By Tahir Abbas
On the night of 15 July 2016,over 350 people died and thousands lay injured after the failed coup in Turkey. I had left the country just ten days earlier. We know what happened on the streets that nightbut we still do not know exactly who was behind the coup.
Pro-government supporters protest against the attempted coup | Photo Courtesy: The New Indian ExpressWasthe Turkish government made aware of the coup hours before it was due to take place, and then used the event as a form of power play, as has been suggested by journalist, Ahmet Sikwho is now in jail? Was it an attempt to further push out the Glenists, a processthat beganin 2013? Or to get rid of the Atlanticist generals, replacing them with pro-Europeans? Was it aimed at marginalising the opposition, especially the pro-Kurdish HDParguably the only party to stand up to President Erdo?an? Was it an attempt to consolidate power over the media, closing hundreds of outlets andtaking over many others, as well as locking up journalists and commentators? Or was it part of an effort to silence academics? Somewere willing to speak out, but after the failed coup they were dismissed or faced trial.
While all these had been going on for months, the reality of the failed coup gave Erdo?ans ruling AKP the opportunity to further ostracise a whole host of groups thought to be acting against the governments interests.
In the six yearsI lived and worked in Istanbul, the nation changed from the picture of aneconomic miracle balancing capitalism, Islam and democracy, to a country now seen as governed by plutocratic and autocratic tendencies combined with growing Islamism, and perennially on the brink of a deeper malaise.
Everymajor world civilisation has crossedTurkeysettling, conquering (the defeat of the Byzantines), absorbing (the Ottoman Empiresmillet system) and wiping outothers ( the Armenian genocide). But italso moved from the centre of the Muslim world to a secular republic in a matter of a few years. In the process, it rendered the majority of its populationilliterate overnight (due to the drastic changes to the language). It ultimately created a virulent form of hyper-nationalism that focused on Islamas a cultural rather than religious identity. The new state was organisedaround a language spoken only by the elite.
[su_pullquote align=”right”]It is unclear whether the EU really wants Turkey to joinor vice versa[/su_pullquote]
The group worstaffected by these changes were the Kurds, who are an ethnic and linguistic minority, but were not classified as religious minorities in the 1923 Lausanne Treaty in the same way Christians and Jews were. At the turn of the 19thcentury, there were 20m people living in Ottoman territories, of whom25 per cent were minorities: Jews, Christians and Alevis. Today, in a population of around 70m, fewerthan 100,000 belong toreligious minorities. A great deal has changed, but Turkeys future remains very uncertain. It is unclearwhether the EU really wants Turkey to joinor vice versa. Both sides realise that it will probably never happen, but both are happy enough to play along as an application for EU membershipfulfils certain immediate aims, namely trade and tourism.
The rise of Erdo?an
In 2011, Erdogan changed the system, clearing the way for him to become the countrys first directly elected president in 2013 | Photo Courtesy: The Daily Beast[su_pullquote]In this race for ever-greater forms of populism, Erdo?an operates in the same space as Trump, Farage, Wilders and Le Pen[/su_pullquote]
Meanwhile,the EU-led refugee deal keeps Syrians fleeing conflict inside Turkish borders and away from the EU. This suits the latter, especially as the rise of populism and the crumbling of the traditional left has created political vacuums. In this race for ever-greater forms of populism, Erdo?an operates in the same space as Trump, Farage, Wilders and Le Pen.
Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has been leader of the AKP since 2001, becoming Prime Minister in 2002 and then President in 2014. He served three whole terms: each time the AKP increased its majority. As president, he now has absolute power andabsolute power corrupts absolutely, as the maxim goes. Relations between the AKP and Glen movement began to falter as early as 2010. This accelerated in December 2013 as corruption concerns were raised in relation to Erdo?an and members of his family. The alliancebetween AKP and the Glen movement, once a healthy one, turned bitter and acrimonious. But because Erdo?an has ultimate state power, there was only going to be one winner in this battle for the future of Turkish Islam.
Erdo?an has shored up his position among the 50 per cent of the population wholly devoted to him. He can do no wrong. He is also hugely popular among diaspora Turks, especially in Germany and Belgium. There is every reason to suggest that he will stay in power at least until 2023, if not longerbecoming the most important political figure in Turkish history, superseding Ataturk. Furthermore, while Erdo?an was committed to a peace process with the Kurds in 2012, it came to a dramatic halt in June 2015. Since then there have been over 30 terrorist incidentsin Turkey, carried out by Islamic State, an offshoot of the PKK known as the TAK or far-left anti-capitalist groups.
[su_pullquote align=”right”]Turkey is ostensibly a Muslim country, with a significant element of the population increasingly describing themselves as pious and conservative believers who uphold the tenets of Sunni Islam[/su_pullquote]
The recent attack on the Riena nightclub in a swanky part of Istanbul showsIS determination totarget a site popular with both tourists and local elites.But the fact that a nightclub was attacked was no accident either. Turkey is ostensibly a Muslim country, with a significant element of the population increasingly describing themselves as pious and conservative believers who uphold the tenets of Sunni Islam. By attacking a well-known nightclub, Islamic State aimed to appeal to an element of Turkish society theologically predisposed to decry what are regarded as grossly un-Islamic entitiessomething that the government were promoting in recent weeks by discouraging Turks from engaging in a consumerist Christmas. There is a rising Islamism among certain sections of the youth. Someare from families who are loyal to the AKP and hold Islamist sympathies. This strategycreates further fissures between pro-AKP conservatives and anti-AKP secular and liberal segments of the population, while crowding out space for liberal Muslims or conservative but secular groups. There is limited opposition to the AKP, and what does exist is disparate and divisive.
The quelling of dissent
Turkey sits on one of the most important strategic fault lines in the world, with the failed Arab Spring and Islamic State on one side, and Greece, at the mercy of the EU, on the other.
But while Turkeys GDP averaged 5 per cent throughout the 2000s, the ongoing fall of the lira relative to major world currencies means there is every signofa relatively hard landing for the economy and society, especially as there are already widening regional income and wealth disparities.
Turkey is heading down a deeply dangerous path that is potentially destabilising for the whole of the Middle East. It faces isolation in the region. Many people remember the 1980s and 1990s, when ethnic and sectarian violence was the norm, people were intensely divided, politically, culturally and economically, and a dark cloud hung over the nation. The irony is that half the nation regards AKP actionsas entirely acceptable in the current climate of far left terrorism, Islamic State bombings and the perennial bogeyman, the PKK, resurfacing as Turkeys most sinister enemy within. With an immense electoral mandate, having obtained nearly half the national vote in November 2015, the AKP leadership sees itself as untouchable. Such hubris isprecarious.
Shutting down newspapers, closing television stations and silencing journalists (and academics) who challenge the status quo do not help, especially in relation to how the world sees Turkey. With approximately 95 per cent of all print outlets in the hands of pro-government management or leaning that way, the space to engage with Turkish politics has narrowed considerably. Society is being inculcated bya form of majoritarian nationalism with an increasingly Islamist tint. Secularism can only provide opportunities for differentreligious systems to flourish if they do not veer towards ethnic nationalism, which is often unstable and regularly problematic. The historic polarisations between Islamist and secularist, conservative and liberal, relativists and purists, pro-European and anti-European could not be wider in Turkey right now.
Professor Tahir Abbas FRSA is Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. His latest book isContemporary Turkey in Conflict, published by Edinburgh University Press in December 2016.
Featured Image Source: The Business Insider
This article was originally published on Democratic Audit UK.
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