date if things go wrong for Turkey in Brussels.

Mr. Erdogan should be able to understand that this is not the best time to fight an unnecessary war with the military. He should also be able to understand that secularism is still a red line for the military and that it must not be crossed over. Fortunately, we are not living in times of conventional coups, but any confrontation will create collective damage — for Mr Erdogan’s government, for the military and, therefore, for Turkey.

The idea behind the proposed reform lacks common sense, too. Clerical schools, like other vocational schools, exist to give exclusive education for specific professions. It is most normal if a media school graduate goes to the media faculty, or if a clerical school graduate goes to the clerical university.

A compromise can be found without fighting either silent or loud wars. If there are hundreds of thousands of families who want enhanced religious education for their children, why not reform the high school system with a selective course scheme that would offer students extra hours of religious training?

From a conspiracy theory point of view, the whole debate can only be play-acting. What if the players already know that the Constitutional Court will scrap the law? That way, Mr. Erdogan can tell his grassroots supporters that he did everything, that he stuck to his guns and even dared a war with the men in uniform but, no luck, the supreme court blocked the plan. And the happy secularists can go back to their barracks enjoying victory.