What happened to the 'Turkish model'?

Ramazan Kilinc

The only guarantee of a consolidated democracy in Turkey is the emergence of a new coalition to balance the increasing power of the government vis-à-vis society. 

Read more »

Corruption, Islamism, and Twitter in Turkey

Ahmet T. Kuru

Erdoğan has consolidated the executive, legislative, and the judicial powers under his authority; yet he has been unable to control another source of power— Twitter.

Read more »

Turkey needs a new constitution to save its democracy

By Fethullah Gulen

A small group in the executive is holding the country to ransom, says Fethullah Gulen

Trust and stability are fundamental to a nation’s development and to how the world perceives it. There is inherent trust in a democratic and accountable government that respects the rule of law. Turkey painstakingly built this trust over the past decade. Until recently it was seen as an example of a country that prospered while maintaining a democratic government run by observant Muslim leaders.

Read more »

What happened to the Turkish model of passive secularism?

Ahmet Kuru

In 2006 I wrote an essay to refute the depiction of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) as anti-secular. The argument was based on the two types of secularism.

Read more »

Middle East's Struggle for Democracy: Going Beyond Headlines

Alp Aslandogan

The ongoing struggle in the Middle East is not between the so-called Islamists and secularists. It's not pro-Morsi vs. pro-military in Egypt, or even Assad vs. opposition in Syria. The real struggle is between those committed to the core values of democracy and human rights and those who want to maintain a status quo of authoritarianism and domination.

---

Western observers often place Middle East actors and their motives into well-intentioned but partially inaccurate or sometimes misleading categories. For example, the three major groups in Iraq are labeled as Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. The first two are religious categories, while the third is ethnic. The majority of Kurds are Sunni, and the majority of Iraqi Shiites are ethnically Arabs. So the right, albeit inconvenient, categories would be Sunni-Kurds, Sunni-Arabs and Shiite-Arabs.

These categories would be trivial details if it weren't for the fact that Middle Eastern realities of these labels do not always overlap with established western understanding. For instance, those in the Middle East who call themselves "secularists" would be perceived in the west as the "good guys" who believe in democracy and separation of church and state.

But Turkey's historic self-proclaimed "secularists" in practice were anything but secular or democratic. As Edhem Eldem, Professor of History at Istanbul's prestigious Bogazici University observed, Turkish "secularism" often "marginalized and oppressed those who openly displayed their beliefs; head-scarf-wearing women were banned from universities, and few protections were given to religious minorities." The government ran every single mosque and prescribed the preachers' sermons. Turkey's self-proclaimed secularists were also aggressive nationalists, who denied millions of Kurdish citizens their cultural rights, including the right to speak their mother tongue. Those who did not embrace the official government ideology were sometimes beaten and jailed.

Counter-intuitive to a western audience, on the other side were participants of the Hizmet social movement, originated by Turkey's most influential preacher and social advocate, Fethullah Gulen, who advocated for democracy, equal opportunity and social justice, and defended religious rights of all faiths in Turkey, including Orthodox Christians and Jews. Gulen's sympathizers started free tutoring centers in Turkey's Southeast, serving tens of thousands of children from low-income families, often of Kurdish descent, helping protect them from recruitment by terrorist organizations operating around Turkey's borders.

In 2008, when the Turkish judiciary prosecuted military officials charged with planning or perpetrating military coups, western media called it a struggle between Islamists and Seculars. In reality, as correctly observed by Dr. John Esposito of Georgetown University, it was a struggle between pro-democracy groups and those military officers who were found guilty of some of the worst crimes against their fellow citizens. Kurdish citizens, many of who saw their loved ones disappear under military-dominated periods, celebrated this development alongside journalists who were intimidated or fired from their jobs during the same periods.

Last month, when Hizmet representatives criticized the government-proposed legislation that calls for banning exam prep schools, Turkish and Western journalists labeled this opposition as a feud between Prime Minister Erdogan and Mr. Gulen because roughly 15-25 percent of these prep schools were founded by Hizmet participants according to variousestimates.

But that is an oversimplification because this underlying struggle is between democracy and free enterprise on the one hand against government overreach and authoritarianism on the other. If enacted, this legislation would make Turkey the only country in the world to ban a whole category of legitimate private enterprise -- and that too, one that provides math, science and language arts training to children of low-income families who cannot afford private tutoring.

It is ironic that the Turkish ruling party (AKP) that fought against government overreach during their first term 2003-2007 has, since then, taken steps that completely contradict its earlier record. From recent discourse on regulating student homes and government's heavy-handed reaction to Gezi Park protests, to restrictions on freedom of the press, Turkey is rekindling its historic struggle between those committed to democracy and those who benefit from authoritarianism and dominance.

Turkey is often cited as an example for struggling Middle East countries such as Egypt and Tunisia; after all, Turkey experienced a similar transition 60 years ago. But as the Turkish experience shows, democracy is a messy process with a steep learning curve. It sometimes can seem like too much to ask of both governments and the governed to have patience to learn the difference between legitimate democratic opposition and rebellion; enforcement and oppression. Nevertheless, abandoning the path to democracy is not an option.

What was termed an Arab spring is actually a beginning of the fall of authoritarian regimes that will hopefully lead to a spring of democracy. But let's be prepared that spring will come only after a harsh winter of authoritarian establishments resisting democratizing reforms. What is clear is that people in the Middle East yearn for their freedoms, and we hope that their struggle leads them toward democracy and away from the yoke of domination. For outside observers, understanding this struggle requires going beyond the convenient labels of the news headlines.

Dr. Aslandogan is the President of the Alliance for Shared Values, a non-profit that represents interfaith dialogue organizations affiliated with Hizmet in the U.S.

Source: Huffington Post

Read more »

Let jailed journalists refer to the Strasbourg court

Abdülhamit Bilici

No one can say that everything is rosy in terms of democracy and freedom of thought in a country that is being ruled by a constitution drafted by coup generals as in Turkey. There are many steps that need to be taken for the progress of democracy, and the proponents of a universally valid democracy are all aware of them.

Old Turkey used to show allergic reactions to criticisms voiced by foreign countries about its democratic performance. And the country would spend time and energy responding to these criticisms instead of investing its efforts in the measures that would eliminate, say, torture. Most naturally, this course of action would never be able to put an end to torture nor would this good-for-nothing heroism sound convincing to the critics.

Read more »

Democracy May be Rejected by Religions, but Not by Believers

Reza Aslan *

The question of whether Islam is compatible with democracy is nonsensical at its core, first because it ignores basic empirical evidence (the five most populous Muslim countries in the world are all democracies) and second because it presumes that Islam is somehow different, unique or special -- that unlike every other religion in the history of the world, Islam alone is unaffected by history, culture or context.

Anyone who would answer “no, Islam is not compatible with democracy” does not even deserve a response; this is merely recycling the same old tired and disproven stereotypes about Islam that are frankly starting to get boring.

Read more »

Ramifications of ‘Sledgehammer'

Yavuz Baydar

It took 21 months.

After a painful, intensely debated judicial process, Turkey's critical coup trial ended with not much surprise -- except to those who are the relatives of the suspects -- when a heavy series of prison sentences were issued by the court in İstanbul.

Read more »

Political greed

Yavuz Baydar

In a manner of distancing itself from the real essence of demands of social transformation, Turkey's dominant politics is redefining itself on a new path, which means more trouble.

It has passed two benchmarks: the referendum on partial changes to the Constitution and the national elections last year. The direction of the vote in the two events gave strength to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and consolidated its power. And it put the leadership of the AKP before a crucial choice: It would either convert the consolidation into collectivization of power, or a personification of it.

Read more »

Wrestling with Free Speech, Religious Freedom, and Democracy in Turkey

K. Adamson

Review of James C. Harrington’s Wrestling with Free Speech, Religious Freedom, and Democracy in Turkey: The Political Trials and Times of Fethullah Gulen. 2011. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 185pp. ISBN 978 0 7618 5461 6.

Read more »

The Rise and Fall of Military Tutelage in Turkey: Fears of Islamism, Kurdism, and Communism

Dr. Ahmet T. Kuru writes in the most recent issue of Insight Turkey (Vol. 14, No.2, 2012, pp. 37-57) about “The Rise and Fall of Military Tutelage in Turkey: Fears of Islamism, Kurdism, and Communism.”

The abstract of the article is as follows:

Read more »

Turkish President shares his vision of the new constitution

During a speech given at the Turkish Grand National Assembly in October of last year, President Abdullah Gül talked about some of the problems the country could face in the near future. Among the most important issues was the need for a new constitution.

The necessity to throw out the almost 30-year-old constitution of 1982, he said stems from the fact that “The constitution currently in force does not meet our needs, attempts to restrict Turkey’s democratic maturity and diversity, and ignores the richness that Turkey represents.”

Not only is a new constitution vital in order to achieve true democracy in Turkey, he said, the way in which language is used in the new constitution is also extremely important.

“Up until now, our constitutions have been skeptical and rigid on the subject of freedoms, but expansive and flexible in language concerning restrictions,” Gül said.

In an article President Gül wrote for the Turkish Review he outlines exactly what changes and benefits the new constitution should bring to the Turkish people and the country.

He starts out by stressing that the new constitution should avoid going into too many details. Instead, he said it should “set out fundamental principles” which will allow for “flexibility and progress.”

The new constitution should also “strengthen and guarantee the concept of equal citizenship in every aspect on the basis of fundamental rights and freedoms for everyone,” he said.

“The road to ensuring this outcome is a freedom-based approach, acting under the precepts of a vision of trust in each and every individual in our nation, regardless of political view, orientation or background,”

Furthermore, keeping the achievements of the country’s last 200 years in mind, he said the new constitution needs to be uncompromising in protecting “the fundamental principles of [the] republic as a democratic, secular, social state respecting the rule of law shared by us all.”

Another element vital to the new constitution, the writer points out is that the “constitution should clearly depend on the general will of the people as in contemporary democracies, instead of implicitly providing for tutelage through other bodies of authority.”

The new constitution should also reflect “important qualities of contemporary democracies such as transparency and accountability,” and a system of checks and balances should also be established.

Most importantly, Mr. President said, “the new constitution should not bear the seal of any particular idea, party, ideology or doctrine.” It should bare only one seal, the seal of the Turkish nation.

Read more »