Democracy and Education (And An Evermore Divided Turkey)

PHOTO from Vatan

The parliament took up the proposed education law (see past post for background) yesterday just hours after 20,000 demonstrators gathered in Ankara's Tandogan Square to protest what opposition groups view as a unilateral attempt by the ruling AKP to overhaul the education system.

The law the AKP is trying to pass is publicly referred to as "4+4+4" because it seeks to make 12-year education mandatory for all children. Yet that is not the full story. Under the current system, public education is mandatory for the first eight years, after which students may opt to attend imam-hatip, or religious high schools that teach a mixture of standard education and theology, and which are subject to different standards -- and, naturally -- a different ideological/pedagogical atmosphere. The proposed law, which has been amended since my last post, also includes provisions that would pave the way for children to opt to attend imam-hatip  as early as 10 years of age, as well as enter special vocational schools. The original law had included a measure that would allow children to opt into "open education," or home schooling, as early as 10 years of age. That provision has since been amended under pressure from women's another groups that introducing open education at such an early age would lead to an increase in child labor and young girls being kept from school to work at home -- a problem in conservative communities that activist groups have long sought to remedy.

The proposed system seeks to effectively divide education into three tiers -- first, middle, and high school. The government also plans to introduce a year before primary education akin to what in the United States is known as "pre-school," and which AKP politicians have haled as a major selling point of the new law. Under the proposal, children would also be able to join private religious education courses, often held during the summer, after their fourth year in school.

For AKP policymakers, the new system is to be celebrated not only as a means to further the quality of public education but also "democracy" -- a word much heralded by AKP politicians, but which for all intents and purposes, seems simply to mean rule by the majority, and a majority as the ruling party interprets it (for more on this, see this past post he AKP's sparring with TUSIAD, the leading business association in Turkey which has puts itself squarely in opposition to the new arrangements).

Much at the heart of the AKP's framing the issue is the fact that the current system is largely the product of the 1997 "postmodern coup" that toppled the country's former Islamist-led coalition, in which the AKP has its roots. Under military tutelage in the years after the coup, the government sought to guard secularism against what the generals saw as the rising tide of political Islam and the current education system was a major concern, in particular the increasing popularity of imam-hatip. The system prior to the coup allowed parents to place their children in imam-hatip at the age of 10, a policy to which the AKP is returning. It also forbade children to take private religious courses (for example, during summer vacation) before completing five years in school.

Though the reform process at the time was far from democratic and involved a major abuse of power by the military, as well as persecution of numerous educators and students haling from conservative Muslim backgrounds, the new policy did yield some positive results, including an increase in the enrollment rate of girls in the first eight years of public education (from 34% to 65%). While the coup-driven education reform of the late 1990s should in no way be celebrated, the AKP should at the least explain how its new policy will not seek to imperil the success of the past decade in this regard. Yet rather than explaining how the new system (or devising one alternative to that proposed) might build on increased enrollment rates while adopting a more sensitive approach to religion, the party has instead simply decried opponents of the law to be against "democracy."

Polarization over the new law reached a new high two weeks ago when the parliamentary commission responsible for education policy ramrodded the proposal through the commission amidst fistfights between the ruling party and the opposition. Knowing that debate could delay the law's passage through the commission, the AKP blockaded opposition party members' attendance in attempt to forestall efforts to frustrate passage to the parliament's general assembly.

Soon after the brawl, the opposition CHP petitioned to annul the commission's vote, arguing that procedural rules had been violated. Yet parliament speaker Cemil Cicek seems to have no intention of returning the law to commission, and the party's plans at this point are to pass the law in the general assembly by the end of the week.

The protests yesterday reveal just how divided Turkey is becoming. Speaking at Tandogan, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said the law is not "4+4+4," but "8/2." Kilicdaroglu was referring to the two different standards of education children would be receiving after the first eight years (and, in reality, after the age of 10 given the planned introduction of vocational schools and imam-hatip at so young an age). Yet there is another element to the leader's words worth exploring.

Though some of the AKP's policies have aimed to strip national education of some of the more distressing nationalist/ideological aspects of public education (for example, military-designed national security education courses and celebrations of national youth day, which liberals have long considered quasi-fascist), the fact that the government's most recent effort seems to setup a system parallel to that of national education (that is, imam-hatip and vocational education), there is real concern that the secular/conservative divide could grow deeper.Further, there is the very real possibility that a large number of Turks (future voting citizens) as early as age 10 could receive an education that is sub-par when compared to their counterparts that finish 12 years of public eduction. While these students might be more likely to constitute the "pious generation" Erdogan envisioned a few weeks before the education debate started in full, it is highly unlikely that they would demonstrate the same level of political efficacy and sophistication as their more educated counterparts.

Among the groups protesting the new legislation at Tandogan is Egitem-Sen, the left-leaning teachers' union, as well as the Rightful Women's Platform and the Federation of Turkish Women's Associations. The Confederation of Public Sector Workers (KESK), of which Egitem-Sen is a part, is also present. Egitem-Sen has called for two days of teachers' strikes to demonstrate against the proposed law, and is the chief organizer of the demonstrations alongside the CHP.

Ankara's governor, who is a member of the AKP, has questioned the legality of the assembly, and though he has yet to break up the gathering, he has threatened to do so. The municipality has removed banners and placards put up in the environs -- a move CHP parliamentarian and women's rights defender Binnaz Toprak described as a violation of freedom of expression. And so it seems there is potential for the fighting in parliament to soon bleed onto the streets -- a country divided indeed, and with neither liberal nor consensual democracy anywhere in sight at the moment. For more coverage in English of yesterday's protests, click here.

Religious Education and 4+4+4

PHOTO from Birgun

Fast approaching the anniversary of the Feb. 28 process, or the 1997 "postmodern coup" that brought about the fall of the Islamist Refah government and a slate of reforms to defend secularism against what was perceived by some as the encroaching threat posed by political Islam, the government has announced plans to restructure Turkish education.

Reforms include provisions that would allow school children to receive education at religious (imam-hatip) high schools after completing four years of primary education or pursue distance learning (essentially "home school") courses. At the moment, students are required to complete eight years of education before being allowed to complete the final four years at imam-hatip, which combine traditional and religious education. Under the new law, education would be structured into three four-year segments: four years primary (ilk), four years middle (orta), and four years high school (lise), and hence the 4+4+4. The government is arguing the new law is an improvement since all 12 years will be mandatory even if it is to be completed at home.

The problems with the law should be apparent, and late this week earned the denunciation of the Turkish Businessmen and Industrialists' Association (TUSIAD) and prominent opinion leader and entrepreneur Guler Sabanci. In rural areas, particularly in the east and southeast where children, particularly girls, already do not go to school, the law would greatly diminish educational standards. Parents in these areas are often not well-educated themselves (this is an understatement), and would not be capable of providing a quality education. Further, child labor is a tremendous problem (see past post) and girls are frequently kept at home (for more on this, see past post; see also the above advertisement from a 2010 campaign launched by Milliyet urging fathers to send their daughters to school).

The proposed law also allows for provision that would reduce the age of apprenticeship to 11, though it is still unclear to me as to how an apprenticeship works. (Is it pursued concurrent with other curriculum? Does it allow one to withdraw from school entirely? Would this possibly trigger more child labor?) The apprenticeship is also chief among TUSIAD's concerns (for more, click here).

On Wednesday, the parliament sub-commission for education took up the bill after a debate by a wider debate by a larger commission. Though the AKP has been sensitive to criticisms coming from groups such as TUSIAD and has expressed some willingness to compromise, it is unclear just how many of the proposed provisions could be made law. The sub-commission is scheduled to take the draft up once more on Feb. 28 after some tweaking from party officials. For an account in English, click here.

Cumhuriyet columnist Utku Cakirozer frames the recent move within the context of the Feb. 28 process. Cakirozer refers to measures put into play soon after the coup that required all students to attend eight years of primary education (from five to eight) before dropping out or enrolling in imam-hatip. The generals also restricted Koran courses. Students were not allowed to enroll in Koran courses until after their fifth year of school, and courses were subject to inspection by the Directorate of Religious Affairs, or Diyanet. Penalties, including prison sentences for parents who did not send their children to schools or sent their children to Koran courses before they were old enough. In addition, operators of illegal Koran courses were also subject to penalties.

Gradually, the AKP government has whittled away at what some might read as particularly intrusive restrictions, particularly on religious education. In 2003, prison sentences were replaced with fines; in 2004, parliament reduced the sentence for running an illegal Koran course from three years to one and ended and authorities ceased closing down illegal courses; in 2005, the Diyanet ceased inspecting Koran courses; and after last June's elections, the minimum age for Koran courses was eliminated. According to Cakirozer, the goal is now to do away with the eight-year rule for uninterrupted education.


As it inevitably does, the headscarf also falls into the debate. As Cakirozer points out, young girls wearing the headscarf (as young as fifth grade) will now be allowed to do so at imam-hatip, effectively ending the ban. I care more about the fact that these children will simply not receive the same quality of education as I do about an effective end to the ban after that age (the ban was one of the reasons driving the government to do this to begin with), but it is important to note that is also important for many critics of the new law (for another example, see this coverage from Hurriyet).

Other columnists and opinion leaders see the law as a broad-based effort to increase the influence of Islamist education, particularly imam-hatip and Koran courses. For an example, see Egitim-Is head Veli Demir's comments in Melih Asik's column in Milliyet.


UPDATE I (2/27) -- Nicole Pope's column in Today's Zaman offers a solid English-language analysis summing up the threat the proposed law poses to Turkish education.

"Pious Generations"

PHOTO from Radikal

The prime minister made waves last Wednesday when criticizing CHP Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who had, as he routinely does, accused the prime minister of religious populism.

Erdogan, in response, said, "Do you expect the conservative democrat AK Party to raise atheist generations? This may be your business and objective but not ours. We will raise a generation that is conservative and democratic and embraces the values and historical principles of its nation?" The remarks have caused a firestorm of controversy, most of it re-active, as the Turkish public waits for Erdogan to clarify his remarks.

Though the AKP has always publicly affirmed its commitment to secularism, most notably of late in the prime minister's address in Cairo last September, doubts still linger as to whether the party is simply waiting to show its true face. Yet this does not really capture the picture. The issue now is not so much whether Turkey could give way to the religious fanaticism of Iran, which was always an overblown assessment, but whether religious minorities and nonbelievers can be secure in their rights as minorities amidst a largely Sunni, and fairly conservative, religious population. The tension between the two rises to the surface as much in private space as public, in particular when it comes to neighborhoods where the more and less religious are now residing next to each other and walking the same streets.

The real concern with Erdogan's remarks is to just what role he envisions the state to play in the religious arena. AKP officials are well-known for espousing their support for the American interpretation of secularism over the French, which is entirely different, but as I have written before (see past posts), these same officials often do not have a very good understanding of the American system nor is it free from excesses and more than the occasional encroachment of religion into public policy making whereby minorities -- religious, sexual, and otherwise -- routinely face discrimination thanks to legislation seeking to promote values.

Turkey, though not by any means more liberal than the United States, has to some degree been protected from such excesses thanks to the state's understanding of secularism, which, despite a horrible history of discrimination against what likely is a religious majority (for example, the headscarf ban), has explained why many of Turkey's minorities, in particular Alevis and Jews, are quite nervous about the state of secularism in Turkey (whether they would characterize it as "deterioration," "decline," or "renegotiation"). I know this last sentence has a lot of clauses, but is revealing of the degree of careful qualification and nuance the issue requires. What is disturbing about Erdogan's recent remarks is precisely their lack of nuance.

Even more disturbing is that after making the remarks, Erdogan did simply clarify his remarks and put the matter to bed. First, seemingly attempting to re-frame his remarks by stating that "people can be both pious and modern," and only after stating that criticism of his remarks was the product of an ill-intentioned defamation campaign, the prime minister posed this set of twin rhetorical questions: "Do you want our youth to become thinner addicts? Do you want a new generation that has no moral values and no purpose?" Thinner addiction has become a major problem among youth in many of Turkey's large cities, which have experienced massive amounts of migration and where many still live in poverty.


UPDATE I (2/15) -- The Young Academicians have initiated a campaign in response to the prime minister's remarks, which can be viewed here, along with a letter of concern (English version here) addressed to the prime minister. An excerpt:

We, as the youth and academics of this country, of Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Alawite, Shafi'i, religious and nonreligious, atheist and agnostic backgrounds, all joined with a firm belief in secularism, find your recent remarks about raising a religious and conservative youth most alarming and dangerous.

. . . .

We further condemn your speech which served only to hurt and humiliate the children that live on the streets in Turkey (stigmatised with the media-catchphrase of ‘thinner-addicted children’), who already live under harsh conditions and who are subject to abuse. The plight of these children is not due to a lack of spirituality, as you have implied, but is caused by the deep-rooted social and economic problems of our country, to which you have served as Prime Minister for a decade.

USCIRF Again Designates Turkey a "Country of Particular Concern"

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has released its 2010 annual report on the state of religious freedom in countries throughout the world and Turkey has again been named a "Country of Particular Concern." Since the file on the USCIRF website appears to be somehow damaged, below are excerpts of reportage from Today's Zaman:

Turkey remains on the watch list this year also. It was designated for close monitoring for the first time in 2009. The fact that very little has changed in terms of restrictions imposed on people has resulted in it retaining its status as a violator country in the view of the USCIRF.

In addition to these 13 countries, designated the worst violators of religious freedoms around the world, the 2010 watch list includes Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, Tajikistan and Venezuela as well as Turkey with respect to “the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by the governments.” The panel’s report also criticized the current and former US administrations for doing little to make basic religious rights universal.

The commission was founded in 1998 by an act of Congress and has investigated conditions in what it calls “hot spots” where religious freedom is endangered.

Much of the USCIRF report will echo the U.S. Department of State's country report on international religious freedom in Turkey.

Council of State Concludes Coefficient Dispute (For the Moment)

From Today's Zaman:

The Council of State rejected an appeal yesterday for the annulment of the Higher Education Board’s (YÖK) recent decision to change a system that uses a lower coefficient to calculate the university admission examination scores of graduates of vocational high schools.

The 8th Chamber of the Council of State, which had rejected YÖK’s previous attempts to end the lower coefficient system, this time ruled in favor of the latest change proposed by YÖK, which is supposed to make it difficult, but not impossible, for students to pursue an area of study that differs from their vocational training.

The coefficients previously employed were 0.3 and 0.5, putting vocational school graduates at a significant disadvantage when they tried to pursue other fields.

YÖK previously attempted to reduce the difference in the university entrance exam score coefficients used for regular and vocational high school graduates. After a series of decisions were blocked by the Council of State, YÖK decided on March 17 that the new coefficients would be 0.12 and 0.15 instead of the previously proposed 0.13 and 0.15. With the court’s decision, new coefficients will apply in this year’s university entrance exam.

For more background, see this more in-depth article from Today's Zaman's Sule Kulu. See also Feb. 10 post.

Turkey's Madisonian Dilemma: The Constitution and Why "Neighborhood Pressure" Matters

On Monday the AKP made public its proposed package of constitutional amendments over stark protestations from opposition parties and some figures in the judicary who have issued public statements against the package. There is dissent about both the content of the amendments, as well as allegations about the AKP's intentions and the means the party is employing to push the package into law.

For several in Turkey who view the AKP as a sinister force bent on consolidating its own power and, for some people, pushing through an "Islamist" agenda, the constitutional package is nothing more but an attempt to aggrandize executive powers, shifting the separation of powers in its favor by diminishing the role of the judiciary. Yet, for others, the package is the only hope for meaningful reform, especially in regard to the judiciary, which has consistently used its authority to annul legislation and threaten political parties with closure. A majority in Turkey, in some polls well upward of 60 percent, think a new constitution is necessary, but that support does not necessarily translate into support for the proposed constitutional package, which the AKP admits is less than perfect, but the only means to reform in a political climate where drafting a new constitution is but a pipe dream. Yet, in either scenario, there is little doubt that the current momentum behind the constitutional package and the AKP's firm commitment to seeing it passed is related to the current polarization between it and the judiciary, including the possibility of yet another closure case (see Feb. 20 post). Going the route of the constititutional package means that the AKP has put itself on the track of advancing incremental reforms versus seeking a complete overhaul, which it had promised to do in 2008 before being faced with the closure case it survived by the skin of its teeth. (For a bit of background, see Feb. 5 post and March 7 post.) The party presented the constitution to opposition parties on Tuesday and Wednesday.

What's in the Package?

The most significant areas of reform include new law on the closure of political parties and a re-design of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), the latter of which the European Union has consistently stated is in sore need of reform in order to shore up the independence of the judiciary. The number of judges on the Constitutional Court would be increased from 11 to 19, each judge serving a 12-year term and being ineligible for re-election therafter. The vast majority of the judges, 16, would be appointed by the president, who thanks to a constititional amendment passed in 2007, is now popularly elected. Three judges would be appointed by parliament. Some AKP supporters have pointed to this as a significant area of compromise since it is common in many systems to have constitutional judges appointed by parliament to begin with.

The majority of HSYK members would be increased to 21 and its powers reduced, a move that has establishment figures in the judiciary in a fervor. The HSYK currently consists of seven members -- five from the Supreme Court of Appeals and the Council of State, and two from the Justice Ministry (the Minister, who heads the Council, and the undersecretary). An additional 10 provisional members would be appointed. Of the 21, four would be chosen by the president, one by the Constitutional Court, three by the Supreme Court of Appeals, one by the State Council, seven by judges and prosecutors from among judges and prosecutors of the highest rank, and three by administrative judges and prosecutors of the highest rank. The re-structuring of appointments gives more power to the president and to lower ranks of the judiciary. Also importantly, decisions by the HSYK to remove a prosecutor (as happened in the case of Erzurum prosecutor Osman Sanal) would be subject to further appeal.

In terms of making it more difficult to close political parties, another move long recommended by the European Union and the Council of Europe, political party closures would require parliamentary approval. Instead of the Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals preparing an indictment to be pursued at the Constitutional Court, the Chief Prosecutor would instead be required to petition a parliamentary commission setup for the express pruposes of dealing with potential closures. All parties with a parliamentary group would be equally represented in the commission, and a 2/3 secret vote would be required before a case could be launched at the Constitutional Court. Evidence used and rejected in past closure cases could not be used again. And, in terms of political bans on politicians pursued in line with closures cases, and which are more politically destructive than party closures, any imposed ban would be reduced from five to three years and banned parliamentarians would be able to retain their seats (and, presumably, their immunity) until the end of their term. One significant lacuna here is the lack of inclusion of the Venice Criteria, which define reasons why political parties can be closed. Officials from the Venice Commission have largely welcomed the package of amendments despite the exclusion of the criteria.

One other amendment would also make radical changes to the current order of things by allowing for the trial of military officers in civilian courts. As a result of new amendments, decisions by the High Military Council could be challenged in civilian courts and the body would be theoretically subject to standards of judicial independence. The Constitutional Court annulled a law passed last summer to try military officers in civilian courts.

Other items in the package would open up political parties finances to auditing by the Court of Accounts, limit the reasons for which a citizen could be banned from international travel, protect personal data, and remove provisional Article 15, which granted immunity to individuals involved in the 1980 coup of which Turkey's current constitution is a product. The last move is largely symbolic and has broad support across political parties, though some have argued for prosecutions of who are by this time some very old generals. Also of potential significance are laws pertaining to labor, women, and children, which many critics suggest were, along with amendment of Article 15, as "sweeteners." Civil servants would be given the right to collectively bargain, though not to strike. An arbitration commission would be established to settle disputes, the decisions of which would be final. This is unlikely to gain much support from Tekel workers and others who are staunchly opposed to the neoliberalism of the AKP. Also, disciplinary decisions reached by boards of public agencies would be subject to judicial review. As to women, measures assuring positive discrimination would be introduced, though some women's groups have demanded that the operative term here should be "actual equality."

Addressing the Madisonian Dilemma

The AKP's plans to push the package through by referendum should it not be approved by an unlilely 2/3 majority of parliament raises important questions about majoritarian democracy and those whoare very much afraid that their rights are threatened by the more devout Sunni Muslim majority the AKP is thought to represent. Though the AKP constantly claims that it represents all citizens of Turkey, passing constitutional reforms that enhance executive power and diminish the role of the judiciary, however much needed, is a sensitive issue and should not be dealt with lightly. American constitutional theorist Robert Bork refers to the need to resolve the tension between values associated with what he refers to as competing moral demands for civility and toleration. Canadian political theorist Colin Farrelly expounds:

Civic liberalism takes seriously what Robert Bork (1990) calls the ‘Madisonian Dilemma’. This is the dilemma between the moral demands of the virtues of toleration and civility. Respect for toleration leads us in the direction of limited government, government that does not unjustly interfere with individual liberty. This concern for individual rights provides the normative basis for constitutionalism. This can be contrasted with the moral demands of civility, demands which leads us to majority rule and the idea of self-government. If we take only the moral dimensions of these two virtues into account, it seems that we cannot resolve the Madisonian Dilemma. For we have two contradictory prescriptions- limited government and self-government. But civic liberalism inspires a public philosophy that gives due attention to both the moral and pragmatic dimensions of these virtues. It does not seek to give an absolute priority to any of the moral demands of toleration or civility. Rather, it seeks to reconcile the diverse demands of toleration, civility and fairness. As such, civic liberalism does not see the Madisonian Dilemma as paradoxical. This apparent dilemma reinforces the case for invoking a virtue-oriented approach rather than a principle-oriented approach to government. Civic liberalism defends a virtue-oriented conception of liberal democracy that takes both sides of the Madisionian Dilemma seriously. A public philosophy that takes the complexities of the Madisionian Dilemma seriously is one that will seek to steer a middle path between judicial and legislative supremacy.

Steering such a path in Turkey is no easy task, but it is a road about which the Turkish government, judiciary, and most importantly, Turkish citizens should think hard on and debate fervently. Much of the criticism of the AKP's constitutional package centers precisely on this lack of debate, which is only compounded by the self-interests of the AKP that would be advanced by the package (for example, see this piece from "The Bosporus Straight"). The AKP's previous attempt to draft a new civilian constitutional was also subject to such criticism, though the latter argument about the AKP's self-interests could not gain near as much traction since the draft came after the party's huge electoral victories in 2007. Yet, replete with the liabilities that come with a lack of public consultation and consensus-seeking, a lack of public discourse opens the package up to serious, and some case, warranted criticism, however difficult discourse and consultation-seeking is given the recalcitrance of opposition parties, the lack of coalition building and dialogue in Turkish civil society, and the authoritarian nature of political parties and the policymaking process. At an event last night, one woman broke into near tears as she conveyed her fears, however valid they may be, that the AKP was leading Turkey down a path contrary to its "republican" and "secular" heritage. Rather than dismissing such fears as paranoid or delusional, or placing this woman in the position of being the member of an "elite" who does not want to lose power in a system that has historically benefitted members adhering to her values and ideological orientations more than devout Sunni Muslims, the AKP should take steps to allay these fears by addressing them head-on, addressing the limitations of state power and majoritarian democracy when it comes to values and lifestyles shared by a minority. Here, "neighborhood pressure" again becomes part of the discourse, and rather than dismissing the term and the validity of the phenomenon, the AKP should do everything in its power to engage citizens who fear what is perceived by many as its creeping conservatism. From my Aug. 1, 2008 post following the Constitutional Court's narrow decision not to close the AKP:

For those skeptical to affirm AKP's center-right identity, the party must move away from the intra-party authoritarianism that characterizes all of Turkey's political parties, open its eyes and ears to the complaints of liberal reformers, and renew its commitment to constitutional reform—change that seeks to expand personal liberties and redefine Turkish citizenship along lines much more agreeable to contemporary understandings of democratic pluralism.

So far, the party has done very little in this regard. For those fearful of AKP's more Islamist tendencies, the judiciary and the military, and for that matter, the state's laicist understanding of secularism, exist to protect civil liberties and freedoms (including to do such things as drink alcohol, not wear the headscarf, watch Western films, etc.). Until conservative Turkish governments can assuage fears that liberties and freedoms are not at risk, measures that reduce the power of the military or the judiciary will continue to be strongly resisted and seen by many as part of a hidden, alternative agenda. However much the AKP compares itself to center-right parties in Europe, few in Germany think the Christian Democrats are out to turn Germany into a strictly-conceived "Christian state." While the validity of perceptions that the AKP is out to do so might be open to question, this does not negate the need of the government to address the, and in doing, pursue the deliberation and dialogue necessary to resolve the Madisonian dilemma in the context of Turkish constitutional democracy.


UPDATE I (3/26) -- The Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB), the Turkish Confederation of Employers’ Unions (TİSK), the Confederation of Turkish Real Trade Unions (Hak-İş), the Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions (Türk-İş), the Turkish Tradesmen and Artisans’ Confederation (TESK), Turkish Public Workers’ Labor Union (Kamu-Sen) and the Turkish Union of Agricultural Chambers (TZOB) have released a joint statement in which the unions said they would lend conditional support to the constitutional package, through they stressed a need for a new constitution. TUSIAD also expressed its desire for a new constitution, which some EU officials have said will prove a prerequisite for Turkish accession. TUSIAD stressed the importance of lowring the 10 percent threshold political parties must meet in order to form a parliamentary group -- a measure left out of the reform package, and which some have used as evidence that the AKP is concerned only with strengthening its own position. The fragmentation of opposition parties, many of which have not and are unlikely not to reach this threshold, has benefitted the AKP, especially in the 2002 elections that saw the party into power. The package will be presented to the parliament on Monday.

A Looming Judicial Coup?

The Supreme Court of Appeals has requested information and documents from the Higher Education Council (YOK) regarding its amendment of coefficents used to calculate the college entrance exam scores of students graduating from imam-hatip and vocational schools. Though the Court's Chief Prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, has played down rumors of a pending closure case, the document request only heightens the alert. A formal investigation has yet to be launched by the Chief Prosecutor, though plenty of digging is already clearly going on.

For more on the context of the possible closure case (and the Cihaner-Sanal showdown in the judiciary), see Feb. 21 post with updates. Also, for more on last week's crisis following the mass arrests starting last Monday, see Feb. 24 post with updates.


UPDATE I (3/6) -- The YOK has sent documents requested by Yalcinkaya to the Supreme Court of Appeals.

Human Rights Discourses and the European Process

The European Stability Initative has posted a paper by Anne K. Duncker, a doctoral candidate at Phillips-University of Marburg in Germany, on the use of human rights discourses by various Turkish human rights groups competing for funding and media attention in the thick of the European process and the tremendou amount of grant monies that have come with it. The whole paper is well worth the read. Excerpted here is the abstract:

During the past two decades a diverse landscape of Turkish human rights NGOs has developed, representing all sorts of political and religious orientations. The comparison of Kemalist and Islamic NGOs in regard to freedom of religion and homosexuals’ rights illustrates the divergence between the underlying human rights concepts. Referring to these differing concepts, the paper aims at explaining the criticism Turkish civil society actors voice regarding the European process, leading to the fundamental question of whether one set of rights can claim universal validity or whether human rights must be adjusted according to national, cultural, or religious prerequisites.

"The Most Radical Islamist"

Today's Zaman columnist Orhan Kemal Cengiz uses his column to reflect on the hostility of some in the Washington policy scene to perceived Turkish Islamists. From the column:

My friend told us that after our visit he talked to a Turkish gentleman who works and lives in Washington. He said: “You know the Today’s Zaman delegation was here; I talked to them. There was a guy amongst them who had a beard; he was the most radical Islamist I have ever met.” Of course, our friend knew that this gentleman was actually talking about me as I was the only person who had a beard in the group. He said to him: “No, you are mistaken, I know him, and he’s a secular person.” But our friend was not able to convince the gentleman who, finally coming up with an interesting explanation about my secular lifestyle, said, “No, he must just be doing taqiyya [pretending].”

Actually, as a human rights defender I’m quite used to people thinking I’m something that I’m not. They thought I was Christian, Jewish, Armenian, Kurdish, gay and so many other things when they saw me talking about the human rights violations these vulnerable groups were faced with. There were occasions where some people thought I was an Islamist just because I was advocating a woman’s right to wear a headscarf. But this last “wrong” impression about me is the most interesting one I have ever experienced. This Turkish gentleman not only thought that I was an Islamist, but he portrayed me as the “most radical,” “most dangerous one” he had ever met!

Understanding his “misunderstanding” can provide interesting insight into Turkey and how different segments of Turkish society are alienated from each other. I know why he thought I was the most radical Islamist he had ever met. Amongst our group I was the one who talked about Ergenekon, the deep state and the military guardianship the most. It is hard to believe, but this person apparently just categorized me in his mind as soon as I opened my mouth, and after that he probably didn’t listen to anything I said. For him, I was just an enemy of the secular system in Turkey, the Turkish army and so on. Turkey, unfortunately, has come to this dangerous crossroads. If you are a secular person, you should defend the military’s guardianship, and if you are fighting against it you are just an Islamist. The more you criticize the system, the more radical an Islamist you are.

Just try to look at the resistance against the Ergenekon case from this perspective. Some people in Turkey feel they need to defend the military’s position in Turkey no matter how antidemocratic it is, no matter how deep the members of the military are involved in some crimes, no matter what crimes they committed. So-called secular people of Turkey do not want to listen to legitimate arguments challenging the military’s position in Turkey. They see the military as the stick that guarantees the maintenance of the “secular Kemalist regime.” And now the Ergenekon case is the biggest threat to this “system” in their minds. The Ergenekon case makes the unaccountable accountable, it touches the untouchable people and forces the Turkish military not to go beyond lawful boundaries.

The ECHR, the Aczmendis, and Bad Reporting

PHOTO from Hurriyet Daily News

From Hurriyet:

The European Court of Human Rights approved a complaint by a Turkish religious group regarding clothing regulations during hearings in Turkish courts.

The case was filed by Müslüm Gündüz and 126 other members of the Aczmendi community, which describes itself as an Islamic order, reported broadcaster CNNTürk on Tuesday.

The groups’ special attire consists of wearing black robes and a black turban, while males in the community have long beards.

The court had already ruled in favor of Gündüz in two instances against Turkey, both in 2003 for violations of his freedom of expression, and in 2005, for violations of his right to a fair trial.

The European court has now ruled that Aczmendis can attend court hearings in the outfit of their choice.

Gündüz, who founded the Aczmendi community, graduated from an Elazığ evening school 1985 and is an alleged member of the Islamic Nurcu movement.

Today's Zaman has a different account of the case, reporting that the ECHR "ruled that the 1997 conviction of 127 Turkish citizens for a breach both of the law on the wearing of headgear and of the rules on the wearing of certain garments, specifically religious garments, in public other than for religious ceremonies were found to be a violation of Article 9 of the convention." According to the Today's Zaman article, "the [Aczmendis] met in Ankara for a religious ceremony held at the Kocatepe Mosque. They toured the city streets while wearing the distinctive dress of their group, which comprised a turban, şalvar (baggy trousers), a tunic and a stick. Following various incidents on the same day, they were arrested and placed in police custody."

However, neither Today's Zaman nor Hurriyet Daily News have the entire story. In fact, the ECHR ruled that the Aczmendis, in this particular circumstance, could not be convicted (as they had been in 1997) for wearing religious garb in "public." Also, contrary to the Hurriyet Daily News, public places are not limited to "hearings," but all public places, including the march the group held. Generally both papers reporting is much better, but perhaps the ECHR is still a difficult subject on which to report since it is a bit different system about which Turkish opinion leaders have learned a lot in only the past few years as its decisions have come to play a greater role.

From the ECHR press release :

It was established that the applicants had not received criminal-law convictions for indiscipline or lack of respect before the State Security Court, but rather for their manner of dressing in public areas that were open to everyone (such as public streets or squares), a manner that was held to be contrary to the legislative provisions.

The applicants’ conviction for having worn the clothing in question fell within the ambit of Article 9 – which protected, among other things, the freedom to manifest one’s religious beliefs – since the applicants were members of a religious group and considered that their religion required them to dress in that manner. Accordingly, the Turkish courts’ decisions had amounted to interference in the applicants’ freedom of conscience and religion, the legal basis for which was not contested (the law on the wearing of headgear and regulations on the wearing of certain garments in public).

It could be accepted, particularly given the importance of the principle of secularism for the democratic system in Turkey, that this interference pursued the legitimate aims of protection of public safety, prevention of disorder and protection of the rights and freedoms of others. However, the sole reasoning given by the Turkish courts had consisted in a reference to the legal provisions and, on appeal, a finding that the disputed conviction was in conformity with the law.

The Court further emphasised that this case concerned punishment [Emphasis Added] for the wearing of particular dress in public areas that were open to all [Emphasis Added], and not, as in other cases that it had had to judge, regulation of the wearing of religious symbols in public establishments, where religious neutrality might take precedence over the right to manifest one’s religion.

In a 2005 ruling, Leyla Sahin v. Turkey, the ECHR ruled Turkey had a legitimate interest in banning the headscarf (türban) in public universities and other state institutions.

On Neighborhood Pressure

Professor Binnaz Toprak, Bahcesehir Universitesi PHOTO from The Balkans Project


In 2008, the Open Society Institute, in cooperation with Bogazici University, published "Being Different in Turkey: Alienation on the Axis of Religion and Conservatism." Professor Binnaz Toprak led the polemical study, which instantly garnered criticism throughout the conservative press. Conducting research in 12 Anatolian towns, Professor Toprak and her colleagues documented concrete incidents of "neighborhood pressure," a concept first discussed by Serif Mardin who coined the term to describe the pressure some people in Anatolia experience because they are different. They might be different because they are Alevi or some other religious minority, speak Kurdish, or because they drink alcohol and/or wear an earring and have long hair. The reaction to the report's arguments no doubt stems from their similarity to the argument some secularists/Kemalists make to justify the headscarf ban in universities -- that is, if women are allowed to wear the headscarf in universities, other women will feel pressure to do the same lest they be judged as less moral, religious, etc. However, despite the similarity, the report delved deeper, examining the toleration of difference in the 12 Anatolian towns it explores.

I allude to the study now because the debate has once again appeared -- this time on a new blog, Changing Turkey in a Changing World -- and because the exchange is just as relevant now as it was in December 2008. Professor Ahmet Kuru, who is currently at Columbia University's School of International Public Affairs (SIPA), posted a criticism of the report, to which Toprak responds by reiterating many of the arguments she made defending it when it was published a little over one year ago. Also worth reading is a recent interview Toprak conducted with John Feffer of Washington's Institute for Policy Studies' (IPS) Balkans Project. In the interview, Toprak discusses growing conservative attitudes and the headscarf issue.

UPDATE I (2/20) -- Efes Managing Director Tugrul Agribas complains of "neighborhood pressure." From Hurriyet:

Speaking to reporters in Şanlıurfa on Wednesday, Ağırbaş said the company aims to expand the beer market in Turkey, but the number of sales points has diminished to around 83,000 from nearly 100,000 four years ago.

“The per capita beer consumption in Turkey is around 12 to 13 liters,” he said. “The European average is 100 liters. What spurs consumption is restaurants, cafes and pubs. But in Turkey, each consumer pays a special consumption tax that is nine times more than the tax paid in Germany, for example.”

Beer sales points have problems in getting licenses or renewing them, Ağırbaş said. “Beer is a key source of revenue for corner stores and kiosks. Rakı, beer and cigarettes together constitute 70 percent of a grocer’s revenue. When you take out rakı and beer, the grocer starts having a hard time,” he said. “Those who wish to open sales points cannot find places to rent. Others face neighborhood pressure. Meanwhile, chain stores are destroying corner stores.”

The Council of State and Coefficient Reform

The 8th Council Chamber of State has again ruled against reform that would make it easier for graduates from imam-hatip schools to enter universities. These schools are theological, but also have curriculum equivalent to that at Turkish public schools.

Following the infamous Feb. 28 process, which is considered by many Turkey's "postmodern coup," measures were put in place to curb the influence of imam-hatip, including the now contested the lower coefficient applied to the scores imam-hatip students receive on the Student Selection Examination (ÖSS). The lower coefficient places these students in the same field as those graduating from vocational schools, significantly reducing their chances of entering public universities.

In July, the Higher Education Council (YÖK) eliminated the lower co-efficients altogether. However, in December, the 8th Chamber of the Council of State reversed the YÖK policy change following an application from the Istanbul Bar Association. YÖK then moved to reduce the difference in the coefficients, the change again affecting both imam-hatip and vocational students. It is this most recent reform that the Council annulled.

Some Turks see the coefficient system as inherently unjust, discriminating against students who receive the same education yet are treated differents in the university admissions process (for example, see news coverage from Today's Zaman and this column from Fatma Sisli Zibak.) Yet, other Turks fear overhauling the coefficient system would result in a flood of religiously-oriented imam-hatip students entering university, and thus the state establishment.

For more on mam-hatip schools, see TESEV's 2004 report, "Imam Hatip Liseleri: Efsaneler ve Gercekler" (Imam Hatip Schools: Myths and Realities). Some of the report is in English, and gives a history of imam-hatip schools, as well as explains their popularity, explores attitudes of their students, and discusses their relationship with public universities.

UPDATE I (2/20) -- A student from Konya has applied to the European Court of Human Rights. The ECHR has affirmed Turkey's headscarf ban, though this is a different issue entirely. Not to politicize th ECHR, but a ruling in favor of the student and against the coefficient system here could help the image of the Court and Europeaniation in the eyes of religious Muslims who used to be more inclined to see Europeanization as a means to protect "their" rights against a "secular" state. As always, more details on the boy's human rights complaint and the legal grounds for bringing it here are appreciated.

Postmodernity and the Arc of Turkish Identity

Ferhat Kentel, Professor at Istanbul Sehir University / PHOTO from the Balkans Project

The Balkans Project recently featured a fascinating interview with Ferhat Kentel, a sociologist at Istanbul Sehir University. Working on the construction of Turkish national identity, Kentel is examining one of the most controversial and heuristic themes in Turkish politics -- in many ways, a theme that defines, and most certainly pervades, every aspect of political discourse, be it Turkey's efforts to come to terms with its minorities (Muslim and non-Muslim), its attempts to reconcile Islam and the Turkish naton-state, its ongoing EU accession process, its confrontration with ultra-nationalist elements like Ergenekon, its international relations, etc. I have provided excerpts in this post, though I most definitely recommend reading though the whole interview.

This new situation is not just about the disappearance of the old Turkish national identity. Someone can feel that he or she is Kurdish, another Turkish, another Moslem, and these all together. All are negotiating identities. Turkishness is a negotiation as well. It becomes a crisis situation for the integration and unity of this society. I am working on this polarization between the early national construction and the new emerging complex identities and trying to find if there is a possibility of a new language, another way of speaking about this society.

I’m not just focusing on identity, but also people’s relationship with everyday life. Everyday life is the humus that lies beneath these identities. These different identities emerge from everyday life.

What does it mean to be a Turk today? The most prominent aspect of this established modern identity is a defensive one. When it emerged at the end of the Ottoman Empire, Turkishness was new. It was promoted in the name of a modernizing subject, in the name of enlightenment. It was connected to the creation of a new modern nation-state, to Ataturk, to Kemalism, to secularism, to the flag. To be Turkish was to be something modern. But today, it is more and more defensive. It refers to an older time. For that reason, it is more and more aggressive against the new voices.

Kentel goes onto discuss the origins of Turkish national identity, and the haven Muslims in the Balkans found here in the face of Christian racism and European nationalism following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. As Kentel notes, these Turks are the most keen to identify themselves as Kemalists, and eager to embrace Turkey as a newfound home, largely left their old identities behind for something new and modern. In the epigram of his epilogue to Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Tony Judt quotes Ernest Renan:

Forgetting, I would even go so far to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation; thus the progress of historical studies is often a danger for national identity . . . The essence of a nation is that all individuals have many things in common, and also that they have forgotten many things.

Turks, like other European nations, have forgotten many things. At the same time, what awaited those immigrants was a refuge from the discrimination, suffering, and war they had known in the past; in Turkey, they found a new home. Kentel's analysis of ultranationalists is different: not having immigrated from the Balkans, they were often left outside of the Kemalist project. According to Kentel, ultranationalists generally look to the Caucasus and Asia for their roots, often pointing to Central Anatolia as the origin of Turkish identity. Yet, I have met plenty of people who share both perspectives, often the products of mixed marriages between Balkan and Anatolian Turks, merely all the more proving Kentel's argument of the negotiation, multiplicity, and inherent complexity underlying Turkish national identity.

Kentel also explores the lack of understanding between Turks and Turkish minority groups, who are all too routinely bifurcated from one another in the literature into the oversimplified categories of "majority" and "minority." One need only to look at Hrant Dink to see how reality is far more complicated. Dink, proud of his Armenian heritage, never rejected his "Turkishness," but rather understood it differenty; sadly, it was this "different" understanding that led to his murder by people who adopted a defensive understanding of what it meant to be Turkish, and in turn, conspired to kill Dink. Similar kinds of negotiation and multiplicity also hold true for Kurds, Alevis, Greeks, Circassians, Laz, Roma, all of these groups and the diverse individuals in them approaching what it means to be Turkish differently. Many of the identities overlap, and few break down into the nice, neat categories in which they are often placed. Yet, for those Turks who did leave so much of their history behind, the issue of settling these multiple identities and the insistence that they be recognized is difficult. Kentel explains:

These Balkan-origin Turks are also the most reticent on the Kurdish issue. It seems to be a psychological dimension: These Turks left behind their traditional sense of belonging, so they cannot accept another people claiming their original identity. “We gave up ours,” they say, “why can’t you give up yours?” I hear this even from the Uyghur-origin people who came to Turkey during the last decades. “We were oppressed by the Chinese state,” they say. “We came to Turkey and this state protected us. We cannot betray this state. How can you Kurds do what you are doing?” Of course, the Kurds were not migrants to this country. Nor were the Armenians. They are autochthonous peoples of the Anatolian territories.

Holding the traditional/pre-modern construction of Turkish national identity in opposition to the modern, Atatürkist understanding, Kentel highlights the conflicts and convergences between the two. Though Kentel does dwell too much on Ottomanism in his analysis, I think it too is probably worth examining in the mix, conflicting and converging with the other two in all sorts of ways relevant to political identity. And when religion is added into the mix, identity becomes all the more complicated, pushing and pulling with all of these other elements in what I have described elsewhere in this blog as a kaleidoscopic fashion, shifting and turning to suit the situation at hand or whatever the mood of the moment may be. Identity not being something intractable and constant, but rather adaptable and changing, Turks may well be all the richer for the multi-dimensional complexity of their specific identity(ies) despite the difficulties in its negotiation.

And, yet, though Turks have long negotiated these identities, and too often with a good bit of phobic defensiveness, the increased travel and business between countries (which Kentel assesses as weakening the defensive posture of Turkish nationalism -- see my post, "Article 301: An Imperialist Discourse," on the Sevres syndrome), the rise of political Islam, and European discourses about a postnational, multicultural Europe have all drastically pushed that negotiation into a new realm. I perhaps too optimistically evaluate the role of Europe, but the former two have certainly had a tremendous impact on just what observers of Turkish politics are seeing. Yet, as Kentel describes, this "opening" is not unqualified.

There are two contradictory tendencies, each one feeding and reinforcing the other. As we open up, the fear inside becomes more intense. Imagine all the people living under this ideology that says that we are alone, that we are superior, but that everyone fears us. What do you with the burden of this ideology? The opening of frontiers – in the world at large and in our minds – radicalizes the Turkish defensive identity. We are now living in the middle of this clash.

What I mean by a new Turkish identity is not just a global, liberal, or cosmopolitan identity. It is more complex. Part of this new identity is the overcoming of the ruptures of Kemalism. Kemalism required a rupture with the Ottoman era that defined it as an ancien regime. It involved a rupture around borders. It created a Turkishness on this territory with Arabs, Kurds, and others, but this required a rupture with the Arabs of Arabia, the Kurds of other countries and so on. Today it is not necessary for a nation-state to isolate itself this way. Our task is to reconstruct the bridges with all those populations and histories with which we have ruptured.

This new identity is looking for new words, new definitions.

As Barrington Moore described the transition to democracy as wrought with discord and violence, so perhaps is the journey to new, more open, more complex cultural identities. Much has been made of the rise of ultranatonalism in Turkey in recent years, the street protests and ethnic clashes that have erupted on the streets of Turkey's cities with an unwielding, defensive sort of hatred (see Ece Temelkuran n the Guardian, 2007); yet, is this perhaps a sign that things are getting better, that Turkey is moving forward in some sort of cultural transition of which we have yet to see the arc?

Provocatively, Kentel lays out a possible journey, eschewing cosmpolitianism, liberalism, and racist traditionalism for something far more intriguing -- and perhaps, liberating.

So we can make a three-fold distinction. The first is cosmopolitanism or the loss of specific Turkishness. The second is the concentration, redefinition, and reshaping of Turkishness in a more racist way. And the third is an open-ended alternative: we don’t know where we are going but there is another way. This third situation, the creation of new meanings, is the revolutionary tendency.

This new identity, if we summarize, is made also by linking to the past. It doesn’t involve returning to the past but, rather, struggling against the ruptures of history, against the categorizations of old/new, rational/irrational and so on, and against all the modernist constructions created by these categories.

Examining the construction of Turkish identity as affected by a series of historical ruptures, Kentel goes onto explore how Islam is bringing to light the ruptures of Kemalism.

Right now society is caught midway between Islam and modernity. Or, rather, there is no distinction between Islam and modernity as it was defined by modernist approaches. When you listen to some Islamic actors who focus on the authenticity of the Islamic message, they say that the majority of Muslims are lost now, that they have become almost like Protestants, that they only think about symbols of wealth, that they have lost the original message of the religion. But other, modernist voices inside the Islamic universe say that, no, the religion is not frozen in the 7th century, that Moslems as individuals must adapt to the new situation. This is a more liberal, maybe “Protestant” Islam, more individualized. They don’t forget that they are Moslem. They are still good believers. “I am essentially a businessman,” this kind of believer will say. “But five times a day I pray and then it is finished. My practice of Moslemhood doesn’t take more than one hour a day.” There is no difference with people who do gymnastics for one hour a day or do Indian meditation. This person’s identity is that of a businessman first.

So, they are not just Moslems, but they have a class position too. The Moslem businessmen’s union and the labor union of Moslem workers do not necessarily share the same communitarian Moslemhood. They are in conflict. The bourgeois Moslems say, “We are all Moslems, so accept your salary.” But the workers say, “No, we are not all Moslem brothers. You are rich and we are poor!”

There was a declaration recently launched by three Moslem women. “We are not free yet,” they said, referring to the liberalization of headscarves for a couple months before the constitutional court forbad them again. During this period, they said, “We will not be free until the Armenians, the Kurds, the Alevis are free too. We will not be free until the rights of shipyard workers are recognized.” They are very Moslem. They wear headscarves. They dream of living in an Islamic society in which Islam is recognized totally. But in their minds there are other possibilities for how to live with others. If someone doesn’t want to wear a headscarf, she is free to do so. This is something new. This is not the traditional Islam or the Islam of Kemalism. This third version has links with the new Turkish identity, which in turn has links to the past. They are important actors for this new Turkishness. Their Turkishness is not defensive. It is not racial. They are Turkish because they live in Turkey.

Turkey can be perceived as a model or a laboratory for the whole world.

Just what that model will be or laboratory yield remains to be seen, but it truly is incredible, not to mention intellectually humbling, to be the midst of it.

The Politics of Engagement

Dr. Berna Turam discusses "Muslim Politics, Secular Predicaments, and State Transformation" at the 15th Annual Campagna-Kerven Lecture on Modern Turkey at Boston University on Nov. 4. Turam is the author of Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement. The talk is a nice summation of the book with a good number of additional insights given recent events. Thanks to Jenny White at Kamil Pasha.

Victory for Graduates of Imam-Hatip Schools

From Jenny White at Kamil Pasha:

Graduates of theological high schools and other vocational schools will now be able to enter college on the same basis as graduates of academic high schools. On Tuesday, the Higher Education Board’s (YÖK) General Council abolished the system of using a lower coefficient to calculate the university admission examination (Student Selection Examination [ÖSS]) scores of graduates of vocational high schools. Entrance to a college and field of study is decided exclusively by the student’s score in a single nation-wide exam, leading to an entire separate industry of private cram schools that remains unaffected by this ruling. In the old YÖK system, graduates of vocational high schools had points deducted from their admission scores when they applied to a university department unrelated to their curriculum. This system made it more difficult, for instance, for an imam-hatip high school graduate to gain entrance to medical school than a student from a normal high school with the same ÖSS score.

Professor White goes on to explain the formation of imam-hatip schools and the lower co-efficients, as well as to note that the reform will have little impact on türban-wearing women whom are restricted from entering public universities. For coverage from Today's Zaman, which has a pro-headscarf perspective, click here.

CHP Lends Support to Qu'ran Courses

From Hürriyet:

Republican People’s Party, or CHP, leader Deniz Baykal supported his party’s Kocaeli mayoral candidate, Sefa Sirmen’s, pledge to "build Koran schools in every district," yesterday before a top-level party meeting.

"The Kocaeli municipality developed the project to meet the people’s demand, just like opening up a computer or a foreign language course," Baykal said, less than two months prior to local elections in March.

With coordination with the Religious Affairs Directorate, in accordance with the laws, the Constitution and basic principles of the state, the Koran can be taught to children who are of an appropriate age.

"There are courses that evade the directorate’s control. Sometimes we see Koran courses that merely make children memorize the Koran. We need to pass beyond this," Baykal said.

Sirmen is a well-known personality in Kocaeli, and his Qu'ran declaration is targeted to get out voters in İzmit and elsewhere, many of whom are newly arrived immigrants from the east of Turkey, deeply religious, and quite committed to Turkish-Sunni traditionalism. Baykal's position on Sirmen's remarks takes earlier commitments to expand the role of religion in the public sphere even further. For the story from TDZ, click here. For more on the changing dynamics of CHP in response to upcoming elections, see Jan. 11 post.

Pamuk on Multiculturalism, Secularism, Islam, and the EU

Orhan Pamuk at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which celebrated Turkish literature, earlier this year. PHOTO from the Spiegel

Orhan Pamuk recently gave an interview to the Yomiuru Shimbun, in which he discusses multiculturalism in the context of Ottoman Empire, fundamentalist secularism and Islam, and the recently deceased Huntington's much hyped "clash of civilizations" thesis. An excerpt from the interview:

In a Harvard classroom, Samuel Huntington's thought [of a "clash of civilizations"] is an interesting idea. There is some truth in it. But as it is represented by the international media, it has become an idea that only paves the way to more fights and more killings. The West kills more Muslims they are afraid of or embarrassed by and say, "It's a clash of civilizations." It is not a clash of civilizations. It is just killing people.

People with different origins, ethnic backgrounds, opinions, races, religions, even with a history of fighting each other, should and can live together. This is an ideal I believe in. You may say, "Oh, naive Orhan, they can only kill each other." But I don't want to believe that humanity is that bad.

I don't think Palestinians and Israelis can live happily in the same street and kiss each other for at least another 50 years. But Kurds and Turks have been living [alongside each other]. If the Turkish government is wise, they can continue to live [side by side] for quite a long time. So what I believe sometimes may contradict what happened in history. Cynics do not have ideals. I have ideals. I believe that this is possible and that's why I want Turkey to join the European Union, which has higher standards of respect for different cultures and multiculturalism.

You may say, "You are naive--look at your book 'Snow.'" I have a character who lives through all these dilemmas. He naively believes, like me, in all these things and falls into politically bad situations. But I don't want a cynic's life.

The Ottoman Empire realized coexistence to some extent.

You can only run an empire with a sort of tolerance. Do not think that they were multicultural, like EU or American tolerance. They were totally different. It was inevitable. If you are running an empire, you have to be tolerant to minorities. What I respect most in the Ottoman Empire was that they did not impose Islam too much. They imposed Islam, but compared with [the extent that] the West [imposes its values], relatively less. An empire is always multiethnic.

There has been a long history of confrontation between Western and Eastern cultures. Istanbul has been a powerful symbol of that confrontation and coexistence.

Some people only point out the confrontations of cultures in their lives, give their energy to focus on confrontations. I always point out how harmoniously they come together. Some people go out and only see head-scarved girls and mini-skirted girls and the conflict. Some people go out and see how they do not notice each other and live in peace in the streets of Istanbul. It depends on what you want to see. But, yes, this is a country where all the contradictions are abundantly available and visible. Is that a bad thing or a good thing? Politicians, groups who want to get people's attention through cultural difference, through secularism and conservatism, dramatize these things.

Turkey is more politically troubled than socially troubled. If there is a social problem, that is poverty--class distinction between the rich and the poor. But politically, the representatives of the secularists, who are heavily embedded in the state apparatus, secularists and the army, are clashing with the popular Islamic voters. And this clash is really harming the country. Both sides are responsible for it. And most of the time lower classes and women suffer from it. Islamic boys can go to universities, but women cannot if they wear head scarves. Islamist politicians go into the parliament and enjoy life, but women cannot if they wear head scarves. The suffering of lower classes is not represented in the media. Turkey's first problem is that there is so much class difference between a very rich, leading bourgeoisie, making 50 percent of the national income, and the immense poverty. This real conflict is expressed through secularism, Islam and the army, and this kind of politics.

Turkey is a multicultural country, not politically but ethnically and religiously. But I do not only see these problems as East clashes with West. Only after September 11th was "clash of civilizations" set as a sort of a standard model for the world.

While more then 99 percent of the population is Muslim, the state is secular. Some say this secularism has reached its limit. Don't you think this secularism is unnatural?

You are defending the argument of fundamental Islamists or fundamentalist secularists. There are fundamentalist secularists who think Islam is the problem, but I do not think so. There are also Islamic fundamentalists. Your opinion is valid and very popular in Turkey. But I disagree. Yes, Islam is a religion which does not stay in the private sphere. It is not only about personal beliefs, but also about how to run a country, about laws and governments. And the rules are in the traditions of Islam and Koran. But this is the argument of ultraradical secularists, which can only base its power on the force of the army. Many people like me think that most of the Turkish people believe at the same time both in a blend of secularism and a blend of Islam.

I believe in secularism. I believe that public life should not be ruled by the laws of the religion. But Islamic tradition is not like that. Up to now, public life in Turkey has not been ruled by the rules of traditions of Islam, but the rules of secularism. I am a secularist, but a liberal secularist. There should be a harmony between the people's wishes and secularization energy. Turkey's secularists should be also liberal. We have secularists who base their power only on the army. That damages Turkey's democracy. Once in 10 years we have a military coup. In the last 10 years we have not had one, thank God. But every day, the army says don't do this, don't do that. I don't like that. But it doesn't mean you are an Islamic fundamentalist. I am also troubled by the raise of political Islam. So I am squeezed by two sides, but I don't have to take a side.

Secularism is now combined with nationalism in Turkey. This combination has depressed ethnic minorities including Kurds, Armenians and Christians.

There is an obvious rise of nationalism in Turkey. There are many reasons for that. One is the anxiety of those ruling classes who think that if Turkey joined the EU, their interests will be damaged. Another is that, unfortunately, some part of the Turkish Army is upset about negotiations with the EU. Turkey's improvement in democracy is developing in parallel with Turkey's relationship with the EU. Some measures were taken by the previous and present governments, which I am happy about. More freedom of speech, more respect for minorities, more multiculturalism--unfortunately half of them are done just to enter the EU.

Pamuk also discusses the European Union, criticizes those European conservatives who regard the EU as a "Christian club," and talks of the importance of Turkey preserving its traditional culture alongside a more liberal and less militaristic state.

For a look at Pamuk's take on literature, see his recent contribution, "My Turkish Library," in the New York Review of Books.

Honing in on CHP

At Turkey's founding as an independent state, Atatürk embraced the European ideals of the age in a way that no Ottoman sultan had ever imagined and at his death in 1938, Anatolia looked and felt drastically different than it had at Turkey's founding in 1923. Indeed, Atatürk not only embraced European values, but emulated them. Modelling the new Turkic republic on the European states of the day, the "Immortal Leader" adopted European legal codes and replaced Ottoman institutions to resemble those of Europe. Central to this nation-building project was Atatürk's wholesale adoption of the same European-style nationalisms that were reshaping Europe. As David Fromkin sadly narrates in A Peace to End All Peace, Turkey was not alone in this endeavor, but was undoubtedly the most successful. Unlike other nation-states carved out of the former Ottoman Empire, the Turkish nation-state was not designed by Europeans, but by Atatürk. Building atop the nationalist ideology of the Young Turks who preceded him, Atatürk carved Turkey out along the same nationalist lines that had come to shape those communities in the Americas and Europe to which Benedict Anderson has referred as "imagined." As one of the first nationalist movements organized against imperialist power, Atatürk brought together the peoples of Anatolia as Turks, romanized the Turkish language, worked to establish nationalist narratives of a shared tribal past, and sought diligently to "Turkify" the Ottoman institutions that had previously governed the Anatolian heartland. An ardent admirer of the French Revolution, Atatürk assembled Turkish nationalism along French lines, an educated, noble project built in the name of modernity, progress, and Enlightenment rationalism. Indeed, many of Turkey's liberals have come to denigrate the Turkish nationalist project as "Jacobin," inferring that just as French revolutionists reached particularly troubling and misguided excesses, so do some similarly self-avowed Turkish nationalists.

The nation-state pervaded what was both a project for state and society and came to define Kemalism, a loose-based ideology prescribing the political order that is still very much descriptive of contemporary relations between the Turkish state and society. Kemalism was defined in 1931 by CHP, the country's only political party in operation at the time. If one was (is?) a Kemalist, one swore adherence to what CHP considered to be the six principles of the state's existence: secularism (bearing close resemblance to French laicism), nationalism (very much influenced by European conceptions of flag and country), republicanism (in the sense that the Jacobins rejected French monarchy only to install institutions that would hardly be considered democratic by contemporary definitions), populism (very much resonant in European discourse following the First World War as it placed the interests of the nation over those of class politics, feared in Europe as Bolshevik), revolutionism (Orwellian insomuch as this meant specific support of the Kemalist status quo), and statism (recognizing the dominance of the state in the economic realm along similar lines and thought of in relation to European étatisme). The endurance of Kemalism is evidenced by CHP's continued symbolic use of the six arrows (alti ok)in its party emblem. These principles were incorporated into the Turkish constitution in 1937 and continue to be the foundation of Turkish governance. (Previously posted on Sept. 16.)

Although CHP ventured leftward during the 1960s and 1970s, placing a great amount of its emphasis on social and economic issues in opposition to the center-right, the party remained for the most part true to its laicist approach to Islam, its statist reproach for federalism, and its nationality-based understanding of Turkish citizenship. While its commitment to laicism prevented it from making inroads with religious Turks, its statism/nationalism compromised the party's ability to deal effectively with ethnic minorities. Here, I think it is useful to note that the CHP, especially during the 1970s, was championed by the country's Alevi religious minority, whose support for secularism and democratic socialism fit well with the CHP agenda. Revealing here is that Alevi identity is largely religious, and not ethnically based, and that Alevis saw their rights against a Sunni religious majority as guaranteed by CHP's commitment to secularism. (I have written some about this right-left conflict in my historical tracing of MHP and the extreme Turkish "right.") Whereas nationalist groups on the right have traditionally been both ethnically and religiously chauvinist, CHP's nationalism is more narrowly tailored, keeping religion well removed from state affairs while protecting what many in the party see as the integrity of the Turkish nation. After the 1980 coup, and largely as a function of leftist politics being marginalized in the public sphere, CHP focused less on social democracy, and more on issues pertaining to secularism, state security, and Turkish nationality. Even as Turkey opened up in the 1990s, this remained a large part of the party's focus, and in recent years, under the leadership of Deniz Baykal, so much so and to the exclusion of any legitimate leftist agenda that the party was threatened with expulsion from the Socialist International. Turkish citizens have also decried the party's abandonment of any meaningfully leftist politics -- for example, see Genç Siviller. (I have explored these issues before in previous posts, see especially my Feb. 12 post of last year.)

CHP leader Deniz Baykal places a CHP pin on a woman's chador this past November. Baykal proclaimed that no Turkish citizen should be discriminated against based on their attire, a reversal of his party's staunch political and legal opposition to constitutional amendments made just last January to allow covered women to enter university under certain conditions.

Although CHP affirmed these dogmas in its party convention this past April and amidst the AKP closure case, it seems the party has turned an about face ahead of upcoming local elections. For example, in a most controversial and stunningly surprising move, the party has endorsed opening CHP membership to female candidates and party members who wear chadors. In Baykal's words: "It is not right to discriminate against people because of what they wear. It is not right to make deductions about them based on their attire." The move is particularly bizarre given that the chador is in many ways more controversial than the headscarf, although the debate about Islamic garb and politics is quite complicated. (See Mustafa Şentop's discussion of the chador initiative.) However, polls revealed the political acumen behind such a move, which is surely designed to capture religious conservatives and perhaps even some liberals who have long been disenchanted with Baykal's CHP. Some liberals praised the move as progressive, and the opening was hailed by Joost Lagendijk, co-chairman of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, as a welcome step forward.

Perhaps most surprising is that CHP's turnabout also includes criticism of the early republican period, previous criticism of which has landed journalists, politicians, and intellectuals like Atilla Yayla in jail. On December 3, Baykal declared, "“People with traditional clothes were not allowed to enter Atatürk Avenue [in Ankara] then. They were ordered to change their clothes and wear modern ones to be able to enter the avenue. We are a political party. Will we classify people in accordance with their attire? Is this possible? This is Turkey. People may wear whatever they want and go wherever they want.” Such comments were spiritedly reported in the liberal press:

"Little time left before second republicanism," the Taraf daily announced on its front page yesterday, implying that the secularist politician may set Kemalism aside and turn to a new understanding of republicanism.

Star's [Mehmet] Altan shared the same belief, saying that Baykal's new move stands as a litmus test for his commitment to becoming a new type of republican or, in other words, a next-generation liberal.

"When the CHP received a harsh defeat at the hands of the AK Party in the July 22, 2007 elections, party officials pointed to Baykal as the reason for the failure and accused him of turning his back on second republicanism. Second republicanism means to make the republic more democratic and save it from Kemalism. The CHP leader is going through self-criticism and heading toward second republicanism," he noted.

However, there are also many skeptics, such as TDZ columnist Fatma Disli and Marmara University Professor Levent Köker. Just what CHP tends to do in terms of securing actual policy in line with its newly expressed sentiments is unclear, but it is unlikely that Baykal will be able to counter much of this skepticism given CHP's past history without taking serious steps to renounce the party's past policy decisions, including its vehement opposition to the headscarf amendments last spring. As Saban Kardas at EDM reports, the move has also caused fighting within CHP: [

T]he “chador initiative” has provoked enmity within the CHP. Baykal’s call for a critical reflection on the party’s past angered more radical voices. Necla Arat, a parliamentary deputy from Istanbul and one of the fervent advocates of the headscarf ban, disparaged Baykal. She said that “criticizing practices during the era of Ataturk and Ismet Inonu [the second president of Turkey] because of ‘one-party-rule’ is unfortunate. My friends and I have started wondering whether the party is betraying its heritage [reddi miras].” Scores of other CHP deputies reportedly share Arat’s opinion (Hurriyet, December 4).

A rather surprising attack on Baykal came from the leader of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), Devlet Bahceli, who said that this issue was, in fact, a non-issue and did not correspond to the real problems of the people. He said, “As part of the Greater Middle East Project, there is an attempt to shape Turkish politics through moderate Islam… The Right pillar of moderate Islam is the AKP…Is there an attempt to erect a Left pillar of moderate Islam through this opening?” (Anadolu Ajansi, December 9).

Baykal issued a written response to Bahceli, in which he drew a distinction between a legitimate right to certain religious freedoms and moderate Islam as a political project. Baykal attacked Bahceli by saying, “only those who either abuse religion or come from a tradition of setting political traps [referring to the MHP’s controversial role in urging the AKP to pass the constitutional amendments on headscarves] will dislike this [the CHP’s defense of religious freedom]” (ANKA, December 10).

Baykal indeed took a bold step by opening one-party rule to debate and indicating that the CHP would defend religious freedom, but there are grounds for being skeptical about the prospects of the “chador initiative.” As political scientist Bekir Berat Ozipek says, having ruled the country single-handedly during the one-party-era (1923-1950), the CHP has not been able to adapt itself to competitive electoral politics since Turkey moved to multi-party rule in the 1950s (Today’s Zaman, December 8). Indeed, the CHP’s critical distance from the masses and their lifestyles and its modernization project of transforming Turkish society have shaped the identity of the party’s core grassroots. Therefore, even if Baykal’s intentions were sincere, many analysts like Ozipek are skeptical about the CHP’s ability to transform itself from a statist party to a liberal party embracing human rights and religious freedom.

Whether sincere or not, if Baykal's recent gamble fails in March elections, it will certainly damage his leadership of the party, leaving him vulnerable to be challenged by Haluk Koç. Key races to watch out for are the Ankara and Kocaeli mayoral races, in which CHP has nominated candidates Murat Karayalçın and Sefa Sirmen.

In other news with CHP, the party's continued vow to oppose any attempt by AKP to renew efforts to overhaul Turkey's military constitution has met with opposition from DSP (the Democratic Left Party). While DSP has not allowed women wearing the chador to enter their party, it has announced that it will not support CHP's opposition to constitutional reform, which might well allow for the substantive policy changes to which both DSP and CHP have before been opposed. It was only with the votes of DSP that CHP was allowed to challenge the headscarf amendments at the Constitutional Court. Although DSP's party has been significantly weakened over the years, the party to which Bülent Ecevit jumped has publicly declared its contention with CHP.

In relation to the Kurdish question, CHP has also revamped its policy. According to TDZ,

The Diyarbakır branch of the CHP submitted a report to the CHP headquarters and is supported by all of the 21 provincial party branches from predominantly Kurdish areas. In the report, the Diyarbakır branch suggested that the party's program first name the question the "Kurdish question" and not hesitate to use the term "Kurd." The report's other suggestions include: "The Kurdish identity should be recognized. Instead of being Turkish, being a citizen of the Turkish Republic should be emphasized. Kurdish language courses should be elective courses in primary and secondary education. Universities should open Kurdish language and literature departments. Formulas should be developed for the integration of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party [PKK] members."

. . . .

The CHP in its report on the Kurdish question in 1989 suggested cultural rights -- including education in one's mother tongue -- but was unable to implement its own recommendations.

The recent report issued by the Diyarbakır branch of the CHP also refers to the 1989 report and underlines that this report should be revised.

Kurdish citizens have a tendency to perceive the CHP as a "Turkish nationalist" party. The CHP's votes since the mid 1990s started to decline in Kurdish-populated areas. In the 2002 general elections, they were next to nothing. Baykal, during his visit to Diyarbakır this summer, faced protesters.

Sezgin Tanrıkulu, the former chairman of the Diyarbakır Bar Association, said the CHP's new initiative concerning the Kurdish question is not the talk of the town at all. He noted that the CHP has long had no influence in the region and has therefore not been able to revise its own 1989 report.

"The CHP does not represent anything in the region. This report or any initiative can only be meaningful if the party is able to establish a relationship with Kurds based on trust. For now, the CHP says one thing in Diyarbakır and the exact opposite elsewhere," Tanrıkulu underlined.

As with the chador initiative, it is completely unclear as to exactly what CHP is up to, and for good reason. Reconsidering notions of "Turkishness" seems laughable given CHP's opposition to Article 301, and its obdurate defenses of laws restricting freedom of expression. However, as I mentioned on Wednesday, it is of note that CHP is even campaigning for votes in the southeast given the unlikelihood of the party acheiving even the smallest modicum of success.

Bizarrely, Baykal recently predicted the AKP to receive over 50 percent of the vote. However, a recent MetroPoll has AKP behind, and the election seems all the more unpredictable because parties are reaching out beyond their traditional bases of support. In the end, will CHP be successful in its effort to expand its reach? If it should fail, will it again reverse itself and become even more nationalist? What will become of Baykal, whose authoritarian leadership over the party has long been questioned? If the party were to make inroads, could it sustain itself, or would its lack of a clear agenda result in fragmentation? What would any of these results mean for the future of Turkey's center-left?