Turkey and Armenia: The match is not over yet

It has been a year since Serzh Sarksyan and Abdullah Gül met in Yerevan, starting the process of high-level diplomatic contact between the two countries. The meeting increased expectations that normalization between the two countries was on the way.

It, however, appeared that a speedy process for normalization was not realistic, particularly due to public sensitivities. Time was needed to win public support for a rapprochement. There could be no better ground to do so than soccer.

The soccer match that brought Sarksyan and Gül together last year highlighted the will at the political level for the rapprochement. Besides, it gave a perfect opportunity to draw the attention of the public to the need and the end results of the process of normalization. And this has been achieved to a very large extent.

Moreover, “soccer diplomacy” has laid the deadline: from September 2008, when the two teams played in Armenia, to October 2009, when the second leg of the tournament is due to be played, some concrete steps had to be taken.

Given this deadline drawn by the match schedule of the two countries, the announcement of the protocol last week was a relief indicating that normalization efforts are still on the table. We now have a road map clearing the way for establishing diplomatic contact, recognizing the existing border, opening the border to trade and setting up an expert commission to look into the history.

But a key to normalization at the regional level is missing in the protocol, which is the settlement of the Karabakh issue. The Turkish government declared many times that normalization between the two countries depended on progress on the solution of the Karabakh issue. It is, of course, not directly related to bilateral relations, but the position of the Turkish side is that “normalization can only be sustainable if the conflicting issues are addressed in the region from a systemic point of view.”

This implies a comprehensive perspective on regional conflicts and that it is hard to achieve peace between Turkey and Armenia while the latter occupies a significant portion of the Azeri territory, a friend of Turkey and the Turks.

This shows the interdependent nature of peace and conflict in the region. They both reinforce each other. While sustainable peace requires the establishment of cordial relations at the regional level, conflicts have the potential to spread into the region as a whole due to deep interconnectedness at the state and society levels in the Caucasus. It is hard to maintain “bilateral peace” in a zone of conflict. That was, in fact, the idea behind the Turkish proposal for the Caucasian peace and stability pact.

Therefore, true normalization between Turkey and Armenia requires the normalization of politics and social psychology in Armenia and Azerbaijan, which requires addressing the Karabakh question, a question that has been poisoning the public psyche and the political struggle and legitimizing an uncompromising nationalistic reactionaryism. Apart from this, if Turkey and Armenia wish to normalize their relations they should move fast. An overextended debate spread over months and years on such a sensitive issue may be a victim to nationalistic reactions that are strong both in Turkey and Armenia. While there is a strong political will in both capitals, and while the public is prepared to see some progress take place, we should not wait for the nationalists to increase tension and bury the current initiative. Instead, the government should pick up the pace in burying historical animosities.

07 September 2009

Public opinion on the Kurdish question

To solve the Kurdish question certainly requires a strong political will, which seems to exist, as frequently expressed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Yet a “Kurdish solution” needs to be received positively by the public at large.

A public opinion research poll conducted by the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) in collaboration with Pollmark indicates that people are in support of the new initiative. Forty-three percent of respondents approve the government's new Kurdish opening. Those who oppose it stand at 39 percent. The rest are still undecided, watching the developments. Despite a very strong opposition coming from the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which did everything possible to provoke Turkish nationalism on such a delicate issue, it is encouraging for the government to see that the majority is still behind the initiative.

What is more interesting is that people do not approve of the opposition's negative attitude towards the Kurdish opening. When asked if they approve of the opposition's (CHP and MHP) policies towards the government on the Kurdish initiative, only16 percent expressed support, while a huge majority (62 percent) disapproves. This shows that despite the huge difficulties of selling the idea of a Kurdish solution, the government has done better than the opposition in persuading the people. It has done so because the people, contrary to the calculations of the opposition, want to give a democratic solution a chance.

I think people are more progressive than the pro-status quo forces assume. They are aware that some new approaches need to be developed in order to solve this problem, which has cost them a lot. This is clear from another result of the SETA survey: 71 percent of respondents think that the methods used in the last 25 years to fight the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) proved “unsuccessful.” Based on this observation, they want to see some new methods employed to address the Kurdish question, the root cause of PKK terror.

Yet people wisely think that the terror issue and the Kurdish question are two different things. An overwhelming majority (65 percent) think that even if the PKK is eliminated through military means, the Kurdish question will remain unresolved. Therefore “political means” need to be considered, where people look upon political actors to join in the process.

Among the political actors, the Democratic Society Party (DTP) is rated exceptionally well. Thirty-five percent view the DTP's approach to the government initiative positively. This is an extremely high approval rating given the fact that the DTP's electoral support is around 5 to 6 percent. The more the DTP appears supportive of a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question within a united Turkey, the more likely that the DTP will become a party in Turkey not only of the Kurds. Thus the role the DTP plays in the solution process will contribute to the normalization of the party in the country. Other important data are that 46 percent of Kurds polled and 36 percent of the Turks polled stated that the DTP's views represent the views of the Kurds. This result shows that the DTP's claim to be the sole representative of the Kurdish demands does not have a social and political base.

The SETA research also demonstrates that “Turkish fear” that Kurdish rights may turn into a secessionist movement is widespread. Seventy percent of Turks polled think that Kurds want to establish an independent state. Any solution process should certainly take these concerns seriously. The fear that a solution may lead to a division of the country is likely to lock any attempt to address the question. Yet I think that this concern of Turkish people may also be the master key to opening the lock. If Turkish people are persuaded by the Kurdish political actors and the Kurdish people at large that the Kurds do really want to live together in a united Turkey, then the psychological barriers of Turks will be overcome.

In fact, the will to live together is knitted into the social fabric. One-third of Turks polled and two-thirds of the Kurds polled say that they have a relative from the other side. This result proves how Turks and Kurds are closely connected. Moreover, 70 percent of Turks and 87 percent of Kurds state that they would not be disturbed by mixed marriages among their close relatives. Despite years of conflict and tension at the political level, Kurds and Turks seem not to have given up on each other. I think this social integration despite political division is a rare phenomenon in the world of ethnic conflict.

In sum, there exists not only political will to address the Kurdish question at the moment but also public support for it, and the public will to live together in a democratic and plural country.

31 August 2009

The Kurdish initiative and Turkish opposition

By “Turkish opposition” I mean the main opposition parties of Turkey, namely the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). It has become crystal clear once more that Turkey's No. 1 problem is the lack of a “progressive and democratic opposition.”

All opposition parties place themselves on the “right” of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and oppose any “democratic openings” initiated by the government. As such, they appear reactionary. They even resist the search for a solution to the Kurdish question, a question that had consumed for decades Turkey's national resources as well as caused the loss of thousands of its youth.

It is almost impossible to generate consensus to resolve a “vital issue” like the Kurdish one acting together with such opposition. Their attitude toward the government's Kurdish initiative is incomprehensible. They treat the Kurdish question as if it were a question of the AK Party and they would not like to be part of its solution.

Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the MHP, equates any step to be taken on the Kurdish question with treason. In his recent speeches, the MHP has emerged as a party that threatens stability and social peace. His statement, “If necessary, we will stay on the mountains for 50 years,” is worrisome in the name of peace and stability in the country, and in the region, too.

In a similar vein, Deniz Baykal, the leader of the CHP, criticizes Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for meeting with DTP leader Ahmet Türk, saying, “Meeting with the DTP is the same as a meeting with the [Kurdistan Workers' Party] PKK terrorist organization.” Is this statement appropriate for a political party that is a member of the Socialist International? Are social democrats not in favor of democratization and peace?

Baykal also emphasizes that the “Turkish identity” and the definition of “Turkishness” as mentioned in Article 66 of the Constitution, calling “everyone a Turk,” cannot be altered. Are social democrats not in favor of the equality of citizens, regardless of their ethnic origin?

The CHP is not because it is no longer a social-democratic political movement but a party competing with the ultranationalist MHP by adopting an even more chauvinistic discourse. Baykal refused to meet with the coordinating minister, Beşir Atalay, to share his ideas and proposals addressing the Kurdish question. Instead, the government was criticized for not having spelled out a clear idea, a package of measures.

There is nothing new in Baykal's and the CHP's objection to “progress.” They voted against the revision of Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), fiercely opposed a reform law on non-Muslim foundations, countered a solution to the Cyprus problem in 2002-2004, rejected a new and democratic constitution and tried to block the way of the European Union accession process.

So the CHP and Baykal not only fought in the past for a radical and undemocratic notion of secularism that threatens democracy, they are now trying to block the way for a solution to the Kurdish question, a question that blocks Turkey's full democratization. Theirs is a fear of democracy.

The CHP represents the founding mistakes of the republic -- that Turkey belongs to the “Turks” (leading to the policies of kicking out the non-Turkish populace, including the Armenians, the Greeks, and the Jews and the Turkification of the Kurds), yet the Turks cannot be left on their own to chose who is to rule in a democratic regime (establishing the vanguard of the Kemalist elite in the CHP, the military and the judiciary).

This Kemalist model is no longer sustainable. In fact, the current search for a solution to the Kurdish question is an admission of the failure of the Kemalist/nationalist model (imagining and coercively constructing a homogenous nation) that is still upheld by the CHP and the MHP.

The CHP's socialism has long been dead. If they somehow continue claiming to be socialists, they can only be called a “national socialist” party. To complete this picture Baykal only needs to grow a thin moustache.

17 August 2009

Who should lead the ‘Kurdish solution’?

 “Good things” don't happen on their own; they need “good people” who make them happen. Those “good people” should also know this; the steps taken regarding finding a solution to the Kurdish problem and the initiatives to this end are not being received negatively with society overall; quite to the contrary, they are being absorbed rather well. The most striking example of this is the lifting of capital punishment after Abdullah Öcalan was sentenced to death. Furthermore, an establishment of dialogue between the Kurdish administration of Iraq, formal-level relations with Iraq's ethnically Kurdish president, mutual visits and talks and TRT's Kurdish channel all point to the fact that there is societal support for the steps being taken and reactions will remain limited.

However, it may not be possible to manage an overall perception that a solution package (or Kurdish initiative) will come into being as a result of negotiations with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Therefore, the main basis for an encompassing “pre-solution strategy” should be political and social reforms. Among these reforms, there needs to be an emphasis on equity in constitutional reforms and a clear ban of ethnically motivated discrimination, alongside the “normalization” of Kurdish in the public arena and initiatives to make the language more visible.

However, as contact or negotiation with the PKK has become a prominent issue, receiving priority (or portraying such an image) will cause the period of resolution to become unmanageable in addition to increasing the “political bill” to an amount that cannot be withstood.

The second leg of a solution strategy requires (or should give the appearance) that while conducting the contact, talks/negotiation, laying down of arms and amnesty aspects of the process, the presidency leads the negotiations and not the government. The stance displayed by President Abdullah Gül thus has been conducive to actualizing this mission. With the president's first tour being to the Southeast, his becoming the first president following Turgut Özal to establish close ties with the people and nongovernmental organizations of the region and the dialogue he has created with Iraq's Kurdish President Jalal Talabani have all helped ease his playing an active role in this period of resolution.

The president, through playing an active role, can also fulfill the desire of Kurdish constituents to face a power that represents the government instead of “sensitive and timid” political actors.

As the main actor in the Kurdish initiative, the government may enter a phase of unsustainability when one considers the political risks and costs associated with the procedure along with the limitations on the predictability of developments and lack of opportunity for supervision. One of the ways in which the process can be made sustainable is by putting forth an authority that is above politics or the government. This should not mean that the Kurdish problem should be entrusted to powers above politics. On the contrary, I am speaking of a solution strategy in which the will of the government is in full support and legal and political steps are being taken; however, the “ownership” of the solution project is entrusted to the president.

Let me state right away one of the reasons for this. In a Kurdish solution wherein the government appears to be in the forefront, those who don't want to leave the glory of having enacted a solution in the government's hands may sabotage the efforts even if the solution seems very near and possible. In other words, those in opposition to the AK Party will not allow it to experience the honor and benefits of having solved the Kurdish problem. These include the PKK and the DTP in addition to the known opposition to the party, be they organizations, individuals or groups.

Therefore, in order for the period of solution to be managed in a politically risk- and cost-free manner by the government, and, in the event of negotiations being successful, for the “sharing of glory” of having found a solution not to be transformed into a factor for sabotage, it is more appropriate that the president is “shown” as the “address” for the solution.

27 July 2009, Monday

Opposition party appeals to military, not people

As I keep saying, the No. 1 problem in Turkish politics is the absence of a viable and democratic alternative to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

To have a functioning democracy, one needs to have an alternative political movement that is capable of challenging the ruling party. Otherwise, there emerges a dominant-party system that is not healthy especially in countries like Turkey, where democracy is still in the process of being consolidated.

But the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), does everything it can to distance itself from the democratic majority of the country. The latest example of this is its insistence to take the latest amendments in the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) and the Code on Criminal Procedure (CMK) -- which bar the trial of civilians on any account by military courts and enable the trial of military personnel who are suspect of forming gangs, terrorism, and crimes against the Constitution, which includes military coup attempts, by civilian courts -- to the Constitutional Court.

What is wrong with this new law? It is a move that enhances the civilian and democratic character of Turkey, and as such is applauded by the European Union. But somehow, the CHP is annoyed by this. Can you imagine a social democratic party advocating the trial of civilians by military courts, where, apart from military judges with law degrees, a professional officer sits as a member? They are also courts where the members are hierarchically subordinated within the military.

Moreover, CHP leader Deniz Baykal argues that coup attempts should be tried in military courts. Imagine a military institutionally committed to staging a coup and left to try its own coup-makers!

We had, in fact, a perfect trial of coup makers by a military court in 1958. An army major, Samet Kuşçu, raised the alarm on the group that was planning to stage a military coup. Nine high-ranking officers were arrested and tried by the military court. The verdict was fantastic: the nine were cleared off the charge while the informer, Kuşçu, was dishonorably discharged from the army and sentenced to two years in prison for slander. But in May 1960, when the military staged the coup, the nine officers tried and released were one of the cells of the junta, and the head of the court, Cemal Tural, was also among them!

So Baykal seems to be satisfied with the justice of those who are prepared to commit a constitutional crime. There can be no other leader claiming to be a social democrat that has such faith in possible criminals within the military. I wonder what the members of Socialists International think about their Turkish colleagues and why they continue to maintain the membership of the CHP in this worldwide organization of social “democrats.”

Allying with the military does not pay off in democratic elections. This should have been properly understood by CHP leaders over the last 50 years, during which they have never won an election to form a majority government. People love and trust their military, but whenever they go to the polls they vote for the party that sits furthest from the military. So what the CHP has been doing does not make sense politically.

The CHP has been stuck with 20 percent of the vote as the main opposition party. This has not changed in the 2004 local elections, in the July 2007 general elections and in the March 2009 elections. Unless the CHP parts ways with the authoritarian elements within the military, it cannot legitimately claim to be a democratic actor that can attract people's interest.

13 July 2009, Monday

Can the islamic republic survive?

Participatory politics are hard to control for those at the height of political echelons, even if this is a regime like Iran's, which over the years has developed mechanisms of social and political engineering. Once people are asked to choose, this is it. There is no way to turn back. Participatory politics develop their own dynamics and culture.

Iran has experienced some degree of participatory politics since 1979, and no doubt, its Islamic regime has enjoyed a high level of legitimacy incomparable to many Arab regimes in the region.

But now that the top leadership, as opposition forces in Iran claim, is not respecting the outcome of people's votes, trouble has started for the regime, which cannot generate legitimacy without popular participation.

Yes, the post-revolutionary regime in Iran has enjoyed high legitimacy. But the legitimacy that was enjoyed by the regime in Iran had two pillars: First was the ideological component of the revolution, and second, was the popular base of the revolution.

As for the ideological pillar, the opposition does not seem to be challenging the “founding” principles of Iran's Islamic regime. They do not question Khomeini's theory of Velayat-i Faqih or the ideological elements in the Iranian constitution. However, the opposition argues that an Islamic republic does not mean a dictatorship of the jurists or of the Revolutionary Guards. It is a republic that respects people's choices. This means that the opposition directed at Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who won the disputed presidential election, is one coming from within.

Mir Hossein Moussavi's revolutionary credentials cannot be questioned: He served for years as prime minister when Khomeini was the supreme leader. His point is clear and sharp: an Islamic republic should conduct free, fair and competitive elections, as happened many times in the past. His is therefore not a radical departure, denying past practices and principles. On the contrary, Moussavi and his supporters claim to fight against those who have deviated, by rigging the election, from the true spirit of the revolution.

This is a strong position that protects the opposition leader from charges of being a “counter-revolutionary,” giving him some space for maneuvering. By resisting the outright authoritarian tendencies of the current power elite, the opposition is attempting to keep very important breathing space for the ordinary people: the right to vote and choose (even among those who are selected beforehand by the Guardian Council).

The defense of the right of the masses to participate in electing their country's political leaders can indeed be justified via references to the revolution and its true spirit.

As I mentioned above, the second pillar of the revolution was its popular support. The revolution was essentially the making of the people. The 1979 upheaval was a mass movement. It was the power of the people that overthrew the Shah's regime. Thus the revolutionary leaders knew from the onset that the very legitimacy of the revolution was derived from the people's power. Out of the recognition of the power of the people, post-revolutionary leaders institutionalized popular participation in public decisions making progress that has turned out to be a self-defeating process as the power elite in Tehran now tries to limit it.

Thus the revolutionary leaders allowed participatory politics within an ideological framework, which together constituted the dual bases of legitimacy for the Islamic republic.

Yet what we are witnessing currently is the dynamics of participatory politics, which was brought into the system by the revolution itself, pushing the limits of ideological premises and radical revolutionary actors.

Without a fair participatory mechanism, Iran will turn into an utterly totalitarian regime that can survive only by sheer oppression. But for how long?

22 June 2009, Monday

Islamization of population by the Kemalists?

What happened to the non-Muslims in this country was not the making of fascism, but nationalism and the quest to establish a nation-state assumed to be free of different ethnic and religious identities. Such a project was particularly difficult for a country like Turkey, which had been the home of different ethnic and religious groups under the roof of the Ottoman Empire.

Nonetheless, the history of the late Ottoman Empire in the age of nationalism provided a groundwork for the need to establish a national (Turkish) state as almost all ethnic components of the empire embraced the idea of a nation-state of their own. The non-Muslim groups, particularly the Armenians and Greeks remaining in Anatolia, emerged as “foreign elements” in the empire and then in the republic. This was to some extent a response to the history of the late Ottoman Empire, where foreign powers used the non-Muslims within the empire to expand their power and influence over the empire's territories. In the age of nationalism, each ethnic group was also prone to establish foreign alignments so as to achieve their national aspirations. The history of disintegration, especially in the Balkans and later in the Middle East, built-in Turkey a national psyche that viewed non-Muslims as the extensions of foreign powers.

Besides this, the search for a nation-state was thought to require religious and ethnic homogeneity. During the republican era, while Islam was excluded from the public sphere through radical secularization policies, the state pursued a policy of Islamization of the population. The exchange of population with Greece took religious differences as the point of departure. Those who were subjected to forced immigration were separated on the basis of their religion. The homogenization of the population was certainly a means to establish a nation-state for both Turkey and Greece.

Moreover, the homogenization of the people through the exchange of populations and forced immigration made it possible to close Turkey off from the world since the non-Muslim elements were the most cosmopolitan groups in Turkey. As they were forced to leave the country, Turkey turned ever more inward, enabling the Kemalist elite to pursue an authoritarian modernization project that situated its elite at the center of power independent of the world powers.

The result was that the creation of a nation-state out of an empire was traumatic not only for the non-Muslims but also for the Muslims since the new nation-state regarded all collective identities except the Turkish national identity as a deviation threatening the supreme state identity. The state demanded allegiances of all sorts. Any collective identity independent of the state constructed an alternative source of allegiance, thus threatening the single professed and forced identity of the state.

This was an attitude very similar to the Ottoman Empire in the age of expansion that never allowed the emergence of alternative centers of power and authority that might appear to be competing with the center.

Likewise, in the republican era, different identities, be they ethnic or religious or even ideological in more recent times, were regarded as divisive. An identity that demands allegiance from the citizens of the Republic constituted a threat to the consolidation and sustainability of the Kemalist identity.

So the problem, in essence, is the difficulty of the nation-state to live together with plural identities. It may be possible to deny and even repress ethnic or religious identities in an authoritarian polity, but contemporary liberal democracy requires respect for “difference.” To pursue a policy of assimilation or expulsion of ethnic and religious minorities is no longer possible. Yet this is not enough. Facing the past and confessing mistakes that went contrary not only to the contemporary notion of pluralism but also to the conventional Ottoman practice of tolerance and coexistence is necessary to move forward.


01 June 2009