Society
Message to the military
Published 26 July 2007
The election results in Turkey are good news for that country, for Europe, even Nato, and particularly for devout, liberal Muslims everywhere, reports Ziauddin Sardar
Congratulations to my friends Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Gül for their stunning victory. On 22 July, their Justice and Development Party (AKP), the party with "Islamic roots", won 47 per cent of the vote in one of the most important elections in Turkey's history. It is the first time in 52 years that a ruling party has increased its share of the vote in an election. It's good news not just for Turkey, but also Europe, even Nato, and particularly for devout, liberal Muslims everywhere.
It was a bitterly fought election, with Prime Minister Erdogan's opponents warning that a win for the AKP would undermine secularism in Turkey. For the opposition, the legacy of Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, was at stake. But in an exceptionally high turnout, Turkish voters, many of whom took a break from their holidays to return home to cast their ballots, refused to be duped by the rhetoric of the secularist Kemalists.
The major secular group, the Republican People's Party (CHP), secured only 20 per cent of the vote, despite forming an alliance with smaller Kemalist parties. The centre-right Democratic Party (DP) has been wiped out. It received 5 per cent of the vote and so has no seats in parliament, as the Turkish constitution sets a threshold of 10 per cent to gain representation.
Among the winners is the neo-fascist Nationalist Action Party (MHP), which won 70 seats; and independent candidates from the Kurdish region, most of whom are backed by the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which has 24 seats. Given that Kurdish autonomy is a hot issue in Turkey, and the MHP and DTP hate each other, fireworks are guaranteed for the next five years.
To appreciate the significance of the AKP's victory, we need to understand what it means both for the military and for the cult of Kemalism that has dominated Turkey for the past five decades. Erdogan called the elections after his party failed to get its candidate, the foreign minister Gül, elected as president. The military, which sees itself as the guardian of the secular heritage of Atatürk, was less than pleased with Gül's nomination. It views both Erdogan and Gül with suspicion, as "Islamists" out to undermine the secular constitution of the republic. That their wives wear headscarves was indication enough that they presented a clear and present danger to secular civilisation. In a memo posted on its website, the military threatened to intervene if Gül's candidature was not withdrawn. The opposition secularist and nationalist parties organised huge anti-AKP and anti-Islam demonstrations. The CHP took the whole matter to the Constitutional Court. It was a joint, concerted, last-ditch attempt to write Islam out of Turkish politics.
But Turkish voters have other ideas. They see the AKP not as a threat to secularism, but as the most successful ruling party in the history of their country - bar none. The AKP's economic achievements have been truly staggering. Erdogan gave total independence to the central bank, which now runs a tight monetary policy. He initiated a string of structural reforms, privatising many state-held companies such as Türk Telekom and Turkish Petroleum Refineries. The economy has been growing for five years at an annual average rate of 7 per cent. The biggest indicator of change for the ordinary citizen has been the revaluation of the currency in 2005, with one million old lira replaced by a single new lira.
But the AKP's success is not limited to the economic sphere. It has abolished the death penalty and given minorities more freedom, including the right to education in their own language. It introduced a wide-ranging package of human rights reforms, including ending punishment for criticism of the armed forces. Indeed, it even tried to change the law to stop the military from intervening in the democratic process, as it has done on many occasions in recent years.
A major reason why voters have turned away from the secularist parties is their alliance with the military. As Gül told the Turkish newspaper Milliyet, the military's invocation of Atatürk's legacy provided a tremendous boost for the AKP. "The intervention in the presidential election deeply offended the Turkish people," he said. The nationalists, secularists and particularly the military have all resisted AKP reforms, invoking Atatürk on each occasion. The voters increasingly see secularism as an instrument to boost military power. And they understand that the military's suspicion of Erdogan is based not simply on his Islamic background, but more importantly on his determination to remove the armed forces from politics.
It would be a hopeful signal to Muslims everywhere, squeezed between authoritarian militarism and fanatic extremism, if the international community appreciated the radical centre ground the AKP has mobilised. Instead of seeing the AKP through the simplistic prism of Islamism, the world needs to listen and learn about the qualitative shift in policies and programmes it offers. The AKP is the kind of Islamic party that gives Muslim extremists nightmares: confident, cultured, pragmatic, democratic, conscientious, thoughtful and successful at the polls.
Erdogan and Gül have made one thing clear. Islam is much more than a political ideology suitable for fanatics. It is not a threat to democracy or secularism. It can be, and is, an effective instrument for mobilising democratic forces and establishing genuine democracy. Open-minded secularists should pay heed: they have nothing to fear from Islam. Where Turkey leads, I am sure other Muslim countries will follow.
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